Word: listenability
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...earliest functions was to get people through hard times. During slavery, spirituals would sometimes be encoded with secret messages, directions on how to get North to freedom. Franklin's cryptic hurt serves a similar function; it draws us in, it commands empathy, and it ultimately points us north. Listen to her voice on the prayerful Wholy Holy, spiraling away, taking us away. North out of heartbreak, north out of oppression, north toward where we want...
...commercial viability, Sinatra would eventually record Presley's hit Love Me Tender as well as works by Paul Simon (Mrs. Robinson), George Harrison (Something) and Joni Mitchell (Both Sides Now). The results were often awkward--this is the Sinatra people like me used to make fun of. But listen with more knowing ears: when Sinatra sings "You stick around, Jack, it might show" on Something, you get the feeling not that he's hoking it up Vegas-style so much as he's rooting around for rhythmic complexity in a beautiful if simple song; he's a muscle car idling...
...through her talk show that her influence has been greatest. When Winfrey talks, her viewers--an estimated 14 million daily in the U.S. and millions more in 132 other countries--listen. Any book she chooses for her on-air book club becomes an instant best seller. When she established the "world's largest piggy bank," people all over the country contributed spare change to raise more than $1 million (matched by Oprah) to send disadvantaged kids to college. When she blurted that hearing about the threat of mad-cow disease "just stopped me cold from eating another burger!", the perceived...
Women, especially, listen to Winfrey because they feel as if she's a friend. Although Phil Donahue pioneered the format she uses (mike-holding host moves among an audience whose members question guests), his show was mostly what I call "report-talk," which often typifies men's conversation. The overt focus is on information. Winfrey transformed the format into what I call "rapport-talk," the back-and-forth conversation that is the basis of female friendship, with its emphasis on self-revealing intimacies. She turned the focus from experts to ordinary people talking about personal issues. Girls' and women...
There was energy aplenty in these films and songs--an undying verve and assurance. But the energy was controlled, confined by the need for universal acceptance. In a homogenous culture you want everyone to see your movie, listen to your radio show, sing your song. That meant playing by the rules. Even the pioneer rebel Paul Robeson did that, speaking eloquently, singing handsomely, shrouding his revolutionary sexuality...