"Another Darkchild Classic": Phonographic Forgery and Producer Rodney Jerkins'Sonic Signature
Mark N. Gillespie, Serge Lacasse · 2007
This project communicates research on the subject of record production in popular music, specifically the function of the "sonic signature" in helping listeners to recognize production authorship, as observed in urban music recordings released between 2001 and 2005. The prevailing thesis of this study is that phonographic forgery plays a central role in enabling an identification process to take place whereby both listeners and producers become familiarized with specific production sounds in the field. This argument is expressed through an analysis in Chapters 2 and 3—the centerpiece of the work—that engages a number of productions of, and relating to, producer Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins. In examining both forgeries of Jerkins' sonic signature and sonic signature forgeries undertaken by Jerkins himself, the text incorporates diverse theoretical perspectives such as Bourdieu's "field of production" (1993), Zizek's concept of "the Real" (1991), Genette's taxonomy of hypertextual relationships in literature (1997), and Barthes' theory of semiotic matrices in the language of fashion (1983). Throughout, the project's findings are supported and augmented by a discussion of analogous features in films, paintings, literature, and designer fashion. Chapter 2 introduces the idea of forgery in popular music. In addition to surveying the role of the contemporary record producer, Chapter 1 locates the historical and cultural significance of the sonic signature, provides an overview of its range in the field, and defines the term