On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word / Edition 1

by Simon Frith, Andrew Goodwin

Overview

Classic sociological analyses of 'deviance' and rebellion; studies of technology; subcultural and feminist readings, semiotic and musicological essays and close readings of stars, bands and the fans themselves by Adorno, Barthes and other well-known contributors

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415053068
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/12/1990
Edition description:	UK ed.
Pages:	508
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.44(h) x (d)

About the Author

Simon Frith, Andrew Goodwin

Table of Contents

Preface PART ONE • GROUNDWORKS Listening to Popular Music ; The Dialogue of Courtship in Popular Song; The Young Audience; PART TWO • FROM SUBCULTURAL TO CULTURAL STUDIES The Golden Age; Style as Homology and Signifying Practice ; Settling Accounts with Subcultures: A Feminist Critique ; Defending Ski-Jumpers: A Critique of Theories of Youth Subcultures ; Characterizing Rock Music Culture: The Case of Heavy Metal; Is There Rock After Punk? PART THREE • THE ORGANIZATION OF THE MUSIC BUSINESS Processing Fads and Fashions: An Organization-Set Analysis of Cultural Industry Systems; Cycles in Symbol Production: The Case of Popular Music; Patterns of Change PART FOUR • THE CREATIVE PROCESS The Production of Success: An Antimusicology of the Pop Song; From Craft to Art: The Case of Sound Mixers and Popular Music; The Realities of Practice ; How Women Become Musicians; Sample and Hold: Pop Music in the Digital Age of Reproduction PART FIVE • MUSICOLOGY AND SEMIOTICS Start Making Sense! Musicology Wrestles with Rock; The Grain of the Voice; On Popular Music; Second Thoughts on a Rock Aesthetic: The Band; Jingle: Pepsi-Cola Hits the Spot; Listen to Me; Do-Talk and Don’t-Talk: The Division of the Subject in Girl-Group Music PART SIX • MUSIC AND SEXUALITY Rock and Sexuality; Sexing Elvis; Teenage Dreams; In Defense of Disco ; Afterthoughts PART SEVEN • READING THE STARS Rock Music, the Star System, and the Rise of Consumerism; Rocket to Russia; In Praise of Kate Bush ; New Pop and Its Aftermath; Corrupting the Absolute PART EIGHT • LAST WORDS: THE FANS SPEAK Starlust

Editorial Reviews

‘... the collection as a whole recognises the pleasures of pop and helps us to understand them.' - Q Magazine

From the Publisher

This comprehensive anthology of serious writings on popular music should prove to be a breakthrough in the field. Frith and Goodwin have assembled an excellent compendium of articles that examine popular music from sociological, feminist, and deconstructionist vantages (to name a few). Because they are ``concerned with arguments about music and its meaning,'' they ignore articles on rock and pop music history as well as ``judgments of personal taste,'' such as reviews. Instead, they examine multiple aspects of music and the music industry in eight sections, each prefaced with a fine bibliographic essay. The articles themselves, spanning four decades, are uniformly fine; remarkably, few seem ``dated.'' Highly recommended with a caveat: this is not a ``typical'' piece of rock music fluff but a serious work more at home in academic libraries.-- James Stephenson, Society of the Cincinnati Lib., Washington, D.C.

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