8 | Emo (Con) Special with Varun Chandrasekhar

12 | Queer Appalachia and Strange Americana with Dr. Jacob Kopcienski

Show Notes Today’s show focuses on queer and leftist americana music, as well as associated fandoms across the broader Appalachian region of the United States. Dr. Jacob Kopcienski, Assistant Professor of Musicology at Appalachian State University, is our guide through the complexities of place, politics, and identity across this cultural and geographic zone. Their work engages ethnographic and archival research with popular music and media studies, which gives us a ton to talk about. Throughout, we explore how depression, queerness, and community manifest in regionally specific ways, molded around—but also against—their circumstances. Content Warning: Suicide, drug addiction, depression and mental health struggles Timestamps 00:00 Intro 3:15 Guest Intro 10:15 (Regionally-specific) depression in popular music 19:25 Aesthetic dimensions of queer americana 32:48 Queerness and class 37:15 Methods 46:18 (Western) North Carolina, drag performance, and climate change 1:02:15 What’s making guest cry Music Discussed [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2seRWPmqebseirPF7l5W1B?si=6LbSOo4cTRmW4LFomhon9A] References * Mutual Aid in Boone, Western North Carolina, and Appalachia [https://docs.google.com/document/d/13gPvZC7fgbVQotxAMQh9SiRsw3ClpWvzuVSbw5-wEp8/edit?tab=t.0] * Drag Call for Proposals [https://forms.gle/HXggRNEkXZutwN417] Enriquez, Sophia. 2020. “‘ [https://online.ucpress.edu/jpms/article/32/2/63/110769/Penned-Against-the-Wall-Migration-Narratives]Penned Against the Wall’: [https://online.ucpress.edu/jpms/article/32/2/63/110769/Penned-Against-the-Wall-Migration-Narratives]Migration Narratives, Cultural Resonances, and Latinx Experiences in Appalachian Music.” [https://online.ucpress.edu/jpms/article/32/2/63/110769/Penned-Against-the-Wall-Migration-Narratives]Journal of Popular Music Studies [https://online.ucpress.edu/jpms/article/32/2/63/110769/Penned-Against-the-Wall-Migration-Narratives]32 (2): 63–76. [https://online.ucpress.edu/jpms/article/32/2/63/110769/Penned-Against-the-Wall-Migration-Narratives] Johnson, E. Patrick. 2010. “‘Quare’ studies, or (almost) everything I know about queer studies I learned from my grandmother.” [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10462930128119] Text and Performance Quarterly [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10462930128119] 21 (1): 1–25. [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10462930128119] Mahon, Maureen. 2020. [https://www.dukeupress.edu/black-diamond-queens]Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll [https://www.dukeupress.edu/black-diamond-queens]. Duke University Press. [https://www.dukeupress.edu/black-diamond-queens] Murchison, Gayle. 2018. “Let’s Flip It! Quare EmancipationsBlack Queer Traditions, Afrofuturisms, Janelle Monáe to Labelle.” [https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/article/705630/pdf]Women and Music [https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/article/705630/pdf] 22: 79–90. [https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/article/705630/pdf] Rosyter, Francesca. 2022. [https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477326510/]Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions [https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477326510/]. University of Texas Press. [https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477326510/] Stoever, Jennifer Lynn. 2016. [http://Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening]The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening [http://Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening]. New York University Press. [http://Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dandipiero.substack.com [https://dandipiero.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

