Haunthenticity: Musical Replay and the Fear of the Real

In this persuasive study, Tracy McMullen draws on philosophy, psychology, musicology, performance studies, and popular music studies in order to analyze the rise of obsessively precise live musical reenactments in the United States at the turn of the millennium. She investigates this practice, what she terms, Replay, in popular music, jazz, and performance art arguing that it is a symptom of deep-seated fears of the fleeting nature of identity. Musical Replay claims a type of authenticity that is grounded in the exact material details of the original (instruments, props, costumes, people, etc.), and attempts to make up for the loss of identity: cloning the past and using it as a replacement. The scholarship is wide-ranging and ties theory and evidence from diverse fields and experiences together seamlessly and convincingly. Haunthenticity ultimately argues for a new way of conceiving subjectivity and identity within critical and cultural studies, moving beyond Western epistemologies.

Reviews

An essential read for anyone interested in contemporary music and performance.
-Norma Coates, Western University, Canada

By arguing compellingly that practices of musical replay reflect a deeply seated unwillingness to face the Real and a desire to have it all, forever, McMullen shows how these practices reinstate hegemonic structures of power and signification.
-Philip Auslander, author of Reactivations: Essays on Performance and Its Documentation