Staff Profiles

I teach across a number of modules and supervise dissertations at UG and PG level, usually focusing on popular music history and analysis, and film music studies.

Supervision

I have previously co-supervised a PhD student exploring Radiohead and genre, and am currently supervising two PhD students - one working on black metal, the other exploring the New Romantics.  Inquiries from prospective PhD students exploring areas of pop musicology or film musicology are always welcome. 

I specialise in the study of rock in the context of its surrounding institutions, exploring how musicians negotiate the expectations of their audience, the industry and the media and analysing the resultant sounds and visuals. Much of this work so far has focussed on the birth of rock in the 60s, looking at the Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane as particular examples.  I am also interested in the nature of recordings and the analysis of record production and am currently working on a collaborative project exploring these questions in relation to the Squeeze album, Spot the Difference.  I also study film music, and am currently writing a chapter on Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet.    

Research group membership

I am a member of PMRU, Oxford Brookes' popular music research unit.

Research grants and awards

My MA in Music was supported by a bursary from the Society for Music Analysis.

My PhD was supported by an AHRC studentship.

The 2011 Shifting Ground Study Day exploring Music and Publishing was supported by the Royal Musical Association.

Research projects

With members of PMRU, I am currently working on two projects:

Shifting Ground - an ongoing series of events exploring different aspects of publishing of and publishing about music.

Spot the Difference - an exploration of the Squeeze album 'Spot the Difference', looking at issues of music copyright and exact reproduction of recordings.

Research impact

I co-organised PMRU's 'Nightshift: Exploring Oxford’s Music Magazine', a one-day public symposium at Oxford Brookes University bringing together academics and broadcasters, journalists, promoters and musicians of the Oxford music scene journalists to discuss the history and impact of Nightshift magazine.

I organised and presented at a PMRU workshop on our 'Spot the Difference' project as part of the Oxford Ideas Festival, September 2018.

Journal articles

• Butler J, 'Oeuvres musicales, reprises et strange little girls'
  Volume! 7 (1) (2010) pp.41-74
  ISSN: 1634-5495 eISSN: 1950-568X
  Abstract Discussions of the ontology of the popular musical work often centre around cover versions, using them as evidence to substantiate various ideas of what the popular music work might be. This exploration of the cover version" s relation to the ontology of musical works usually also operates a hierarchical or evaluative system, perhaps inherent to the idea of the work concept itself, in which a cover is often seen as subordinate to an original version. However, covers are rarely investigated in detail to see how they might operate in relation to the original, and in turn to explore what this might mean for the work concept in popular music, and for the hierarchical system often applied to covers. This article explores the ontology of the popular musical work and its relation to cover versions through the investigation of Tori Amos" s 2001 covers album, Strange Little Girls. This album includes a range of interpretive cover versions in which the original is radically musically altered to alter or critique the original" s meaning. Through an investigation of this album, the idea of the cover as a simultaneous reading and performance of an original is introduced, allowing space for the consideration of the importance of the listener in determining the ontology of the cover version.Website 

Book chapters

• Butler J, 'Clash of the Timbres: The Battle for the Sound of Rock Authenticity on the West Coast, 1966 to 1968' in Fink R, Latour M, Wallmark Z (ed.), The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Tone and Timbre in Popular Music, Oxford University Press (2018)
  ISBN: 9780199985227
  Abstract

  This chapter explores the conflict between live- and studio-centered aesthetics in the context of the San Francisco and Los Angeles rock scenes in the late 1960s. Bands such as Jefferson Airplane, who had spent their careers playing live concerts, were faced with new challenges of working in a more technical setting. By the same token, the technological capabilities of studio recording practice allowed for increased creative opportunities. Contributors to nascent rock magazines such as Crawdaddy often disagreed about the true meaning of “authentic” rock and roll, some advocating for a more polished and produced sound while others argued that rock should imitate live performance, even in a recording studio. Over time, artists and producers developed means to oscillate between live and recorded styles depending on their artistic intention.
  

  Website 
• Butler J, 'Album Art and Posters: The Psychedelic Interplay of Rock Art and Art Rock' in Tim Shepherd and Anne Leonard (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Music and Visual Culture, Routledge (2014)
  ISBN: 9780415629256 eISBN: 9780203629987
  Website 
• Butler J, 'The Beach Boys Pet Sounds and the musicology of record production' in The Art of Record Production: An Introductory Reader for a New Academic Field, Ashgate (2012)
  ISBN: 9781409406785
  

Record Production and the Construction of Authenticity in the Beach Boys and late-Sixties American Rock, PhD Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2010

Areas of expertise

• The development and impact of ideologies of authenticity on popular music
• Industry structures, production developments and the role of specialist media in 60s rock (with particular focus on the Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane)
• Use of popular music in film
• Explorations of the nature of the recorded musical work 

Membership of professional bodies

I am an Associate of the Higher Education Academy, and a member of the International Association for The Study of Popular Music and the Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production.

Conferences

Sep 2018, ''Spot the Difference': Reproduction, Re-recording and the Reimagining of historic tracks', Crosstown Traffic, Popular Music Theory and Practice international conference, Huddersfield University

Apr 2018, Interview with Ronan Monroe, Nightshift: Exploring Oxford’s Music Magazine Study Day, Oxford Brookes University (co-organiser)

Apr 2013, 'The Musicology of Record Production', Institute for Musical Research postgraduate training day, invited speaker 

Apr 2011,  Lead organizer of Shifting Ground II: A Symposium on Music and Publishing, Oxford Brookes University

Jan 2010,  ‘The Role of the Rock Cultural Intermediary: The Birth of the American Rock Press in the 1960s’, Shifting Ground: A Study Day in Popular Music and Publishing, Oxford Brookes University (co-organiser) 

Nov, 2009 ‘Authentic Independents: Myth or Reality?’, The Art of Record Production Conference, University of Cardiff

Jul 2009,  ‘The Critic as New Cultural Intermediary: the rise of the American rock press in the 1960s’, 6^th International Conference on Music since 1900, University of Keele

Jul 2009, 'The Reception of the Use of Technology in the work of Jimi Hendrix', 15^th Biennial International IASPM Conference, University of Liverpool

Jun 2009, ‘Ticket To Ride’: Album Art as a Gateway to the Psychedelic Community’, RMA Study Day: Image, Music, Identity: Constructing and Experiencing Identities through Music in Visual Culture Conference, University of Nottingham

Sep 2005, ‘The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and the musicology of record production’, CHARM/The Art of Record Production Conference, University of Westminster 

Aug 2005, ‘High Fidelities: The discourse of authenticity and Jimi Hendrix’, 4^th International Conference on Twentieth-century music, University of Sussex                            

Jan 2004, ‘Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge: A new film music?’, RMA Students’ Conference, Royal Holloway

Other experience

Editorial Manager, twentieth century music journal, 2005-2011

Visiting Lecturer in Popular Music Analysis, Sheffield University 2010

Lecturer in Music Production and Popular Music, Leeds College of Music, 2007-2009

Visiting Lecturer and Guest lecturer (various, including modules on Popular Music in Film and Recorded Music in Society), University of Nottingham 2005-2008

Further information

You can find out more about the work I have done as part of the Popular Music Research Unit at PMRU blog.