11 | Everything That There Is with Dr. Macon Holt

Hello cry babies! Today’s episode is all about the role of popular music in a capitalist hellscape! How has our situation changed since the postmodern turn? What are we to make of popular music in the era of capitalist realism and depressive hedonia? What if it turns out we’re all watching Infinite Jest in small chunks without realizing it? How can we meet enough of our needs to be able to launch a revolution? We’re getting into the critical theory of it all with Dr. Macon Holt. Content Warning: suicide, genocide, depression Timestamps 00:00: intro 4:24: guest intro and book project 23:10: what the fuck is going on? (workshops) 37:25: Labubu as an index of desire 48:12: what’s making guest cry References * Macon’s Book [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/pop-music-and-hip-ennui-9781501346668/] * Lacan’s graph of desire [https://medium.com/@umbertocrisanti/the-graph-of-desire-without-making-your-head-spin-and-a-music-game-for-you-a81d911357b1] * Lacan’s math [https://nosubject.com/List_of_Algebraic_Symbols] * Passive/Aggressive [https://soundcloud.com/thelakeradio/sets/passive-aggressive] * Super Time Books [https://supertimebooks.com/] Fisher, Mark. 2009. [https://files.libcom.org/files/[Mark_Fisher]_Capitalist_Realism_Is_There_no_Alte(BookZZ.org).pdf]Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? [https://files.libcom.org/files/[Mark_Fisher]_Capitalist_Realism_Is_There_no_Alte(BookZZ.org).pdf]Zer0 Books. [https://files.libcom.org/files/[Mark_Fisher]_Capitalist_Realism_Is_There_no_Alte(BookZZ.org).pdf] Hebdige, Dick. 1979. [https://www.erikclabaugh.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/181899847-Subculture.pdf]Subculture: The Meaning of a Style [https://www.erikclabaugh.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/181899847-Subculture.pdf]. Routledge. [https://www.erikclabaugh.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/181899847-Subculture.pdf] Holt, Macon. 2019. [https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/pop-music-and-hip-ennui-9781501346675/]Pop Music and Hip Ennui: A Sonic Fiction of Capitalist Realism [https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/pop-music-and-hip-ennui-9781501346675/]. Bloomsbury. [https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/pop-music-and-hip-ennui-9781501346675/] Holt, Macon. 2020. “The Entertainment.” In [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/bloomsbury-handbook-of-the-anthropology-of-sound-9781501335419/]The Bloomsbury Handbook of the Anthropology of Sound [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/bloomsbury-handbook-of-the-anthropology-of-sound-9781501335419/], edited by Holger Schulze. Bloomsbury. [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/bloomsbury-handbook-of-the-anthropology-of-sound-9781501335419/] Mooney, Gavin. 2012. “Neoliberalism is bad for our health.” [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22993960/]International journal of health services: planning, administration, evaluation [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22993960/], 42( 3): 383–401. https://doi.org/10.2190/HS.42.3.b [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22993960/] Wallace, David Foster. 1996. [https://bookshop.org/p/books/infinite-jest-30th-anniversary-edition-david-foster-wallace/6549eeba4077763d?ean=9780316602921&next=t]Infinite Jest [https://bookshop.org/p/books/infinite-jest-30th-anniversary-edition-david-foster-wallace/6549eeba4077763d?ean=9780316602921&next=t]. Little, Brown and Company. [https://bookshop.org/p/books/infinite-jest-30th-anniversary-edition-david-foster-wallace/6549eeba4077763d?ean=9780316602921&next=t] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dandipiero.substack.com [https://dandipiero.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

