%0 Journal Article
%T ¡®Y¡¯all don¡¯t wanna hear me, you just wanna dance¡¯: A cognitive approach to listener attention in OutKast¡¯s ¡®Hey Ya!¡¯
%A Matthew Voice
%A Sara Whiteley
%J Language and Literature
%@ 1461-7293
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0963947019827048
%X In his article on ¡®musical stylistics¡¯, Morini demonstrates (with reference to a song by Kate Bush) that lyrical and musical content can work in harmony to produce consonant meanings and stylistic effects. Our article develops Morini¡¯s musical-stylistic approach by employing cognitive theories to track how music and lyrics can work together in a different way. ¡®Hey Ya!¡¯ by OutKast (2003) employs a knowing dissonance between the song¡¯s lyrical content and its rhythm and key, the reconciliation of which leads to a drastic and surprising re-reading of the song¡¯s meaning, often documented in online articles and listener discussions. Combining a cognitive poetic approach with theories of ¡®habituation¡¯ and ¡®fluency¡¯ in music psychology, our analysis centres around the shifting position of the song¡¯s lyrics within the Figure and Ground of the composition, in order to account for listener (in)attentiveness. This leads to a consideration of the attentiveness of readers to lyrical content in music more generally, and its implications for stylistic analysis of the genre
%K Attention
%K cognitive poetics
%K multimodal stylistics
%K musical stylistics
%K OutKast
%K pop music
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0963947019827048