ACADEMIA Letters

What’s So Funny ’bout Musical Idols?

Paul D. Fischer, Middle Tennessee State University

Saying “You’re a Rockstar” is high praise these days. It can mean the individual is a
standout, a leader, someone others look up to, and sometimes perhaps even a “thought leader”
in everyday roles. This cheapens the impact of real rock stars (and other live performance
artists). I write in defense of live musical “idols:” My intention is to look seriously at music
concerts as secular rituals, and the potential for the popular music performer to use the liminal
stage in these rituals with shamanic intent.
The rise of culture theory in the 1990s breathed new life into ethnography, granting license
to write academically about mass culture in new ways. “Ethnography is now thought of as
a subjective interaction in which the once privileged ideal of a detached observer neutrally
describing culture has been replaced by a notion of ethnography as communication.” That’s
Emily (Fonarow, 2006) in Empire Of Dirt: The Aesthetics and Rituals Of British Indie Music,
which focused on a specific music genre and community that articulates a view of live music
events shared here. She writes:

This ethnography is in a vein similar to the ethnographic writings of Small on

classical music and Travis Jackson on jazz, both of whom write detailed examina-
tions of audience practices and subjective responses (Jackson 2003, Small 1998).
Positing the music performance as the unit of analysis necessitates tending to the
meaning-making activities of all participants— performers, crews, and audience
members. (Fonarow, 2006)

The unit of analysis for my purposes is the live event in its totality, not merely the perfor-
mance. A decade of work experience as a concert bouncer provides my perspective engaging
the economic, production and cultural realities at shows featuring many genres of music and
diverse fan “communities.” The congruence is not 100%, as this approach is rooted in the full

Academia Letters, March 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Paul D. Fischer, pfischer@mtsu.edu

Citation: Fischer, P.D. (2021). What’s So Funny ’bout Musical Idols? Academia Letters, Article 331.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL331.

1
experience of attendees, not just within the gates. I share Fonarow’s seriousness in examin-
ing these musical events, and agree that for fans with established emotional and intellectual
engagements with the musicians they pay to see perform, the concert or gig experience can
have a strong spiritual dimension.

We see in indie the articulation of a participatory spectatorship that is inscribed

with religious ideology. . . . Metaphysics is a theory of the manner in which one
experiences the numinous, where essential meaning is found. Here, music stands
in for an experience of divinity. (Fonarow, 2006)

Music, specifically attendance at concerts provides an experience with the potential to

replace some functions of organized religion. Fonarow equates performing musicians most
closely with mythic Trickster figures. My argument is that experiences of divinity through
live music, indie or otherwise, are delivered through embodiments of shamanism.
Sociologically, shamanism is one of the earliest and simplest forms of human religion.
It is a system in which an adept or initiate intercedes with the spirit world on behalf of their
people on matters of health care, happy marriages, safe passage into the other world, good
harvests, successful hunts, etc. Often, the shaman’s power requires a ritual, to protect the
people and create containment for the otherworldly forces being brought to bear. Consider
also, the experience of concert/gig attendance as a secular ritual. Ardent fans often buy their
tickets as soon as they go on sale, and the ticket becomes a talisman— an object charged with
power— assuring admission to the concert.
Sociology analyzes most rituals as having three phases. The first phase of ritual is sep-
aration. In this instance, concert-goers must travel (some over great distances) to reach the
event site. Before venue doors open, there occurs what some have called the “pre-game,”
passing the time. This frequently includes ingestion of consciousness altering substances,
another dimension of separation from the everyday routine. This used to be a part of ritual
practice reserved to the shamans themselves, but no longer. Whether caffeine, beer, nicotine,
hallucinogens, medicinal or other substances, many attendees alter their consciousness prior
to passing through venues’ gates. Over years working concert lines I overheard many conver-
sations about “timing your drugs.” My sense of this is that it is not just because the beer inside
is weak and eight dollars a cup. Some are trying to lower their inhibitions, making themselves
intentionally more open emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually to the experience of seeing
a performance by a revered musician or group. The real moment of separation occurs at the
turnstiles, when the talisman must be surrendered for admission to the sacred site.
Today, tickets are digitally scanned and handed back whole. Back in the day, the cardboard
ticket was ripped and only a stub returned. Here, the talisman’s power is discharged and the

Academia Letters, March 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Paul D. Fischer, pfischer@mtsu.edu

Citation: Fischer, P.D. (2021). What’s So Funny ’bout Musical Idols? Academia Letters, Article 331.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL331.

