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An influential writer on popular music asks what we talk about when we talk about music. Instead of dismissing emotional response and personal taste as inaccessible to academic critics, Frith takes these forms of engagement as his subject—and discloses their place at the center of the aesthetics that structure our culture and color our lives.
Popular music studies is a rapidly expanding field with changing emphases and agendas. The music industry has changed in recent years, as has governmental involvement in popular music schemes as part of the culture industry. The distinction between the major record labels and the outsider independents has become blurred over time. Popular music, as part of this umbrella of the culture industry, has been progressively globalized and globalizing. The tensions within popular music are now no longer between national cultural identity and popular music, but between the local and the global. This four volume collection examines the changing status of popular music against this background. Simon Frith examines the heritage of popular music, and how technology has changed not only the production but the reception of this brand of sound. The collection examines how the traditional genres of rock, pop and soul have broken down and what has replaced them, as well as showing how this proliferation of musical styles has also splintered the audience of popular music.
Popular music studies is a rapidly expanding field with changing emphases and agenda. This is a multi-volume resource for this area of study
Archive consists of the author, critic, and academic Simon Frith's personal archive of correspondence, music press articles and conference material donated to the University of Glasgow's Department of Music.
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Rock Music Research is the first comprehensive academic survey of the field of rock music as it stands today. More than 50 years into its life and we still ask - what is rock music, why is it studied, and how does it work, both as music and as cultural activity? This volume draws together 37 of the leading academics working on rock to provide answers to these questions and many more. The text is divided into four major sections: practice of rock (analysis, performance, and recording); theories; business of rock; and social and culture issues. Each chapter combines two approaches, providing a summary of current knowledge of the area concerned as well as the consequences of that research and suggesting profitable subsequent directions to take. This text investigates and presents the field at a level of depth worthy of something which has had such a pervasive influence on the lives of millions.
As a sociologist Simon Frith claims music is the result of the play of social forces, whether as an idea, an experience, or an activity. The essays in this important collection address these forces, recognising that music is an effect of a continuous proc
Simon Frith has been one of the most important figures in the emergence and subsequent development of popular music studies. The contributions to this volume of essays and memoirs seek to honour Frith’s achievements, but they are not merely ‘about Frith’. Rather, they are important interventions by leading scholars in the field, including Robert Christgau, Antoine Hennion, Peter J. Martin and Philip Tagg. This volume will become an essential resource for those working in popular music studies, as well as in musicology, sociology and cultural and media studies.
Considered one of the most innovative artists in the history of popular music, John Lennon is also a fascinating example of the relationship between rock music and celebrity. Through investigation of the cultural and historical background of his stardom in England and the United States, this book explores why John Lennon became a much-debated celebrity and why he remains so. Lennon's career from the 1960s until his tragic death in 1980, and even beyond, demonstrates how different expectations articulated by the star, the music industry, the media, and the fans form relations which change in terms of time and place. Using a multidisciplinary approach and intriguing case studies, this book also examines cultural identity, authenticity, and gender in popular music stardom.
The hidden material histories of music. Music is seen as the most immaterial of the arts, and recorded music as a progress of dematerialization—an evolution from physical discs to invisible digits. In Decomposed, Kyle Devine offers another perspective. He shows that recorded music has always been a significant exploiter of both natural and human resources, and that its reliance on these resources is more problematic today than ever before. Devine uncovers the hidden history of recorded music—what recordings are made of and what happens to them when they are disposed of. Devine's story focuses on three forms of materiality. Before 1950, 78 rpm records were made of shellac, a bug-based res...
Rock Music in American Popular Culture III: More Rock ’n’Roll Resources explores the fascinating world of rock music and examines how this medium functions as an expression of cultural and social identity. This nostalgic guide explores the meanings and messages behind some of the most popular rock ’n’roll songs that captured the American spirit, mirrored society, and reflected events in our history. Arranged by themes, Rock Music in American Popular Culture III examines a variety of social and cultural topics with related songs, such as: sex and censorship--“Only the Good Die Young” by Billy Joel and “Night Moves” by Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band holiday songs--“Rock...