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Gérôme Guibert

Conference Paper “Studying music – An international conference in honour of Simon

Frith” (University of Edinburgh, 10-12 April 2014)

Title : “French Frith”. What do the French translations of Simon Frith’s work tell us about

the development of popular music studies in France?

1. S. Frith’s implantation in France

1.1. Foreign sociologists and their translation into French

Up until today, the diffusion in France of English-speaking thought in social sciences depended

mainly upon translations of their works, at least with regards to academia.

A non-translated author usually is often a non-quoted author (unless a researcher wants to pose

as a marginal or a forerunner, or study english).

Moreover, the French policy of translation is much different from that of Great-Britain or the

United States, as in general, authors’ papers are not translated in dedicated readers. Authors are

translated via scattered papers or collective articles and then, eventually, books.

I remember that, as an undergraduate student in sociology in the mid-nineties, the only foreign

authors we would study were translated ones. This explains for example why authors such as

Howard Becker or Erving Goffman were well known.

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Such translations have more impact when they are published in recognized collections in

sociology departments. Such was the case for at least 20 years with Bourdieu’s collection “Le

sens commun” [common sense], the reference to legitimize foreign researchers within the field

of sociology (whether the said authors were sociologists themselves or not).

Very few British sociologists are translated into French: Anthony Giddens is an exception, and

concerning music, Tia DeNora, for example, are exceptions.

Up until the two-thousands, Birmingham cultural studies scholars were even less translated

than sociologists, after the break with the Bourdieusiens, in the early seventies (apart from

Hoggart’s works published in “le sens commun”, we can only mention a text by Paul Willis

and another by Raymond Williams published in Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales,

the review P. Bourdieu directed).

A few cultural studies-influenced authors such as Paul Gilroy (in 1993), published by small

militant publishers. In fact Anglophone cultural studies barely benefited from any echo, before

some communication studies journals like Réseaux or Hermes started demonstrating interest in

them, in the second half of the nineties, publishing translations of little texts by Stuart Hall or

Dick Hebdige.

With regards specifically to the sociology of popular music, we can see that, as they did not

benefit from any institutional recognition before the mid-two-thousands, researchers of that

field were barely translated.

To be heard, It was then necessary to write about broader elements than the core of such

research, about more legitimate subjects.

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One example is Richard Peterson’s work. He had proposed a paper for the first French

conference of “Sociology of Art” in 1985 (directed by Raymonde Moulin) in Marseille.

But there He did not talk about rock’n’roll or “cycles in symbol production”, but mentioned

“the role of formal accountability in the shift from impresario to arts administrator”.

Thanks to this, Later on, in 1989, he was invited to wrote a theoretical paper on “Art and

culture in the United States” for an issue of L’Année Sociologique’s dealing with “Arts and

social sciences”,

and then published another text in Bourdieu’s journal within the scope of the issue dedicated to

“the making of authenticity”. His work was from then on, integrated to debates in French. A

paper of his on “the transition to omnivorous tastes” was translated in 2004, in the Quebec

journal : Sociologie et Sociétés.

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It was only in 1991 that a paper by Peterson on rock music was translated, in the collective

book Rock, de l’histoire au mythe, (a translation of “Why 1955? Explaining the Advent of

Rock Music”, originally published in Popular Music, vol. 9, n° 1, January 1990).

But that was an exception, at a time when academic writings on rock in France was nearly non-

existent.

1.2. Come Simon Frith

Indeed, this collective book edited by Patrick Mignon and Antoine Hennion, which will later

have a very important influence and will be quoted very often, was, back then, the first book

dealing with the sociology of rock, but also with popular music studies, to be published in

French.

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It’s in this book that S. Frith was first translated, which contributed in making him a reference

author. Him and Peterson were the two non French-speaking authors of this first book to take

rock seriously.

As Patrick Mignon, one of the two editors of the book, says it in his introduction, about

Peterson and S. Frith:

This volume begins with an American text (Peterson) and ends with a British one (S. Frith). We

wanted to pay our debt to these two authors in particular, and more globally to American and

British authors who, for long years, have taken rock seriously. The interest for rock within

academia is new in France, but the pioneer aspect of French research on this subject shouldn’t

lead anyone to believe that we are “discovering America”, when it already has been widely

explored. This is an aspect that the bibliography at the end of this volume would also like to

signify.

Almost all the researchers of my generation who will end up having a PhD in sociology (and

who also became lecturers) read this book: M. Perrenoud, E. Brandl, F. Hein, S. Dorin, F.

Ribac or A. Petiau. The fact that S. Frith is quoted by all these authors is greatly due to this

book. It’s the starting point.