2
bearer is admitted to the grounds of the event. In the Old Testament, the rending or tearing
of garments was a regular funereal (rite of passage) practice, to show that after the transition
is observed, nothing will be the same again. As a ticket taker, I sometimes heard people gasp
audibly at the time of ticket tearing, and verbally express their dissatisfaction that the stub
returned no longer bore the performer’s name.
The second stage of ritual is the liminal stage where worlds can be torn apart and recon-
figured in ways that impact the future. In this instance, the musicians’ performance itself.
Musical performers bring elaborate sound and light gear to help amplify and communicate
their work with maximum impact. Music has been shown to excite some of the most primi-
tive parts of the brain, with deep emotional currents (Levitin, 2006). Lyrics convey emotional
states, intellectual insights, and make commentaries about the world and the songwriter’s val-
ues. The live presentation is intended to engage the fan’s whole person; mind, body, and
spirit. This is not to say that all musical entertainers operate intentionally at this level, or that
every concertgoer will be affected in some profound way, but that the potential is always there.
Some popular musicians serve as shamans, with varying degrees of self awareness (think Bob
Marley) about how they intend to impact their listeners’ world views. I argue not for specific
outcomes, or to ferret out the divine intentions of individual artists, but to suggest that this
could become a live avenue of scholarly inquiry if pop idols were considered with appropriate
gravity.
Bands go to great technical lengths to showcase their work and what they are about as
effectively as possible. Performers who write their own material, singer-songwriters, deliver
stories, narratives, and perhaps even messages from an undiluted, uncensored perspective di-
rectly to their fans. Their work is far less collaborative than creating for other mass media,
say film or television. Often, they narrate as a “first person;” perhaps their authentic selves, a
composite from other lives they have observed, or multiple events, or as a character they have
created, or some combination thereof. Over the history of popular music, this has brought ex-
pression by artistic individuals, many minority and outsider creators, directly to audiences of
millions. America’s core value of the right to free expression and the profitability generated
by sales (and streams) of recordings create important protections for this. To the extent that
listening to these creations and/or seeing them performed leaves lasting impressions on listen-
ers’ emotional orientation or intellectual outlook, it makes meaning, and their music functions
as Art. Far from being escapist ephemera, popular musical Art, seen this way is a site of real
cultural production. Worlds can be remade for individuals through exposure to live perfor-
mances. The fact that performers are often called idols engages religion but oversimplifies the
matter.
An admittedly romantic definition of the Artist, is “one with both perceptive and expres-

Academia Letters, March 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Paul D. Fischer, pfischer@mtsu.edu

Citation: Fischer, P.D. (2021). What’s So Funny ’bout Musical Idols? Academia Letters, Article 331.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL331.

3
sive abilities beyond the human norm.” Like the shaman, at their best artists peer beyond
the veil of accepted reality and return with anticipatory visions of our best potentials or what
may be in store due to outside forces. For adolescent music fans parental influence is waning,
peer influence is on the rise, and ideas about the world are constantly being tested. Musical
artists who are a bit older, with more experience of the contemporary world, share ideas in
song that often appear more in tune with the perceived world than what familial authorities
describe. Popular artists can help make sense of novel conditions and emotional states young
people are contemporaneously experiencing. Going to concerts reaffirms and reinforces rela-
tionships already developed with musical artists through repeated solitary listening. Having
already admitted them to the status of peer and confidante conveys real power to impact hearts
and minds.
The third stage of ritual, reintegration takes place when the concert ends. Concert patrons
return to their everyday responsibilities and routines. Many have been entertained, some have
been refreshed, and a lucky few have had life-changing (or at least mind-changing) experi-
ences. This argues for the concert as a site of individual agency, meaning-making, and cul-
tural formation. This experience of shamanistic secular ritual can be most exhilarating related
to matters of self-concept, personal potential and worth. With new insights sparked by expo-
sure to artistic creations, the popular imaginary is enhanced. Such experiences can be among
the first that create a sense of individual agency, that indeed, having a personal impact on the
world is even possible.
The ideas and emotions conveyed through song delight and surprise humans all the time.
Bringing this novelty to the everyday life of the many enriches everyday environments, en-
couraging ongoing assimilation of new inputs. This is good practice for those living in what
anthropologist Margaret Mead called a “prefigurative culture.” That is, one where the influ-
ence of traditional models of behavior have waned because of revolutionary changes in living
environment and where new ways are constantly in formation. (Mead, 1978) In a prefigura-
tive cultural change is a constant and young people become “pioneers in time.” From that it
follows logically that a future different from the past is constantly unfolding. This cultural
circumstance favors individual flexibility and adaptation, arguing for personal orientations
that expect perpetual novelty. Intentional exposure to artistic performances is close to best
practice for finding essential meaning in today’s world.

References
Fonarow, Wendy. 2006. Empire Of Dirt: The Aesthetics and Rituals of British Indie Music.
Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Academia Letters, March 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Paul D. Fischer, pfischer@mtsu.edu

Citation: Fischer, P.D. (2021). What’s So Funny ’bout Musical Idols? Academia Letters, Article 331.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL331.

4
 Mead, Margaret. 1978. Culture and Commitment: The New Relationships Between The
Generations In The 1970s. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday.

Levitin, Daniel J. 2006. This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science Of A Human Obsession.
New York: Plume.

Academia Letters, March 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Paul D. Fischer, pfischer@mtsu.edu

Citation: Fischer, P.D. (2021). What’s So Funny ’bout Musical Idols? Academia Letters, Article 331.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL331.