Pop Music Journal

In this book, Alison Stone argues that popular music since rock-‘n’-roll is a unified form of music which has positive value. That value is that popular music affirms the importance of materiality and the body, challenging the long-standing Western elevation of the intellect above all things corporeal. Stone also argues that popular music’s stress on materiality gives it aesthetic value, drawing on ideas from the post-Kantian tradition in aesthetics by Hegel, Adorno, and others. She shows that popular music gives importance to materiality in its typical structure: in how music of this type handles the relations between matter and form, the relations between sounds and words, and in how it deals with rhythm, meaning, and emotional expression. Extensive use is made of musical examples from a wide range of popular music genres. This book is distinctive in that it defends popular music on philosophical grounds, particularly informed by the continental tradition in philosophy.

This book explores popular music in Eastern Europe during the period of state socialism, in countries such as Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Estonia and Albania. It discusses the policy concerning music, the greatest Eastern European stars, such as Karel Gott, Czesław Niemen and Omega, as well as DJs and the music press. By conducting original research, including interviews and examining archival material, the authors take issue with certain assumptions prevailing in the existing studies on popular music in Eastern Europe, namely that it was largely based on imitation of western music and that this music had a distinctly anti-communist flavour. Instead, they argue that self-colonisation was accompanied with creating an original idiom, and that the state not only fought the artists, but also supported them. The collection also draws attention to the foreign successes of Eastern European stars, both within the socialist bloc and outside of it. v>

Pop music surrounds us - in our cars, over supermarket speakers, even when we are laid out at the dentist - but how often do we really hear what's playing? Switched on Pop is the book based on the eponymous podcast that has been hailed by NPR, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, and Entertainment Weekly for its witty and accessible analysis of Top 40 hits. Through close studies of sixteen modern classics, musicologist Nate Sloan and songwriter Charlie Harding shift pop from the background to the foreground, illuminating the essential musical concepts behind two decades of chart-topping songs. In 1939, Aaron Copland published What to Listen for in Music, the bestseller that made classical music approachable for generations of listeners. Eighty years later, Nate and Charlie update Copland's idea for a new audience and repertoire: 21st century pop, from Britney to Beyoncé, Outkast to Kendrick Lamar. Despite the importance of pop music in contemporary culture, most discourse only revolves around lyrics and celebrity. Switched on Pop gives readers the tools they need to interpret our modern soundtrack. Each chapter investigates a different song and artist, revealing musical insights such as how a single melodic motif follows Taylor Swift through every genre that she samples, André 3000 uses metric manipulation to get listeners to "shake it like a Polaroid picture," or Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee create harmonic ambiguity in "Despacito" that mirrors the patterns of global migration. Replete with engaging discussions and eye-catching illustrations, Switched on Pop brings to life the musical qualities that catapult songs into the pop pantheon. Readers will find themselves listening to familiar tracks in new waysand not just those from the Top 40. The timeless concepts that Nate and Charlie define can be applied to any musical style. From fanatics to skeptics, teenagers to octogenarians, non-musicians to professional composers, every music lover will discover something ear-opening in Switched on Pop.

This book explores the relationships between popular music, technology, and the changing media ecosystem. More precisely, it looks at infrastructures and practices of music making and consuming primarily in the post-Napster era of digitization – with some chapters looking back on the technological precursors to digital culture – marked by the emergence of digital tools and platforms such as YouTube or Spotify. The first section provides a critical overview of theories addressing popular music and digital technology, while the second section offers an analysis of the relationship between musical cultures, taste, constructions of authenticity, and technology. The third section offers case studies on the materialities of music consumption from outside the western core of popular music production. The final section reflects on music scenes and the uses and discourses of social media.

This new edition of Popular Music and Society, fully revised and updated, continues to pioneer an approach to the study of popular music that is informed by wider debates in sociology and media and cultural studies. Astute and accessible, it continues to set the agenda for research and teaching in this area. The textbook begins by examining the ways in which popular music is produced, before moving on to explore its structure as text and the ways in which audiences understand and use music. Packed with examples and data on the contemporary production and consumption of popular music, the book also includes overviews and critiques of theoretical approaches to this exciting area of study and outlines the most important empirical studies which have shaped the discipline. Topics covered include: • The contemporary organisation of the music industry; • The effects of technological change on production; • The history and politics of popular music; • Gender, sexuality and ethnicity; • Subcultures; • Fans and music celebrities. For this new edition, two whole new chapters have been added: on performance and the body, and on the very latest ways of thinking about audiences and the spaces and places of music consumption. This second edition of Popular Music and Society will continue to be required reading for students of the sociology of culture, media and communication studies, and popular culture.

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music Educationdraws together current thinking and practice on popular music education from empirical, ethnographic, sociological and philosophical perspectives. Through a series of unique chapters from authors working at the forefront of music education, this book explores the ways in which an international group of music educators each approach popular music education. Chapters discuss pedagogies from across the spectrum of formal to informal learning, including “outside” and “other” perspectives that provide insight into the myriad ways in which popular music education is developed and implemented. The book is organized into the following sections: - Conceptualizing Popular Music Education - Musical, Creative and Professional Development - Originating Popular Music - Popular Music Education in Schools - Identity, Meaning and Value in Popular Music Education - Formal Education, Creativities and Assessment Contributions from academics, teachers, and practitioners make this an innovative and exciting volume for students, teachers, researchers and professors in popular music studies and music education.

Black Popular Music in Britain Since 1945 provides the first broad scholarly discussion of this music since 1990. The book critically examines key moments in the history of black British popular music from 1940s jazz to 1970s soul and reggae, 1990s Jungle and the sounds of Dubstep and Grime that have echoed through the 2000s. While the book offers a history it also discusses the ways black musics in Britain have intersected with the politics of race and class, multiculturalism, gender and sexuality, and debates about media and technology. Contributors examine the impact of the local, the ways that black music in Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester and London evolved differently and how black popular music in Britain has always developed in complex interaction with the dominant British popular music tradition. This tradition has its own histories located in folk music, music hall and a constant engagement, since the nineteenth century, with American popular music, itself a dynamic mixing of African-American, Latin American and other musics. The ideas that run through various chapters form connecting narratives that challenge dominant understandings of black popular music in Britain and will be essential reading for those interested in Popular Music Studies, Black British Studies and Cultural Studies.

On the crossroads between the cultural influences of perceived global models and local specificity, entangled in webs of post-communist complexity, Bulgarian popular music has evolved as a space of change and creativity on the edge of Europe. An ethnographic exploration, this book accesses insight from music figures from a spectrum of styles.