S. Frith was thus associated to Peterson and appeared as a sociologist who reconsidered a good

number of positions and demonstrated his expertise within fields that French sociology had

only rarely explored (relationships between majors and independents, “ageing” of popular

music fans).

This is how Patrick Mignon summed up S. Frith’s contribution in his introduction:

S. Frith redefines the actual meaning of rock as it stems from how the recording industry

abandoned youth as a target market for young adults, for whom it became the lost paradise of

their youth; he shows the evolution of the techniques and commercial strategies which lead to

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the marginalization of long and progressive careers and to their replacement by talent scouting

within a breeding tank of artists managed by independent producers.

We perfectly understand why Peterson was included in this book, as, at the time, he had a non

negligible influence within French sociology, as well as within the I.S.A (see on this question

Jean-Louis Fabiani’s homage, after Peterson’s passing in 2010). Hennion also had earned a

considerable place within this network.

But what about S. Frith? When we take a look at program of the 1985 Marseille first French

conference on “the sociology of art”, which founded a new dynamic within the field of

sociology of art and culture, S. Frith was not present. It was too early then to tackle the

question of rock in a conference dealing with sociology of art (Hennion spoke of French

eighteenth century composer Jean Philippe Rameau for example)

In this conference, the name of Simon Frith was mentioned once, in John Sheperd’s

presentation, who talked about more classic concepts linked to musicology and art music.

Sheperd quoted S. Frith’s Sociology of Rock, to underline that

Up until today, “the sociology [of music] had been incapable of developing concepts that could

defy the aesthetic idealism of historical musicology and force it to consider technical analysis as

a path to clarifying social and cultural meanings.

The only author to quote S. Frith in the first French conference on the sociology of art was the

only British scholar present, a musicologist, not a sociologist.(John Sheperd)

This gives us two first elements that we will confirm later on. First, one of S. Frith’s strengths

is that he grasps many different academic fields, not only sociology – he is a heterodox

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sociologist. Then, if S. Frith is in Rock de l’histoire au mythe, it’s via other paths than the one

of mainstream sociology.

Mignon and Hennion meet through the journal Vibrations, first French academic journal

dedicated to popular music, which published 6 issues between 1985 and 1988. Hennion, a

researcher at the Center of Sociology of Innovation of the École des Mines, is the chief editor,

and Mignon a member of the editorial team, was preparing a PhD at the Center of Sociology of

Arts with Raymonde Moulin.

Both sociologists – and uniquely them – quote S. Frith in Vibrations.

As a rock sociologist in the making, Mignon finds many answers in S. Frith’s work. Profiting

from his position within the center for the sociology of arts, he proposes a book review of

Sound Effects: youth, leisure and the politics of rock’n’roll, S. Frith’s second book, for the

issue of the July 1986 French Journal of Sociology (a very important journal) dedicated to the

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sociology of art and literature. He then projects to edit an issue of Vibrations on rock but the

publisher, Privat, decides to abandon the project and the journal stops.

Mignon told me last month, in March 2014:

This was a long time ago. I discovered S. Frith with this book, while fiddling through

bookshelves in London stores. I probably shook S. Frith’s hand in Paris, during the “Music and

Revolution” 89 conference, but nothing more… and followed a few of his workshops.

Thus, we can see that, even if it’s Patrick Mignon who brought references to S. Frith in

Vibrations, they hadn’t really exchanged… This isn’t the case with Hennion, who does not

pretend to be a sociologist of rock but who will meet, know and appreciate S. Frith, both on a

human and a scientific level.

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They met via the IASPM in the early eighties, and an intellectual friendship developed.

Hennion published in English, assumed responsibilities within the IASPM. That’s how he met

S. Frith.

Here is what he answered, when I asked him how he had met S. Frith:

I don’t remember if he was at the 1981 Amsterdam reunion of the IASPM, in which I

participated (I had missed the first preparatory reunions with Tagg). If he was there, that’s most

probably where we met; or else at one of the many meetings on rock or revolving around the

IASPM, in the early eighties, more or less.

Hennion had triggered the 1989 international conference in Paris, for the bicentennial of the

French Revolution (and the IASPM biennial). Concerning the program, that mentions S. Frith’s

presence in Paris, Hennion said:

I didn’t remember that he had come at the 1989 IASPM conference at the Museum of Popular

Arts and Traditions, which signed the end of my investment for the IASPM… “Frith was still

quite distant and reserved compared to theses kind of organisations (like IASPM), at

least for several reasons: firstly he is a “lone wolf”, I think (…); secondly, and I share

it with him, he loves hard work, with strong references to the social and high standard

of writing, while production of a field of passionate people, of fans, is often not very

good – even if it’s very useful. And his book Sociology of Rock (1978) had already

published three years before IASPM, and had a huge impact. He should see it as

youngsters creating their environment rather than his own investment location” (smile)

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Besides, Hennion told me that Mignon didn’t speak English (even if he read it like most of

French scholars), and didn’t exchanged with the other non-French-speaking IASPM in Paris,

although they had a lot to share.

