| Abstract |
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 part one, drawing on a dialectical conception of musical development, genre and meaning, he outlines a 'historical map' of this field, offering on the way a constructive critique of existing musical histories, Theodor W. Adorno's pessimistic picture of music in twentieth century 'mass culture', and of the various theories of musical production and reproduction in contemporary capitalist societies. Part two turns to the analysis of popular music, looking in turn at approaches drawn from musicology, from folkloristics, anthropology and cultural studies, from structuralism and semiology, and from aesthetics, ideological analysis and psychoanalysis. Throughout the book the elusive character of 'popularity' itself is a constant theme, as it impinges on folk song and music hall, Tin Pan Alley and rock 'n' roll, punk rock and disco, and now 'roots'music. As Constant Lambert and Noel Coward between them observed, the 'appalling popularity' of music gives it an 'extraordinary potency'. |
