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.
Part 1 Charting the popular - towards a historical framework: roll over Beethoven? - sites and soundings on the music; historical map; it's all over now; popular music and mass culture - Adorno's theory; over the rainbow? - technology, politics and popular music in an era beyond mass culture. Part 2 Taking a part - towards an analytical framework: change gonna come? - popular music and musicology; I heard it through the grapevine? - popular music in culture; from me to you; popular music as message; lost in music? - pleasure, value and ideology in popular music