In the end, Hennion was able to publish the texts meant for the issue of Vibrations with the

publisher Anthropos, which had an efficient distribution via Economica. He took care of

translating both English papers (Peterson and Frith) and even gave a new title to S. Frith’s

contribution, and didn’t give any details on the context of its first publication.

The editors don’t remember the origin of S. Frith’s text.

According to Hennion

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“Souvenirs, souvenirs” (“good old memories”) was a paper that had already been

published, of course, without us and without considering France. We chose to translate

it for the collection of texts, and of course, I “adapted and translated” it, as the subtitle

mentions. The basis – but we should check – may be a collage of two different texts…

My fact-checking revealed that it was an excerpt from Facing the Music, published in 1989 by

Pantheon Books. With a new title, an allusion to a song by French yéyé singer Johnny

Hallyday.

II. Papa Frith’s secret weapons

During the nineties, before the Internet, French students learned about S. Frith’s work thanks to

Rock, de l’histoire au mythe. S. Frith offered a hope and a motivation to French students

working on rock (or later on, on rap, techno and other popular music forms), because within the

environment of French sociology (dominated by Bourdieu – i.e. inspired by Marx and

following the steps of Durkheim), it showed that one could be both a credible researcher and a

rock critic (something French sociology had contempt for).

If S. Frith didn’t follow the “royal road” of the legitimation of foreign sociologists in France, he

progressively increased his “aura” or influence by multiplying the channels of his

dissemination in France.

2.1. The professional network

In fact, he dealt with several networks, from the eighties on. Aside from the academic one he

acquired a reputation within professional networks of what we call in France “musiques

actuelles” (“contemporary popular music”), and his past as a rock critic and his knowledge of

the recording industry played a role in this.

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Thus, Gilles Castagnac, the director of the IRMA (an association commissioned by the

Ministry of Culture) said that he knew about S. Frith “via Rock, de l’histoire au mythe”.

This contact had the IRMA and professional organizations to interview S. Frith as an external

personality when they published a magazine associated to the Foruma, the Forum of “musiques

actuelles”, in 2005 in Nancy.

A former musical journalist and pre-eminent sociologist, S. Frith has always considered

popular music as a very serious affair. A cult writer (Music for Pleasure, Performing

Rites…), he has written in magazines such as Cream, Village Voice or The Observer.

Another example, S. Frith was one of the international experts interviewed for the “Muzik

2025: scripts for our future” conference, within the scope of the MaMA (professional

encounters on musical professions):

S. Frith, academic, former rock critic specialized in popular music (UK)

It is interesting to note that S. Frith uses these professional experiences in his argumentation.

Thus, in a book by the German ASPM recently published, this is what he writes

A couple of years ago I was therefore asked to write my own account of what the music

world would look like in 2025, and to present this for discussion at Mama, the annual

Paris based European music business event”. My starting points were that all

predictions of the future are wrong and that the best way to look forwards is to look

back or, more precisely, to look at the futures that were predicted in the past.

2.2 The academic network

At the same time, all of S. Frith’s publications in France after “Souvenirs, souvenirs” stemmed

from heterogeneous, yet converging networks.

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Thus, the beginning of the twenty-first century will be the stage for the development of a

French-speaking European branch of the IASPM, of a recognized peer-reviewed journal,

Volume!, and of several academic departments or courses on popular music.

S. Frith’s strength was to use very different academic channels for his publications, from the

beginning of the two-thousands on. There first was a chapter in the encyclopedia edited by the

Canadian musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez in 2003, which was translated into several

languages.

There was then, in 2005, an interview in an issue of the journal Movement, dedicated to politics

and society. This special issue, dealing with techno music, was co-edited by a PhD student in

sociology he supervised, François Ribac, who did the interview with S. Frith.him

S. Frith then collaborated with Philippe Le Guern, then a Senior Lecturer in Information and

Communication studies, who had recently started working on popular music and leading

pedagogical projects with a British academic specializing in French studies, Hugh Dauncey.

They co-edited, in 2007, an issue of the journal Réseaux, “Sociology of popular music”, which

enabled S. Frith to publish two fundamental texts: on popular music in Great Britain and the

second one on live music, which set the stage for his later research on this topic.

