| Series |
Popular music in Britain
Popular music in Britain. ^A281097
|
| Contents |
Introduction: taking popular music seriously -- Prey to a thousand certainties. The descriptive-evaluative mode ; The composite account of rock 'n' roll ; Some problems -- The character of music as a cultural practice. Some background ; Basic concepts ; Expressive and iconic meanings ; Musical articulation of world-sense ; Communality ; Linguistic mediation -- Codes of the West. The tonal-European code ; The Afro-American code -- A fusion of codes: the pop music of 1955-1964. Rock 'n' roll and skiffle ; Elvis Presley ; The aftermath of rock 'n' roll in Britain -- British society and culture in the 1950s and early 1960s. The general economic context of rock 'n' roll ; The popular music industry ; The cultural context of rock 'n' roll ; Class in Britain 1955-1964 ; Mass culture and mass society ; Youth culture ; Gender, sexuality and the youth culture -- Resistance through rituals. Introduction ; World-sense in rock 'n' roll ; Resistance through rituals ; Conclusion -- Singing styles, identifications, icons and pleasures. Singing ; The singing of Elvis Presley and the responses he elicited ; Identification responses and the youth culture: various aspects ; The place of expressive and iconic meanings in rock 'n' roll and related styles ; Meaning and pleasure -- Notes towards a history of subjectivity: what the study of music-use can contribute. White subjects and black music ; The 'ego-cogito' and its history -- Conclusions: taking popular music seriously. |
| Abstract |
Rock'n'roll in Britain has been written about many times, but the question of what it has meant to its young fans and imitators has usually taken second place to the description of the records and artists themselves. This book argues that to fully understand the history of rock'n'roll and related styles like skiffle, Beat music and British R'n'B, it is not enough merely to praise or criticize records. We must consider how the music was used, and what made many listeners take up singing and playing themselves. The author suggests music-use formed a central practice of the emerging youth culture. Young listeners found articulations of resistance and communality in American rock'n'roll, which many of them then tried to reproduce in their own music-making. The author also provides a speculative theoretical framework for understanding these meanings in their wider social and historical context. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-185) and index. |
| Other title | Understanding rock and roll. |
| LCCN | 91044925 |
| ISBN | 0335097553 |
| ISBN | 0335097545 (pbk.) |