10 | Preprogrammed with Dr. Amy Skjerseth

Show Notes My guest today is Dr. Amy Skjerseth, Assistant Professor of Popular Music at UC Riverside. Amy is one of the most prolific and prodigious thinkers I know, and she provides us with an entire reading list throughout the course of this episode. From Tina Turner to anti-ICE whistles, we’re talking sound, media, technology, and disciplinarity. Get hip! Timestamps: 00:00: Intro 1:13: Guest Intro and Popular Music Studies 9:39: Sound Studies 16:39: Preprogrammed 36:01: Yoko Ono and the Feminist Wall of Sound 50:17: Host’s training and the question of interdisciplinarity 58:38 What’s making guest cry Music Discussed [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/17CAOBcFU6JN0yoouXJYNV?si=eaL4w5uSRwukU4-Onq_xnw] References Alexander, Neta. 2025. [https://www.dukeupress.edu/interface-frictions]Interface Frictions: How Digital Debility Reshapes Our Bodies. [https://www.dukeupress.edu/interface-frictions]Duke University Press. [https://www.dukeupress.edu/interface-frictions] Atkinson, Niall. 2016. [https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-07119-0.html]The Noisy Renaissance: Sound, Architecture, and Florentine Urban Life [https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-07119-0.html]. Penn State University Press. [https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-07119-0.html] Corbin, Alain. 1998. [https://cup.columbia.edu/book/village-bells/9780231104500/]Village Bells: The Culture of the Senses in the Nineteenth-Century French Countryside [https://cup.columbia.edu/book/village-bells/9780231104500/]. Columbia University Press. [https://cup.columbia.edu/book/village-bells/9780231104500/] Echols, Alice. 2010. [https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393338911]Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture. [https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393338911]W. W. Norton and Company. [https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393338911] Field, Allyson Nadia. 2026. [https://www.ucpress.edu/books/acts-of-love/hardcover]Acts of Love: Black Performance and the Kiss That Changed Film History [https://www.ucpress.edu/books/acts-of-love/hardcover]. University of California Press. [https://www.ucpress.edu/books/acts-of-love/hardcover] Gordon, Theodore. 2025. The Composer’s Black Box: Making Music in Cybernetic America. University of California Press. [https://www.ucpress.edu/books/the-composers-black-box/paper] Hartman, Saidiya (works). [https://saidiyahartman.com/books/] Miller, Karl Hagstrom. 2010. [https://www.dukeupress.edu/segregating-sound]Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pop Music in the Age of Jim Crow. [https://www.dukeupress.edu/segregating-sound]Duke University Press. [https://www.dukeupress.edu/segregating-sound] Ono, Yoko. 2000. [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Grapefruit/Yoko-Ono/9780743201100]Grapefruit [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Grapefruit/Yoko-Ono/9780743201100]: [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Grapefruit/Yoko-Ono/9780743201100]A Book of Instructions and Drawings by Yoko Ono [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Grapefruit/Yoko-Ono/9780743201100]. Simon & Schuster. [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Grapefruit/Yoko-Ono/9780743201100] Skjerseth, Amy with Catherine Provenzano. 2025. “ Instrumental Presets: The Visible Past of Music Technology.” Popular Music Books in Process Series, April 23. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGdvYClpVLQ] Spiers, Aurore. 2026. [https://www.ucpress.edu/books/archiving-the-past/hardcover]Archiving the Past: Women’s Film History in France, 1927–1978 [https://www.ucpress.edu/books/archiving-the-past/hardcover]. University of California Press. [https://www.ucpress.edu/books/archiving-the-past/hardcover] Sterne, Jonathan. [https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-audible-past]The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction [https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-audible-past]. Duke University Press, 2003. [https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-audible-past] Sounding Out! [https://soundstudiesblog.com/](blog) [https://soundstudiesblog.com/] Thompson, Emily. 2004. [https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262701068/the-soundscape-of-modernity/]The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900–1933 [https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262701068/the-soundscape-of-modernity/]. MIT Press. [https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262701068/the-soundscape-of-modernity/] Wilson, Carl. 2014. [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/lets-talk-about-love-9781623563288/]Let’s Talk About Love: Why Other People Have Such Bad Taste. [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/lets-talk-about-love-9781623563288/] Bloomsbury. [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/lets-talk-about-love-9781623563288/] Yale French Studies volume. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/i347886] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dandipiero.substack.com [https://dandipiero.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

