This volume gathers together twenty articles from among the best scholarly writing on rock music published in academic journals over the past two decades. These diverse essays reflect the wide range of approaches that scholars in various disciplines have applied to the study of rock, from those that address mainly the historical, sociological, cultural and technological factors that gave rise to this music, to those that focus primarily on analysis of the music itself. This collection of articles, some of which are now out of print or otherwise difficult to access, provides an overview of the current state of research in the field of rock music, and includes an introduction which contributes to the ongoing debate over the distinction (or lack thereof) between ’rock’ and ’pop’.
