Music of the last decade has steered towards the growing tendency across arts, media, and consumer culture to fuse the aesthetic of cuteness with themes of violence, sexuality, surrealism, and dreariness of everyday life. I will approach the genres of kawaii metal, lo-fi hip-hop, and classical music from two perspectives by investigating the common understanding of the ‘light’ side of cuteness and drawing out its disguised ‘dark’ counterpart that carries aggressive, passive-aggressive, and sexual undertones. My research will study examples of musical cuteness in works by kawaii metal singers Ladybeard and Poppy, lo-fi artists “Ambition” and “My lovely weapons”, as well as classical composers Mozart, Beethoven, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev. I will identify signifiers of cuteness and apply methods of musical topic theory by associating these signifiers with different genres, styles, and cultural contexts to reveal their broader meanings in music. How is musical cuteness expressed and perceived? What motifs, signs, and figures are “cute”? How do different presentation settings from concert halls to underground bars and private bedrooms contribute to the two-sided power of “cuteness?” My research will investigate musical elements such as melody, rhythm, timbre, texture, form, and instrumentation as well as extra-musical elements such as narrative, intertextuality, visual cues, and social contexts to develop a multidimensional understanding of musical cuteness.
Read More