Then he published a paper in the book Stereo. Comparative Perspectives on the Sociological

Study of Popular Music in France and Britain, co-edited by Le Guern and Dauncey, and

published by the Éditions Mélanie Seteun in 2008 in the collection “Musique et Société” that I

directed, before the English version was published by Ashgate in 2009.

2008 was indeed an important year in S. Frith’s multiple recognition in France. First, the very

institutional journal of philosophy Rue Descartes asked him to collaborate on the question of

value. Then, young sociologists of music, E. Brandl, C. Prévost-Thomas and H. Ravet, while

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organizing a conference on “25 years of sociology of music in France”, decided to invite him.

With other participants such as H. Becker, E. Pedler, A. Hennion or P. Menger, was finally

fully recognized in France as a sociologist of music.

Considering this, we can recognize the roles played both by sociologists trained in the nineties,

and, behind the scenes, by the connections within popular music studies. When I asked the

organizers who had thought of inviting S. Frith to the conference, this is what Hyacinthe Ravet

answered:

If I remember correctly, Catherine was the link for the conference; she presented him.

And I followed him through the process of publishing his paper.

What is interesting here is that Catherine was the only academic not to be a sociologist (she is a

musicologist) and, moreover, she had been the president of the European, French-speaking

branch of the IASPM. Here is what she told me:

“I indeed sent the emails to S. Frith. His presentation was well received. I can’t

remember the questions that were asked after, but they clearly indicated respect for his work.

He had just published Taking Popular Music Seriously.”

2008 is also the year Stéphane Dorin, a sociologist, invited him to one of his conferences on

“music and industry”, alongside other academics such as David Hesmondhalgh or Patrick

Mignon. As I also participated in these conferences, Stéphane asked me if he could publish the

proceedings in the collection of books I supervise within the Éditions Mélanie Seteun (like I’ve

done with Stereo). We published Sound Factory. Music and Industry in 2011, with a paper by

S. Frith, which is a translation I’ve done of a chapter of Music for Pleasure. It is interesting to

note that, in his introduction, Dorin commented the article published in Rue Descartes.

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While S. Frith is confirmed as a reference in sociology, he also benefited from an increasing

French interest for cultural studies. In 2013, Anne Claustres, a Professor of art history,

published a book with selected texts on cultural studies, and included the translation of a

chapter taken from Sound Effects. It is disturbing to note that, just like the philosophers who

had published S. Frith in Rue Descartes, Claustres doesn’t mention the steps and the networks

that had contributed to the French reception of S. Frith, nor his critical positions concerning the

Birmingham school. On the contrary, she seems to completely associate him to this school of

thought.

III. The (Durkheimian) institutionalization. The example of Volume!

Volume! the French, multidisciplinary journal of popular music studies, born in 2002, publishes

two issues a year. It has been online on two scholarly portals since 2010. As the journal

becomes more and more legitimate, an analysis of the statistics on the presence of S. Frith

enables us to show his growing importance within this linguistic area.

Although quoting S. Frith depends upon the topics of the papers, if we take a look at the

statistics over 10 years, it appears that he is indeed more and more quoted:Same trend with the

number of references to him, in red:

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Among the authors who quote him, the amount of sociologists is, in average, of 27 %, and has a

tendency to go down (from 30 % to 18 %), which shows that he is quoted across many different

academic fields

The share of PhD and Masters students also drops a bit, which also shows the growing

recognition among confirmed scholars in France.

Conclusion

The fact that:

- documents in English are now more easily studied in French universities, and that the

level of English has improved (at least… for generations coming after mine…!),

- that works on popular music in general (among which French translations) are

increasingly being mentioned,

- and that, finally, texts are more easily disseminated and circulate on the Internet

contribute to a better integration of S. Frith’s work in France.

Without doubt, books by S. Frith will soon be published in French, which will confirm his

recognition, both within the field of sociology and, more globally, in a multidisciplinary

perspective, both within academic and professional worlds.

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Not only had S. Frith opened fantastic hermeneutical perspectives for us, he also enabled many

of us to reconcile our two-faced identities, as academics and music-lovers, giving us weapons

to resist the French scholarly tradition of contempt for those who commit themselves to the

object of their research.

Thank you!

The most quoted Simon Frith’s writings in Volume!

Performing Rites On Record Sound Effects Sociology of Rock Music For Pleasure Fragments of a sociology of rock music criticsm Art Into Pop Articles Français : "Souvenirs souvenirs" et "Une histoire des recherches sur les musiques populaires au RU"