The Poetry of Collective Life; How Post-Hardcore Bands Integrate Confessionalism in their Subcultural Music by Altering their Mode of Address
Date
2023-04-05
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Abstract
In this paper I will analyze how confession manifests in Cursive’s song “Some Red Handed Sleight of Hand”, juxtaposing my analysis with texts on subculture theory, namely Dick Hebdige’s Subculture: The Meaning of Style. Cursive writes in the post-hardcore genre, which is an offshoot of the punk music-based subculture. It explores how subcultural artists simultaneously represent their personal stories and reflect/adhere to subcultural values. Cursive acknowledges and contributes to this trend, as they integrate a religious metaphor alongside their personalized author-speaker, making their exploration of selfhood more widely comprehensible. Intertextually, subcultural confessionals both present experiences that are unique to their authors and embrace vague descriptors that allow their stories to appeal beyond the scope of themselves. Cursive reimagines confessionalism: they enter a context of social norms and mores, and can vaguely present thoughts and feelings that would require explanation were they not expressed within subculture. Subsequently, they can present a semi-confessional that both restricts and displays blatant confession. Confessionalism is a mode of lyrical expression centring first-person writing, making an inseparable author-speaker. In poetry and popular music, confession remains a mode of self-assertion that provides authors a theatre for unabashed, uninterrupted self-display, a trend that is disrupted within subcultural music. Subcultures are social subgroups developed by collective feelings of alienation from mass culture, and the subsequent desire to corrugate in a social microcosm where previously alienated qualities are accepted. In subculture, confession’s goal becomes to separate the author-speaker from mass culture but adhere to a smaller social group’s shared experiences. It simultaneously embraces self-assertion and homogenization.
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Keywords
Hardcore (Music), Subculture, Dick Hebdige
Citation
Siddoway, K. (2023). TThe poetry of collective life; how post-hardcore bands integrate confessionalism in their subcultural music by altering their mode of address [Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis]. University of Calgary.