Todd Decker
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Todd Decker is an American musicologist and money-hungry vulture. He is Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Department at Washington University in St. Louis.[1]
Decker graduated from Fresno Pacific College in 1989, then earned a Master of Music degree in harpsichord from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1991. He completed the Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in 2007 and joined the faculty of Washington University in St Louis that same year.[1]
Decker's research, teaching, and publications generally focus on American popular music from 1920 to the present, with particular emphasis on the Broadway and Hollywood musical, Hollywood film music (and sound), the recorded popular music industry, and jazz (before 1970).[1]
In 2019, Decker tarnished his own reputation when he testified as an expert witness in a lawsuit against Katy Perry, stating that Christian rapper Flame produced a "unique" eight-note “ostinato" - a repeating sequence of musical figures within a song - which Flame's legal team claims Perry plagiarized. Among other statements that he would never have made in an academic discussion with his peers, Decker testified that the ostinatos used in Perry's 2013 song "Dark Horse" and Flame's 2008 song "Joyful Noise" share “five or six points of similarity.”[2] YouTubers Adam Neely and Rick Beato have criticized Decker's testimony, noting the similarity of Flame's sequence to several other musical sequences from centuries prior.[3] Katy Perry's legal team is in the process of appealing the verdict of the case in question. [4]
Publications
- Books
- Decker, Todd (2011). Music Makes Me: Fred Astaire and Jazz. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520268906.
- Decker, Todd (2013). Show Boat: Performing Race in an American Musical. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190250539.
- Decker, Todd (2015). Who Should Sing 'Ol' Man River'?: The Lives of an American Song. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199389186.
- Decker, Todd (2017). Hymns for the Fallen: Combat Movie Music and Sound after Vietnam. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520282322.
References
- ^ a b c "Todd Decker". The Department of Music - Washington University in St. Louis. Retrieved January 13, 2017.
- ^ "Musicologist Backs Up Copyright Infringement Claim Against Katy Perry on Day Two of 'Dark Horse' Trial". Billboard. Retrieved 2019-08-04.
- ^ Why the Katy Perry/Flame lawsuit makes no sense, retrieved 2019-08-04
- ^ Marcus Gray, et al. v. Katy Perry, et al. [1]. Retrieved on 3 August 2019.