“Find a Way”: Amy Grant and Christian Pop’s Mainstream Crossover
AMS conference presentation (2019). In this paper I argue that Amy Grant’s success was the cumulative result of longer strategies to cross her over from the relatively small Christian market to the massive general mainstream pop market. Archival research reveals business and artistic decisions that prepared Grant for her first attempt at crossover with the 1985 album Unguarded.
Emo
The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture, SAGE Publications (2019). Emo, short for “emocore” or “emotional hardcore,” refers both to a genre of rock music and to its subculture. The genre first emerged from punk rock and hardcore punk in the mid-1980s in local underground music scenes, most notably that of Washington, D.C. Throughout the 1990s, it gradually spread across the trans-local networks of underground music scenes in North America. In the early 2000s, several emo bands and the genre itself achieved mainstream success. Like punk rock and other subcultures in previous decades, emo became a popular trend and commodity at its commercial peak, especially among teenagers and young fans.
Abandoning Shelters: Christian Popular Music and Crossover Strategies
IASPM-US conference presentation (2017). In this paper, I critically analyze the strategies of two crossover cases: Amy Grant, who became the first Christian pop singer with a number-one Billboard Hot 100 single following the 1991 release of “Baby, Baby,” and Tooth and Nail Records, a Christian metal and punk label whose artists straddle multiple margins, crossing over from one to another. In doing so, I build upon the works of Hebdige, Toynbee, Weisbard, and others to theorize crossover as a process through which niche markets change over time.
From the Margins to the Mainstream: Two Crossover Cases
Embracing the Margins symposium presentation (2015). In a critical analysis of two crossover songs, I examine the ways in which ethics and aesthetics are implicated in crossover success—what Jason Toynbee and others have described as “mainstreaming,” and what Dick Hebdige has identified as the dominant culture’s integration of subcultural style via the commodity form. This paper thus moves beyond comparative or categorical definitions of margins and mainstreams to theorize the process of one becoming the other.
Popular Music Margins Becoming Mainstreams: Amy Grant, Elliott Smith, and the Political Economy of Niche Markets
Brown Music colloquium presentation (2015). What happens when artists transcend the margins and their markets? I examine the ways in which ethics and aesthetics are implicated in crossover success—what Jason Toynbee (2002) has described as “mainstreaming,” and what Dick Hebdige (1979) has identified as the dominant culture’s integration of subcultural style via the commodity form. This paper thus moves beyond comparative or categorical definitions of margins and mainstreams to theorize the process of popular music in transition from one market to another.
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