Hearing Luxe Pop

Abstract

This chapter examines the concept of the “luxe pop” production practices and their evolution over the last several decades. It traces the connection between modern luxe pop, 1970s symphonic soul, and 1920s symphonic jazz. Each case features the timbre of a lush string orchestra as a stand-in for highbrow or elevated culture, while the overlaid genres of jazz, soul, and hip-hop function as a symbol of lowbrow culture. This juxtaposition of black/white, lowbrow/highbrow, street/luxury functions as musical irony and subversive sarcasm. This chapter traces specifically the connection between Jay-Z’s symphonic hip-hop production “Can I Live,” which samples Isaac Hayes’s cover of Burt Bacharach’s “The Look of Love,” a recording that was featured in the movie Casino Royale (1967). Pop music’s tendency to borrow samples from its own history (“retromania”) leads to an interconnected web of artists spanning decades of popular music.