Philip Powrie

Aside from the essays I found useful for thinking about vidding, there was a neat piece by Raymond Knapp about music in Frankenstein movies, including Young Frankenstein, which discussed the relationship between music and electricity and made the point that Shelley’s Frankenstein did not use electricity to raise his monster; that conceit is modern and visual. Robynn Stilwell also had a fun chapter about the use of music, specifically vinyl records, in coming-of-age stories for girls, and how the girl collector/boy collector divide plays out in various ways (for example, does the collector listen to the music?). “Male”-type collecting prioritizes the exertion of control over the outside world, whereas “female”-type collecting emphasizes the definition of self through connection to objects that reflect the collector’s subjectivity. Stilwell discusses female record collectors “one of whom feels her collection reveals who she is (as a whole), and another who considers her collection a diary, or self-portrait, and could not bear to part with any of the CDs because they contain ‘too many memories.’”… (meer)