Copy-and-Persist: The Logic of Mash-Up Culture
This essay traces the logic of mash-up culture, an online music scene in which practitioners use audio-editing software to splice and combine pop songs encoded in MP3 format to produce hybrid or “mashed-up” recordings. The study focuses on the logic that guides the development of works, styles and reputations in mash-up culture. Several fields of practice shape this cultural logic, including “virtual studios,” online message boards, dance clubs, and the market for “underground” and “unofficial” remixes. This cultural logic generates a new kind of amateur musicianship based on pluralistic listening and the reorganization of the relations that constitute musical recordings.
Collective references are of crucial significance for the individual memory. This article discusses the formation and transformation of intergenerational memory in situations where a hegemonic nati...