ABSTRACT
This chapter reveals the close connection between music and visual imagery and the signifiers of play that operate on multiple levels. Identifying selected moments of audio-visual spectacle are therefore intended to further expose the temperamental traits of the artist, which, in turn, give rise to readings of representation. Fashion, according to Jean Baudrillard, is one of the most effective ways that capitalism restores social discrimination and cultural inequality. Baudrillard's conception of the object as a reflection of social and economic development is in danger of being reductionist, as he circumvents a need to consider fashion as a structure of intertextual relations. The foregrounding of the artist's voice in the recording constitutes the most personal of listening experiences. For the voice is always vulnerable, offering the promise of intimacy. Persuasion in such a strategy is constructed through the control of representation on-stage and in video recordings.
