Over and Over: Exploring Repetition in Popular Music presents itself as the first edited volume on repetition in 20th- and 21st-century popular music. Edited by Oliver Julien and Christophe Levaux, the nine essays explore wide-ranging ideas and uses of repetition in a variety of contexts. From Tin Pan Alley musical forms to technological rhythmic stutters, this collection seems to jump around a little in terms of the broader musical scope, but being structured in three main sections, one can explore ideas of repetition as a tool or technique within the framework of each section.
As stated in the preface, ‘the issue of repetition is one of infinite richness as regards to music’ (p. xiv), that certainly proves to be the case in this collection of individual essays that are accessible, intriguing and generally well researched in their respective sub-fields. As both an academic and also practitioner of repetitive music, this reviewer found this text to provide some interesting perspectives on different components of repetition – particularly those exploring ideas of perception and how it is possible through exploring the same music over and over again that we can find something new to uncover.
This text is divided into three main sections that, in general terms, explore: the aesthetics of repetition; the perception of repetition; and the structure of repetition. These areas prove to be useful for the academic trying to pinpoint how repetition can be explored as an analytical tool, and the text is certainly a suitable read for those trying to explore different perceptions for how repetition can be both musical tool, and a philosophical or theoretical framework. The over-arching concept for the book draws from the work of Richard Middleton (Reference Middleton1983), which provides distinctions between different types of musical repetition, the way musical structures work in popular music, as well as a brief mention of repetition for aesthetic reasons.
As a creative practitioner, I found some of the chapters more illuminating than others. Those chapters that seemed less specifically linked to technological or compositional tools, and more about performative or conceptual ideas provided this reviewer with more insightful analyses among a broad range of music styles. For example, Danick Trottier's chapter on the anaphonic perspective of the everyday sonic experience was a fascinating exploration on how one can connects everyday sounds to their musical equivalents, and then examines how this cross-reference impacts our engagement with musical ideas.
With a collection like this, each reader will find different parts to focus in on. There is enough material in this text to provide additional insight into whichever genre or sub-genre you may be interested in. So, rather than providing an outline of the content of each chapter (which can be found elsewhere), I wish to point out a few highlights. There are three chapters – one from each section. The chapters by Anne Danielsen, Chris Cutler, and Trevor de Clercq and Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis were of particular interest to this reviewer primarily because they seemed to shed a new light on their particular areas, be engagingly written and seeming provide a clear scope for further exploration.
In section one, Danielsen looks at repetition and difference in repetitive music. Starting with an outline exploring how other scholars have defined different perceptions of time and repetition – the relationship between linear and non-linear music; formative repetition, focal repetition and textural repetition; and discursive or musematic repetition. She then moves into the core or the analysis, looking at repetition in the context of groove-based music. This is music that has the goal to ‘repeat with a difference’ (p. 41) – it is repetition and revision of musical ideas in the same moment. Danielsen provides a number of examples from James Brown to Rihanna, and provides the reader with some preliminary tools to experience ‘joy in repetition’ (p. 49).
Cutler in section two focuses on the short loop. This is the exact repetition of small musical fragments, which can be potentially endless, and is only made possible by the mechanical or electronic systems that he describes as ‘spookily fascinating’ (p. 68). The chapter has a rather dark tone to it calling these mechanical loops brutal and ‘viscerally bothersome’ (p. 72), but depending on the reader's own musical preferences and perspectives, one can find some solace in the idea that, as long as humans are involved, ‘the same thing is always going to be different’ (p. 68).
The final chapter in this text, written by de Clercq and Margulis, looks at the psychological perspective. Here the authors categorise three principal ways in which repetition occurs: repetition within a song (compositional techniques); repetition of a song (audience); and repetition between songs (stylistic traits). The understandings around musical decisions, how and why music affects us, and the way our own musical expectations work to enhance our engagement with particular pieces of music is deeply fascinating, and this chapter provides a great closing element to this text.
Over and Over as a text serves to provide a solid foundation upon which further academic exploration around the ‘many paradoxes of repetition's allure’ (p. 161) can build. The various contributors present convincing readings of their chosen areas of focus, and while there are minor elements of this book that one could potentially fault, on the whole this is a useful and much needed addition to the literature. The relationships between this field of research and other studies around musical time are fascinating (both academically and compositionally) and one hopes that this illumination continues to develop through future texts like Over and Over. Ideally, with enough changing perspectives around understanding what is being repeated, how it is created and how audiences perceived it, we will be able to continue to creatively reconstruct our own engagement with this beguiling musical phenomenon.
