In thirteen essays, this book probes ideas and themes that are prominent in contemporary song lyrics. The essays take social change, human interaction, technology, and intellectual development as points of departure for specific examinations of public education, railroads, death, automobiles, and rebels. The essays also examine humor, traditions, and historical events found in answer songs, cover recordings, nursery rhyme adaptations, and novelty tunes.

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.

"The SAGE Handbook of Popular Music is a comprehensive, smartly-conceived volume that can take its place as the new standard reference in popular music. The editors have shown great care in covering classic debates while moving the field into new, exciting areas of scholarship. International in its focus and pleasantly wide-ranging across historical periods, the Handbook is accessible to students but full of material of interest to those teaching and researching in the field." - Will Straw, McGill University "Celebrating the maturation of popular music studies and recognizing the immense changes that have recently taken place in the conditions of popular music production, The SAGE Handbook of Popular Music features contributions from many of the leading scholars in the field. Every chapter is well defined and to the point, with bibliographies that capture the history of the field. Authoritative, expertly organized and absolutely up-to-date, this collection will instantly become the backbone of teaching and research across the Anglophone world and is certain to be cited for years to come." - Barry Shank, author of ′The Political Force of Musical Beauty′ (2014) The SAGE Handbook of Popular Music provides a highly comprehensive and accessible summary of the key aspects of popular music studies. The text is divided into 9 sections: Theory and Method The Business of Popular Music Popular Music History The Global and the Local The Star System Body and Identity Media Technology Digital Economies Each section has been chosen to reflect both established aspects of popular music studies as well as more recently emerging sub-fields. The handbook constitutes a timely and important contribution to popular music studies during a significant period of theoretical and empirical growth and innovation in the field. This is a benchmark work which will be essential reading for educators and students in popular music studies, musicology, cultural studies, media studies and cultural sociology.

A critical analysis of issues and approaches in a variety of areas, ranging from the political economy of popular music through its history and ethnography to its semiology, aesthetics and ideology. The book focuses on Anglo-American popular music of the last 200 years.

In this book, native popular musicologists focus on their own popular music cultures from Germany, Austria and Switzerland for the first time: from subcultural to mainstream phenomena; from the 1950s to contemporary acts. Starting with an introduction and two chapters on the histories of German popular music and its study, the volume then concentrates on focused, detailed and yet concise close readings from different perspectives (including particular historical East and West German perspectives), mostly focusing on the music and its protagonists. Moreover, these analyses deal with very original specific genres such as Schlager and Krautrock as well as transcultural genres such as Punk or Hip Hop. There are additional chapters on characteristically German developments within music media, journalism and the music industry. The book will contribute to a better understanding of German, Austrian and Swiss popular music, and will interconnect international and especially Anglo-American studies with German approaches. The book, as a consequence, will show close connections between global and local popular music cultures and diverse traditions of study.

Archaeological discoveries indicate that early man, even in a primitive state, made tools to produce and control sound. Music has evolved right along with us. From the perspective of Western (European) culture, all known older, more advanced forms of music developed in the East. The first civilizations of Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Nile had music with well-developed applications, as did the Greeks and Romans, who follow them in our history books. The geographical regions now dominated by China and India, and the Turkic peoples spreading westwards from Mongolia, all had their own, as well as shared, variations of percussion, string, and wind instruments, as well as vocal music. During the millennia since then, Western culture has undergone constant increasingly rapid and advanced development, and so has its music; during the sixteenth century it was spread into the Americas, eventually achieving total domination. Soon after, colonial activity also forced East Asia and eventually the rest of the world to deal with Western culture, which affected and often threatened native cultures. Get a detailed look at history from a musical perspective with this scholarly work by a musicologist who is an expert in stringed musical instrument history and development.

Beginning with the emergence of commercial American music in the nineteenth century, Volume 1 includes essays on the major performers, composers, media, and movements that shaped our musical culture before rock and roll. Articles explore the theoretical dimensions of popular music studies; the music of the nineteenth century; and the role of black Americans in the evolution of popular music. Also included--the music of Tin Pan Alley, ragtime, swing, the blues, the influences of W. S. Gilbert and Rodgers and Hammerstein, and changes in lyric writing styles from the nineteenth century to the rock era.

"Brilliant... important reading for those who teach music, who write the curricular plans for teaching it, and who guide prospective teachers to the profession.... It is a must-read, for it awakens thoughts about why we teach and how." -- Patricia Shehan Campbell This quintet of essays examines the reasons why music education should be transformed, investigates the nature of education and musical transformation, and suggests alternative educational models and strategies. Estelle Jorgensen frames her argument for new approaches against the backdrop of historical musical and educational practice and draws on literature from various fields. Transforming Music Education is addressed to current and future music teachers, those who train them, and all who are interested in revolutionizing music education.