NY77 Music Doc Impact

Chapter 7
Radio, Recording, & Popular Music
Chapter/Study Focus:
NY77: the coolest year in hell

RADIO, RECORDING, AND
POPULAR MUSIC
• Book offers good information about the history
and technology involved with radio, recording
and popular music and is covered in quiz
material
• We’ll be spending our class time looking at
NY77: THE COOLEST YEAR IN HELL as it is a good
way to combine RECORDINGS/MUSIC + FILM for
class discussion
• LOOKING AHEAD: War of the Worlds = example
of Broadcast Radio Mass Media and its effects

NY77: THE COOLEST YEAR IN HELL =
RECORDINGs/MUSIC + FILM
• Pop Culture has long been enmeshed in “History” and
music is no exception; beyond being just a “soundtrack
for our lives”, music can often be so powerful that it
enacts cultural changes that resonate through every
level of society. This documentary takes a close look at
1977 as a pivotal year in the life of New York City,
including how music can be part of the very fabric of
society. Please consider how music can be both a
reflection of, and an influence over various factions of
society and culture, and how such reflection and
influence can impact us all long after songs fall off the
charts…

•NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell

•How did the musical genres of hip
hop, punk and disco and their mass
media messages (recorded songs)
reflect and/or influence the political
and societal realities of New York City
in 1977?

•What TYPE of documentary is NY77?
What narration style does NY77 use?
(please use provided terms)

• What is a “DOCUMENTARY FILM”?
• A documentary film is a nonfictional motion picture intended to
document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of
instruction or maintaining a historical record.
• Documentaries often explore effects of mass media while also
simultaneously being a form of mass media themselves. A movie
about censoring movies for example, or a TV show about how TV
shows are important

• TYPES OF DOCUMENTARIES
• Observational documentaries attempt to simply and spontaneously observe lived life with
a minimum of intervention. Often, this mode of film eschewed voice-over commentary,
post-synchronized dialogue and music, or re-enactments. The films aimed for immediacy,
intimacy, and revelation of individual human character in ordinary life situations. TYPICALLY
USES SILENT NARRATION
• Participatory documentaries believe that it is impossible for the act of filmmaking to not
influence or alter the events being filmed. What these films do is emulate the approach of
the anthropologist: participant-observation. Not only is the filmmaker part of the film, we
also get a sense of how situations in the film are affected or altered by their presence.
TYPICALLY USES HOSTED NARRATION
• Performative documentaries stress subjective experience and emotional response to the
world. They are strongly personal, unconventional, perhaps poetic and/or experimental,
and might include hypothetical enactments of events designed to make us experience what
it might be like for us to possess a certain specific perspective on the world that is not our
own. Performative docs often link up personal accounts or experiences with larger political
or historical realities. TYPICALLY USES VOICE-OVER NARRATION

• NARRATION STYLES
Voice-over narration
• The traditional style for narration is to have a dedicated narrator read a script
which is dubbed onto the audio track. The narrator never appears on camera
and may not necessarily have knowledge of the subject matter or involvement
in the writing of the script. TYPICALLY USED IN PERFORMATIVE
DOCUMENTARIES
Silent narration
• This style of narration uses title screens to visually narrate the documentary.
The screens are held for about 5–10 seconds to allow adequate time for the
viewer to read them. They are similar to the ones shown at the end of movies
based on true stories, but they are shown throughout, typically between scenes.
TYPICALLY USED IN OBSERVATIONAL DOCUMENTARIES
Hosted narration
• In this style, there is a host who appears on camera, conducts interviews, and
who also does voice-overs. TYPICALLY USED IN PARTICIPATORY DOCUMENTARIES

•What made NY77 an effective or non-
effective example of documentary
film in your view?

•What kind of influence does hip-hop,
punk and disco music hold in our
culture today?

• Punk’s lasting influence on society and culture is
undisputed and is also the subject of much
academic and cultural research and critique. It’s
style and energy lives on in modern rock and its
influence can be felt in advertising , fashion,
Broadway, and beyond…

• Disco’s lasting influence on society and culture is
also undisputed and the subject of much
academic and cultural research and critique.
Disco as a musical genre has evolved into House
Music and EDM, is often sampled into
contemporary music, and its influence can still be
felt in culture in many ways.

• Hip-Hop’s lasting influence on society and
culture is undisputed and is the subject of much
academic and cultural research and critique. It
continues to a dominant commercial musical
force and its influence can be felt in advertising,
Broadway, and beyond…

• But one could argue that
Hip-Hop’s most enduring
legacy outside of music
might be found in fashion…
• FRESH DRESSED is a terrific
example of how a mass
media message (hip hop
music) can have a larger
impact on culture outside
of its own specific area

The media so fully saturate our everyday
lives that we are often unconscious of
their presence, not to mention their
influence. Media inform us, entertain us,
delight us, annoy us. They move our
emotions, challenge our intellects, insult
our intelligence. Media often reduce us to
mere commodities for sale to the highest
bidder. Media help define us; they shape
our realities…
CENTRAL THEME OF
COMM 101: UNDERSTANDING MASS MEDIA

…but Media does none of this alone. They do
it with us as well as to us through mass
communication, and they do it as a central—
many critics and scholars say the central—
cultural force in our society.
CENTRAL THEME OF

• Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze,
evaluate, and create media. Media-literate
youth and adults are better able to understand
the complex messages we receive from
television, radio, Internet, newspapers,
magazines, books, billboards, video games,
music, and all other forms of media.
CENTRAL THEME OF

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