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Polystylism as a Developmental Technique

Picked by Robert Stevens

Polystylistic music is more prevalent now than it is has ever been before. Prior to the creation of the internet, genre was very defined by geographic location. For instance, most of the major psychedelic rock bands (Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix Experience) of the 60s came out of the music scene in the Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. Another famous example is the dichotomy in 1950s jazz between west coast “cool school” jazz and east coast “hard bop”. The advent of the internet made it easier for musicians to not define themselves by the music immediately surrounding them. This has in turn de-localized genre, and made it more commonplace for artists to be listening to/taking influence from contradictory places. 100 gecs, Poppy, and Deafheaven are all examples of this contemporary tendency. However, most polystylistic music being created today doesn’t approach its polystylism developmentally. Polystylism today is used in two ways. One, it’s used for shock factor by abruptly cutting between two or more blocks of music that are distinguished by having disparate genres (Poppy songs normally cut between a section of aggressive metal music and a section of bright pop music). Two, it’s used to blend between 2 or more genres by having certain musical parameters be more influenced by one genre than others (Deafhaven uses harmony/guitar tone inspired by shoe gaze and drums/vocals inspired by black metal). The music recommended below takes the notion of polystylism and uses it to inform how the music changes/develops at the large-scale level (across 20, 30+ minutes).

Modern Polystylism

Poppy- I Disagree (2020), Deafheaven- Sunbather (2013)

The ways of approaching polystylism mentioned above can be conceptualized as making music polystylistic either vertically (blending 2 or more genres together) or horizontally (assigning 2 or more blocks of music a unique genre and then abruptly cutting back and forth between blocks). The title-track of the album I Disagree by Poppy utilizes a mostly horizontal approach to polystylistic music. The verses of the track contain music generally influenced by trap and the choruses contain music generally influenced by hard rock that borders on metal. The verses trap influence comes mostly from Poppy rapping exclusively in triplets and ending all of her phrases on the same beat (in trap that beat is 4 but here Poppy is ending her phrases on beat 1). The accompaniment to the verses most prominently feature a kick drum/sub-bass without any kind of definite harmonic content being presented. Because sub-bases are so commonly used in trap, this in combination with the vocals and lack of harmony creates an association with trap. The choruses prominently feature distorted electric guitar that is outlining a definite harmonic progression. Poppy switches to singing a pitch-based melody instead of rapping as well. The social-association of electric guitar with rock music in addition to switching to a pitch-based melody helps the section create an association with rock music. An example of a more vertical approach to polystylism can be found on the 2010s classic Sunbather by the band Deafheaven. The first track Dream House illustrates this. In the track, the way the vocalist screams and the drummer’s use of constant 16ths on the kick are features that are both very typical of the black metal genre. The emotionally excessive diatonic harmony and wall-of-sound approach to guitar are instead derived from shoegaze. This general formula of drums/vocals being black metal and the guitars being shoegaze creates the album’s polystylistic sound.

Polystylism Developed in Blocks

Frank Zappa- Lumpy Gravy (1969)

Frank Zappa is a true outlier in 20th century music. As a teenager, he was simultaneously obsessed with R&B, Doo-Wop, and modernist classical music. This polystylistic inclination is found throughout his discography, but is particularly interesting on the album “Lumpy Gravy” and the other albums he created around the mid-60s to early 70s. The music of Lumpy Gravy is constructed from 4 different blocks of music. The first block is defined by its use of consonant genres such as Surf Rock, R&B, Doo-Wop, and jazz. The second block is defined by its use of modernist orchestral music inspired by composers such as Edgard Varese and Anton Webern. The third block takes samples from the first two blocks, and applies techniques derived from musique concrete to create disorienting absurdist music (tape manipulation, speeding a track up, reversing it, cutting a tape up into fragments and rearranging the order of the fragments). The final section consists of improvised spoken word dialogue between different people on topics that Zappa predetermined. These four sections are used to create form and large scale development. As you can see in the chart below, the general form of the album consists of contrasting a music-based section with a spoken word dialogue section. The spoken word dialogue sections are far more sparse texturally than the music based sections, and act as pauses within the album. Second, there is a gradual transition from “consonant” genre sections being the most prominent material to “dissonant” genre sections being the most prominent material across the entire first half of the album. This is the compositional equivalent of panning an audio track from far left to far right. The number/ amount of consonant genre sections decrease in proportion to the number/amount of dissonant genre sections increasing. This developmental approach treats genres as blocks that are juxtaposed against each other. The relations between the blocks that are established and then changed across the album are the foundation of the developmental technique being used.

Polystylism Developed Programmatically

The Ninth Wave from Hounds of Love- Kate Bush (1985)

Whereas Frank Zappa’s developmental technique approaches polystylistic music from a blocky perspective, Kate Bush’s approaches it from a programmatic one. The Ninth Wave is a song cycle from the album Hounds of Love about a narrator that’s drifting aimlessly in the sea after a shipwreck. This narrator falls asleep and goes through a hypothermia-induced hallucination sequence before being saved by a rescue-crew. This song cycle clearly bears the influence of 70s progressive rock, in particular the approach to song-cycles popularized by Pink Floyd on albums like “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall”. Like Pink Floyd, Kate Bush utilizes production to text-paint the story of the song cycle. For instance, a sample of a coast guard radio broadcast plays in the first track while the narrator considers the possibility of a rescue crew finding her. While the broad approaches to creating continuity in the song-cycle are Pink- Floyd inspired, Kate Bush recontextualizes these approaches in art-pop instead of prog and uses changes in musical genres to articulate different parts of the narrative. The first genre transition is a transition from a piano ballad track to an ambient-synth track from tracks 1 to 2.

The piano ballad has a tangible verse-chorus song form with harmonic/melodic material that clearly repeats in those sections. This is because the narrator is fully conscious at this point. The second track begins the dream/hallucination sequence. This change in narrative is articulated with a genre-change to ambient-synth music that centers around 3 synth-parts repeating while extra-musical sounds (an avalanche, sonar) paint the lyrics. The repetition of the synth parts builds tension that is eventually released in the 3rd track. The next substantial genre change occurs from 3 to 4. In track 4, the narrator hallucinates that they have an out-of- body experience in which their disembodied spirit returns home to try to communicate with her loved-ones. This is accented by a genre-change from prog rock to art-pop with hints of Indian classical. The spiritual nature of this experience is strengthened by Indian classical music’s association with spirituality. The use of Indian classical music works because (1) Indian classical music is rooted in Hindu scripture and (2) 1960’s psych rock created an association in Western Culture with Indian classical music and spirituality by incorporating Indian classical music into songs about taking psychedelics and having mind-altering spiritual experiences.

Jig of Life makes a genre-transition from the previous genre to traditional Irish dance music because the narrator’s future self is imploring the present-self narrator to fight for her life (this fight being conceptualized as a dance). Within the track Hello Earth, switches from piano ballad music to choral music highlight the narrator’s change to a celestial perspective in which she views all of earth in a disembodied way as she is on the brink of death. Choral music has a social association with church music/christianity and therefore heaven. These associations fit the heavenly perspective being described in the narrative. Finally, the last track of the song- cycle transitions to bright 80s synth-pop to articulate the resolution at the end of the story. The narrator is saved, and she has a greater appreciation of life.

We hope you enjoy these selections! Fortunately, we live in an era with immediate, cheap access to virtually all of the music ever recorded. Unfortunately, streaming is not a sustainable form of income for most artists. If you find music you enjoy please consider supporting the artist directly or purchasing their music through a service like Bandcamp. We’ll see you next week. Happy listening!