Popular Culture Review Vol. 3, No. 2, August 1992 | Page 73

"Where Everybody Knows Your Name"

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make as much noise as possible for certain kinds of parties to be
considered a success. The ritual release through noise often receives
conunent the next day, like "Wow, I sound like a frog! Some party,
hunh?" The community's audeographic norm moves in exactly the
opposite direction—a successful party is one that is not noticed at all
or at worst, is merely a nunor disturbance of the peace.
Party planners reported they take both kinds of
audeographic norms into account. In college towns, however, hosts
most often leaned in favor of the party norm. Thus they looked for
signs of success during their parties. Planners knew inhibitions were
more relaxed when partiers started to play "air guitars" or "air
drums" in synchronization with a song. Planners knew inhibitions
were discarded when songs like "Mony, Mony" elicited stock, ribald
responses; when the lead singer sang "Here she comes moanin' Mony,
Mony,” most if not all partiers would respond in time to the music by
shouting "Hey! Get laid! Get fucked!" Raising the roof with
shouting was an important sign of party success. Shouting was
observed at most large parties, naturally since the noise level of
people talking and loud music required shouting just to communicate
simple information. However as a subdomain of party song
characteristics, shouting was a ritual form of participation,
signifying a party mood. Songs like "Why Don't We Get Drunk and
Screw?" by Jimmy Buffet and the Coral Reefer Band almost always
prompted hearty vocal participation during the hook accompanied
by the hoisting of beer glasses and swinging them back and forth to
the beat.
Party Music. Four characteristics were most often suggested
by informants as definitive of party songs: 1) the beat, 2) lyrics and 3)
danceability. Upon further questioning, some informants offered that
lyrics and danceability also included a fourth characteristic, 4)
participation. Each of the four characteristics of party songs is a
subdomain of the more generic cultural domain, party song. However,
informants also suggested that there were many kinds of parties with
different kinds of music played at them. In essence, "party songs" was
a subdomain of a more universal cultural domain, viz., party music.
Music as Background and Foreground Sound