The Love Detective: Cybernetic Groove Cycles and the Mysteries of Desire in Arab Strap.

Overy, S and Smith, Kenneth ORCID: 0000-0001-7414-9180 (2018) The Love Detective: Cybernetic Groove Cycles and the Mysteries of Desire in Arab Strap. In: The Routledge Companion to Popular Music Analysis: Expanding Approaches. Routledge,New York, pp. 364-377. ISBN 9781138683112

	Text 25 - Overy & Smith.docx - Author Accepted Manuscript Download (45kB)
	Archive SMITH ex.zip - Author Accepted Manuscript Download (5MB)

Abstract

In this chapter, we consider two of the twentieth century’s most influential theories of desire as alternative ways of engaging with groove-based music. As a test case, the project provides two competing readings of selected songs by the Scottish band Arab Strap. Initially, we apply a Lacanian model of desire—a view of desire characterised by lack, negativity, and the impossibility of satiation. This model depicts the music of Arab Strap according to a dark theory in which the psychologically complex, musically expressive, subject can never attain what s/he desires. However, an alternative reading as outlined in Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus endeavours to show how Arab Strap’s music can be interpreted according to a positive, productive conception of desire.

Item Type:	Book Section
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	01 Feb 2018 12:24
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 06:42
DOI:	10.4324/9781315544700
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3017288