Post-Modernism Essay

Using summer camp and a band of your choice, explain how some artists can be called post-modern [1500 words]

In this essay I am going to use both Summer Camp and Gorillaz to explain how some musical artists can be considered Post-modern. Postmodernism came about in the 1950s, before dominating literature, art and the intellectual scene in the 1960s. It came about as a rebellion or rejection to modernism, and so relies heavily upon past influences, unlike modernist ideas.

An idea that may make people believe that artists can be postmodernism is the idea of blending genres and destroying sonority. Summer Camp do this in their song ‘Better Off without You’ by combining the old style techno and bass rhythm with an upbeat guitar rhythm. In modernism, this kind of blending would not exist as there are strict boundaries with genre and this does not fit into one particular genre. Similarly, Gorillaz combine genres in order to create their own unique sound. They make use of synthesisers as well as guitars, drums and pianos as we see in their song ‘Clint Eastwood’. As well as rock and techno, Gorillaz use MCs and rappers to make their music more dynamic, fitting into yet another genre. This, then, rejects the idea of keeping within one genre and moving forward within that genre – making them postmodern.

Another idea that may make people believe that artists can be postmodern is the use of hyper-reality. Summer Camp use hyper-reality as with their website they create a page with a narrative about people who never really existed. They have paper articles on things that never happened and they use this to create a hyper-real world and try to re-create the past. Also, in their music video ‘Better Off Without You’ they use a split screen, half showing then use parts from old American films to create a narrative and then the other half is of themselves playing their instruments. However, because they have created such a hyper-real world with their website and other videos such as ‘Round The Moon’ where we do not get to see the band themselves,, when we finally do see them in the video they do not look how you’d expect them to look. So hyper-reality can have a negative effect on your band, but this does still make them post-modern as they are taking something which is not real and making it seem real to the audience. A great example of a band using hyper-reality is the Gorillaz. The Gorillaz each have an animated character of themselves which is massively used throughout their work and is assigned to them as part of their branding. They use it on their CD covers, such as ‘Demon Days’ and even throughout their videos, such as ‘Feel Good Inc.’ and ‘Clint Eastwood’. People from all over the world go to see them live in concert, when in actual fact they won’t see the band playing live, they will see the animated characters mime to the band playing behind large screens which have the animated characters projected onto them. So in actual fact, people are paying to see a band live and are going to watch a television production with live sounds. This shows how hyper-reality can capture an audience and people will pay to go and see characters which they can see and possibly even re-create on their own computers at home. This makes the Gorillaz very postmodern as hyper-reality is a key feature in postmodernism and they have done this perfectly, as they even won the ‘Most Successful Virtual Band’ record from The Guinness Book Of Records.

An idea put forward by Jonathan Kramer is that Postmodern artists avoid totalising forms and genres within their work. Summer Camp are a great example of this as they do not avoid totalising forms in their music, but with their website they avoid totalising forms as much as possible by having different captions all over the page and when you click on that particular caption, you heat a different sample of music and see a different section of a video. These samples of found footage are all different, but share two things: the American culture from the 1980s ‘synth pop’ era and the 1960s ‘girl group’ era. Also, Gorillaz massively avoid totalising forms as their tracks can have very different sounding music. Each album changes slightly and creates a slightly new sound. The creator of Gorillaz and former ‘Blur’ frontman Damon Albarn dabbles in many genres of music such as alternative rock, art rock, alternative hi-hop, electronic, trip hop, Britpop, dub and many more. This then, shows how he avoids totalising forms and using just one sound – he goes to pains to create something different and Gorillaz is a great example of this postmodern feature.

Another idea that Kramer came up with is the idea of considering technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music. I believe that Summer Camp use this to some extent as their website uses samples from the radio, old TV programmes and old adverts. However, they do not particularly emphasise their use of technology as this would contradict the look of the 1980s/1960s eras they aim to be part of. In complete contrast, Gorillaz use extensive amounts of technology in order to create their animated caricatures and their live shows involve huge amounts of money and time in order to sync the mouths of the artists with the live performance. They also spend thousands of pounds on creating other worldly imagery in their music videos such as ‘Feel Good Inc.’, which evidently uses technology in other ways than transmitting and producing music which suggests they are postmodern.

Postmodernism embraces contradictions. Summer Camp, however, do not encompass this idea, but this does not mean that because they do not follow this feature they are not postmodern, as they use many other aspects and features of Postmodernism too. On the other hand, Gorillaz embrace contradictions in their musical creations. Evidence of their contradictory work can be heard in the song ‘Dirty Harry’ as they use a techno base track, which then slowly fades into a violin solo and then harshly drops quite a heavy rock rhythm with the violin layered over the top. This not only crosses the boundaries of genres and blends them together, but also defeats the object of heavy rock by playing the soft violin sound. Gorillaz, then, use contradictions to their advantage, which allows them to pay homage to other genres and artists – and in doing so, makes them postmodern.

In order to be considered postmodern, a key feature you must conform to is to be, on some level or some way, ironic. Summer Camp, in my opinion, are unintentionally ironic as they are trying to recreate the past with their cultural references to the 1980s and the 1960s, and seeking originality, however, by doing this, they are conforming to conventions of the indie genre, which is to look to the past for influence and use many aspects of the 1980s and 1960s, which is not original at all if you are doing similar things to other bands in your genre. An example of another band using the 1980s and 1960s is Vampire Weekend. In contrast, Gorillaz are intentionally ironic. Damon Albarn said “It’s not like my old self – I’m not in character anymore, I’m me. I’m not hiding behind that anymore” after the split of Blur character and never directly performed in front of any audience. He also said “The Gorillaz cartoons seem more real to me than the actual people on TV. Because at least you know that there’s some intelligence behind the cartoons, and there’s a lot of work that’s gone into it, so it can’t all be just a lie.” However, the cartoons aren’t real, which makes what Albarn says ironic as well as hyper-real – making them postmodern.

Finally, Levi-Strauss argued that Postmodernists usually have four aspects to their work: addition, deletion, substitution and transposition. A lot of the time these four areas cross over. For example, Summer Camp use addition as they add the past to their work in order to make themselves more dynamic and interesting, but in doing so, they apply deletion as they lose their modern to the band. They use substitution in their videos by using found footage and replacing themselves with other characters not even related to the band and then they use transposition in their ‘Better Off Without You’ music video by placing a modern and a retro feel scene together. Similarly, Gorillaz use all four aspects of Strauss’ theory. They use addition by using the animated characters and adding another dimension to the band, but in doing so, they use deletion as they are deleting the human life from the band, making them a virtual band (but this could be seen as substitution) and they use transposition in their music by contrasting the likes of techno with classical music such as the violin – making them postmodern.

In conclusion, some bands may be considered postmodern because they defy so many traits of modernism. Although very different, both Summer Camp and Gorillaz use many aspects of postmodernism which various theorists have put forward. The modernist idea that we shouldn’t let the past affect the present is completely rebelled against in both cases of these bands, as Summer Camp use heavy referencing to the past and Gorillaz’s formation was due to the past. I think that bands can be seen as Postmodern as they so evidently reject modernism.


Word Count: 1583