The eraserheads: A popular music study on the youth conception of freedom and love

• Main Author: Moreno, Karen Jansen H.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2011
• Subjects: Comparative Literature
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/2592
• Institution: De La Salle University

The Eraserheads is a popular music phenomenon that swept the 90s. Up until today, their songs are still heard on the airwaves. This shows that the youth embraced and continue to embrace their music. Yet the question to ponder is why they are popular with the youth. What is it in their music that they subscribe to? Using John Fiskes concept of popular culture and his theory on the pun, this study hypothesizes on their popularity by looking at the possible popular meaning that can be made by the youth. These popular meanings refer to meanings which confer to the disempowered the power to be subjects in a power bloc-controlled society. Supplemented by Simon Friths idea of music as a medium for the construction of an identity, this study also looks at how the concepts of freedom and love (motifs identified in their popular music) are set up in the songs to be able see how the youth is positioned to look at themselves, their identify, in relation to the power bloc. Finally, this study aims to contribute to popular music in the Philippines.