Jacques Greene’s Aging Temporalities

Abstract

By way of a close reading of Quebec electronic dance music producer and DJ, Jacques Greene (né Philippe Aubin-Dionne), this article offers ways to think through and with aging studies, popular music studies and the notion of the career—which remains largely missing in studies of music scenes. Particular attention is devoted to Greene’s musical releases (two LPs, many EPs, singles and remixes), as well as his performance practice as a DJ and solo artist. To cut against dominant understandings of a career as a linear trajectory, developed in iterative stages of progress and decline, I consider the varied temporalities Greene experiences simultaneously and how his position in dance music scenes changes in relation to the contingencies of time. I argue that this temporal mode of analysis provides a generative theoretical tool kit for connecting studies of popular music with studies of aging.