9 | Cuban Reparto with Dr. Mike Levine

Show Notes Welcome back! I said I was gonna do a solo episode but I don’t have the bandwidth right now. Instead we’re jumping back in with a wonderful episode about Cuban Reparto music with my guest Dr. Mike Levine [https://mikelevinemusic.me/], Assistant Professor of Musicology at Christopher Newport University. From production to consumption to distribution, we cover many of the most pertinent characteristics of this kind of Reggaeton-adjacent tradition, and get into the politics of censorship, gender, and place—among other things. Timestamps 00:00: Intro 3:05: Mike’s research interests in Cuba 5:20: Mike’s book (Pegao), the USB distribution network of Cuban popular music, and the question of political music 22:40: Reparto aesthetics 36:12: Global Reggaeton 41:37: Gender in Reparto 44:06: What’s making guest cy Music Discussed [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6ZWjgZQOeoJecgq84Ic47m?si=qsql58pDSO-6txhnLU4IOw] References Díaz, Vanessa, and Petra R. Rivera-Rideau. 2026. P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance. Duke University Press. Levine, Mike. 2025. “Sneaking Across the Digital Divide: Usb Sticks and the Infrastructure of Independent Cuban Music.” In Independence in 21st-Century Popular Music: Cases from Beyond Anglo-America, edited by Shannon Garland, Pedro Belchior Nunes, and Pedro Roxo. Bloomsbury. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dandipiero.substack.com [https://dandipiero.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

8 | Emo (Con) Special with Varun Chandrasekhar

Show Notes On this episode I speak with Varun Chandrasekhar about all things emo, but perhaps most pertinently, the academic conference he’s organized around the music, to take place at Washington University in St. Louis on April 10th and 11th. Varun is a PhD candidate in Music Theory at WashU, where his dissertation focuses on reading Charles Mingus through the existential philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre. In our conversation, we discuss the EMO CON 2026—TO WHICH YOU MAY STILL SUBMIT ABSTRACTS—as well as 4th wave emo’s aesthetics and politics, neoliberal disillusionment, THE MIDWEST, music about being a bad person, and MORE. Timestamps 1:34: Emo Con/4th Wave Emo 24:30: JPMS article/Neoliberal (dis)identification 42:00 Silly Little Emo Band/Charles Mingus 49:30 What’s Making Guest Cry Music Discussed [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6yc7FEt9mGUXAhtrmEfrVN?si=x4qCmI8ZSlOBo8Az4zVfpQ] (two playlists, for the enthusiasts) References Chandrasekhar, Varun. Forthcoming. “‘When Things Don’t Get Better, No Things Don’t Get Better, Just Different’: Emo and Affect Under Neoliberalism.” Journal of Popular Music Studies. Chandrasekhar, Varun. 2025. “Jazz and Commitment: Sartre, Jazz, and Charles Mingus.” [https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/jac/article-abstract/8/2/1/405610/Jazz-and-Commitment-Sartre-Jazz-and-Charles?redirectedFrom=fulltext]Jazz and Culture [https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/jac/article-abstract/8/2/1/405610/Jazz-and-Commitment-Sartre-Jazz-and-Charles?redirectedFrom=fulltext] 8 (2): 1–27. [https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/jac/article-abstract/8/2/1/405610/Jazz-and-Commitment-Sartre-Jazz-and-Charles?redirectedFrom=fulltext] Fathallah, Judith. 2020. Emo: How Fans Defined a Subculture. University of Iowa Press. Gabbard, Krin. 1995. “Signifyin(g) the Phallus: Mo’ Better Blues and Representations of the Jazz Trumpet.” In Representing Jazz, edited by Krin Gabbard. Duke University Press. Howie, Tyler and Matt Chiu. 2022. “Analytical Frameworks for Post(-Millennial) Punk: The “Twinkle” Schema in the Emo Revival.” [https://smt-pod.org/episodes/season01/e1.11/]SMT-Pod [https://smt-pod.org/episodes/season01/e1.11/] Podcast, Season 1 Episodes 11 and 12. https://smt-pod.org/episodes/season01/e1.11/. [https://smt-pod.org/episodes/season01/e1.11/] Peters, Sean. In Process. “Life in Plastic (It’s Fantastic): The Significance of the Cassette Tape to Punk Rock in Four Stories.” PhD dissertation, Cornell University. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dandipiero.substack.com [https://dandipiero.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]