“Staccato signals of constant information”
Telegraphic analogues in 1960s/1970s popular music
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5429/2079-3871(2026)v16i1.4enKeywords:
Musematic analysis, musicology, 1960s/1970s, popular music, telegraphyAbstract
This essay discusses examples in 1960s-1970s popular music of Philip Tagg’s “telegraphic anaphone” or Morse code museme—rapid, high-pitched, monotonal chatter used in news themes—in terms of media “noise”. Following McLuhan’s insight that a medium’s message is not content but change of scale, pace or pattern, the museme is metonymic for the transformative effects of new technologies, a metacommunicative gesture that registers the impact of a medium as “noise”, the shock of modernity. It also relates to stammering, heralding but also impeding communication, generated by anxiety/urgency. It plays a mediating role in musical structures, occurring in introductions or between sections, and relates to innovative sounds/scenes—Motown, Nashville, 1960s LA, UK glam, and German electronica, connotations changing according to historical and cultural locations. An analogical emulation of electronic sounds, the museme became redundant with the rise of electronic music, although the “stutter” continues into hip-hop via scratching and sampling.References
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