Product Description

Original essays by leading scholars in the field of popular music studies map the competing perspectives on the key terms of contemporary debates on popular music and culture. Each essay describes the history of continuities and conflicts in a term′s meaning, situating the writer′s own position on the term in that history of debate.

Providing a invaluable overview of the current state of popular music discourse, the collection will be useful both to those new to the study of popular music and those already well–versed in popular music and cultural studies.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #123798 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
"The book features an excellent roster of authors and will make a valuable companion to popular–music studies, histories and surveys" CHOICE

From the Back Cover
Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture presents eighteen original essays by leading scholars in the field of popular music studies. Each essay – drawing widely on work in feminist, postcolonial, and cultural studies and the disciplines of musicology and literary criticism – maps the competing perspectives on one of the key terms in ongoing debates on the meaning of popular music and culture, discusses the history of continuities and conflicts in its meaning, and presents the writer′s own views on its meaning and how he or she has come to adopt such a position.

These essays combine to form a valuable overview of the state of popular music discourse at the end of the twentieth century. They will prove invaluable both to those new to the study of popular music and those already well–versed in popular music and cultural studies.

About the Author
Bruce Horner has degrees in both music and English. His essays on song criticism have appeared in such journals as Mosaic, Writing on the Edge, and the Journal of Musicology. He is Associate Professor of English at Drake University, where he teaches courses on song criticism.

Thomas Swiss has had essays published in Popular Music, Postmodern Culture, New England Review, and The New York Times Book Review. His most recent books are Rough Cut, a collection of poems (1997), and the co–edited Mapping the Beat: Popular Music and Contemporary Theory (Blackwell, 1997). He teaches courses on music and contemporary culture at Drake University, where he is Center for the Humanities Professor.

Customer Reviews

A good resource... for some
This book is not for the casual student of popular music. You'll find no cool stories of amazing concerts and no tales of studio high jinx here (well, almost none anyway), and a good biography or fifteen would serve you better for that. This is about analyzing popular music writ large in a deep and profound manner, even about taking a stab at defining popular music as a field of study. The language is fairly academic and the points made seem less than exciting at times. Simply put, this is mainly for college students (especially those involved in musicology) and for those it will be a good resource. Others would be much better off buying something else.