Popular music and material culture can be viewed as significant contributors to the development of popular culture and taste, and this investigation will scrutinize, in parts and as a whole, the symbiotic relationships between objects, images, and music.

The methodology applied to this study has been inspired by theories of literary criticism and media analysis. Several perspectives defined within these fields and normally used to analyze literature or media, can be applied to popular music as well as the images and objects of design. Critical theories that may be tagged as aesthetic, archetypal, historical, Marxist, mythological, etc. have been exercised to conjoin musical styles and designed entities synchronous with them. A three dimensional matrix with the axes representing chronology, critical perspectives, and items [objects, images, music] has been developed as a framework for the study. Psychedelic hippie posters, Jimi Hendrix's ‘Purple Haze' and the lazy blue globs in lava lamps represent one segment of this matrix. The raw lyrics of hip-hop, reality shows on television, layered type in graphics, and the exposed insides of an iMac form another segment. The representation of musicians as mythical figures, images of mythology, and objects that partake in urban myths and legends form yet another segment. The explorations in this study are attempts to develop codes that can signify patterns of homology between popular music, images, and objects of design.

Image Music Object Website