David Brackett is Assistant Professor of Music at SUNY, Binghamton.

• Preface1 IntroductionPreludeI. Codes and competencesII. Who is the author?III. Musicology and popular musicIV. Postlude2 Family values in music? Billie Holiday's and Bing Crosby's"I'll Be Seeing You"I. A tale of two (or three) recordingsII. Critical discourseIII. Biographical discourseIV. Style and historyV. Performance, effect, and affect3 When you're lookin' at Hank (you're looking at country)I. Lyrics, metanarratives, and the great authenticity debateII. Sound, performance, gender, and the hanky-tonkIII. "A feeling called the blues"IV. The emergence of "country-western"4 James Brown's "Superbad" and the double-voiced utteranceI. The discursive space of black musicII. Signifyin(g)-words and performanceIII. Musical signifyin(g)5 Writing, music, dancing, and architecture in Elvis Costello's"Pills and Soap"I. The "popular aesthetic"II. Style and aestheticsIII. Interpretation and (post)modern popIV. A question of influence6 Afterword: the citizens of SimpletonAppendixA. Reading the spectrum photosB. Registral terminologyNotesBibliographySelect discographyIndex