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.

Now in an updated fourth edition, this popular A-Z student handbook provides a comprehensive survey of key ideas and concepts in popular music culture. With new and expanded entries on genres and subgenres, the text comprehensively examines the social and cultural aspects of popular music, taking into account the digital music revolution and changes in the way that music is manufactured, marketed and delivered. New and updated entries include: Age and youth Black music Digital music culture K-Pop Mash-ups Philadelphia Soul Pub music Religion and spirituality Remix Southern Soul Streaming Vinyl With further reading and listening included throughout, Popular Music: The Key Concepts is an essential reference text for all students studying the social and cultural dimensions of popular music.

The work that is about to be surveyed by the reader represents decades of painstaking work to provide him or her with the most positive and freshest perspective with respect to what the discipline of history teaches him or her to improve the quality of not only his or her daily life but also those of all other whom he or she comes into contact with. This task is accomplished when he or she becomes aware of the fact that the greatest possible good can only be achieved through the promotion of the adequate satisfaction of the greatest number of needs of the maximum number of people within the context of its being mutually beneficial to all parties involved. Furthermore, the reader of this volume gains the widest perspective on how the above assertion is valid for and has a positive impact on all fields of human endeavor, individual human lives, and human institutions, since the content of historical subject matter consists of nothing less than the past and present record of all the events and developments of the above entities. Thus, since everything that people learn is through past and present experiences, history teaches them everything and nothing can be perceived outside the framework of its subject matter. To present a graphic example to the reader of this volume to clearly illustrate the truth and validity of the above points, the author has used the comparison and contrast of the values, beliefs, and cultures of two very different societies in variant times and places to do so. The retrograde valuing of power and wealth placed on them by a small elite in European medieval society, resulting in limited social mobility in a primarily agrarian society, is in marked contrast to the emphasis on limited individual freedom within the framework of the rule of law as espoused by modern America. Within the latter framework, it was possible to develop a modern industrial and postindustrial community to provide individual social advancement through educational and employment opportunities as well as through the availability of quality health care. Finally, through all that has been stated above, it is worthwhile for society at large as well as the academic community to peruse through the contents of this volume in order to accomplish the above objectives.

This book explores popular music fandom from a cultural studies perspective that incorporates popular music studies, audience research, and media fandom. The essays draw together recent work on fandom in popular music studies and begin a dialogue with the wider field of media fan research, raising questions about how popular music fandom can be understood as a cultural phenomenon and how much it has changed in light of recent developments. Exploring the topic in this way broaches questions on how to define, theorize, and empirically research popular music fan culture, and how music fandom relates to other roles, practices, and forms of social identity. Fandom itself has been brought center stage by the rise of the internet and an industrial structure aiming to incorporate, systematize, and legitimate dimensions of it as an emotionally-engaged form of consumerism. Once perceived as the pariah practice of an overly attached audience, media fandom has become a standardized industrial subject-position called upon to sell box sets, concert tickets, new television series, and special editions. Meanwhile, recent scholarship has escaped the legacy of interpretations that framed fans as passive, pathological, or defiantly empowered, taking its object seriously as a complex formation of identities, roles, and practices. While popular music studies has examined some forms of identity and audience practice, such as the way that people use music in daily life and listener participation in subcultures, scenes and, tribes, this volume is the first to examine music fans as a specific object of study.

The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music Volume 1 provides an overview of media, industry, and technology and its relationship to popular music. In 500 entries by 130 contributors from around the world, the volume explores the topic in two parts: Part I: Social and Cultural Dimensions, covers the social phenomena of relevance to the practice of popular music and Part II: The Industry, covers all aspects of the popular music industry, such as copyright, instrumental manufacture, management and marketing, record corporations, studios, companies, and labels. Entries include bibliographies, discographies and filmographies, and an extensive index is provided.

Focusing on the variety of genres that make up pop music, Roy Shuker explores key subjects which shape our experience of music such as music production, the music industry, music policy, fans, audiences and subcultures.

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Popular Music is the first comprehensive analysis of the most important themes and concepts in this field. Drawing on contemporary research from religious studies, theology, sociology, ethnography, and cultural studies, the volume comprises thirty-one specifically commissioned essays from a team of international experts. The chapters explore the principal areas of inquiry and point to new directions for scholarship. Featuring chapters on methodology, key genres, religious traditions and popular music subcultures, this volume provides the essential reference point for anyone with an interest in religion and popular music as well as popular culture more broadly. Religious traditions covered include Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Paganism and occultism. Coverage of genres and religion ranges from heavy metal, rap and hip hop to country music and film and television music. Edited by Christopher Partridge and Marcus Moberg, this Handbook defines the research field and provides an accessible entry point for new researchers in the field.

This volume explores the nature, philosophies and genres of indigenous African popular music, focusing on how indigenous African popular music artistes are seen as prophets and philosophers, and how indigenous African popular music depicts the world. Indigenous African popular music has long been under-appreciated in communication scholarship. However, understanding the nature and philosophies of indigenous African popular music reveals an untapped diversity which only be unraveled by knowledge of the myriad cultural backgrounds from which its genres originate. Indigenous African popular musicians have become repositories of indigenous cultural traditions and cosmologies.With a particular focus on scholarship from Nigeria, Zimbabwe and South Africa, this volume explores the work of these pioneering artists and their protégés who are resiliently sustaining, recreating and popularising indigenous popular music in their respective African communities, and at the same time propagating the communal views about African philosophies and the temporal and spiritual worlds in which they exist. ​