Robert Loss is an assistant professor in Writing, Literature, and Philosophy at Columbus College of Art and Design, USA.

The ever prized prospect of the ‘new’ excites and nourishes the commercial music industry as much as it does the desire of musicians to shape their own space within its leaky borders. In Nothing Has Been Done Before Robert Loss cuts an idiosyncratic path through late 20th and 21st century popular music, tipping its hat to the renowned and the obscure along the way. Wearing his musical proclivities and political beliefs on his sleeve, Loss visits amongst others the familiar subjects of race, gender, protest song, and the role of technology to frame his hunt for the elusive signs of newness in popular music. His witty, characterful, and occasionally provocative style simultaneously draws you into the conversation of newness and invites critical response.

• Prologue: Nothing Has Been Done BeforePart 1: The Past in the PresentRevivals Are Revisions: New Millennial Folk Music Rolls the Dice"Love and Theft": Transgression and the Cultural ArchiveThe Problem of Knowing Too Much: Meta-Rock and the Anxiety of InfluenceSounds Before Our Time: Replicating the Old to Make the NewPart 2: The American WowSpectaglam! Katy Perry and the American WowThe New Digital Empire: Consumerism, Technology, and the NewWe Can Flux: Prince Queers Democracy and the NewKanye's Night at the Museum: The Iconoclast Goes to WorkPower Up: Persona and Anonymity Trouble the American WowPart 3: Shouting at the Hard of HearingOn the Good Side: Anti-War Music in the 2000sShouting at the Hard of Hearing: Springsteen Finds a New AudienceLiving in the Interval: Political Hip Hop, Rap, Revolution, and To Pimp a ButterflyBodies in the River: Tradition and "The Body Electric"Epilogue: Nothing Has Been Done Before, AgainNotesBibliographyAcknowledgments and PermissionsIndex

Robert Loss is an assistant professor in Writing, Literature, and Philosophy at Columbus College of Art and Design, USA.

The ever prized prospect of the ‘new’ excites and nourishes the commercial music industry as much as it does the desire of musicians to shape their own space within its leaky borders. In Nothing Has Been Done Before Robert Loss cuts an idiosyncratic path through late 20th and 21st century popular music, tipping its hat to the renowned and the obscure along the way. Wearing his musical proclivities and political beliefs on his sleeve, Loss visits amongst others the familiar subjects of race, gender, protest song, and the role of technology to frame his hunt for the elusive signs of newness in popular music. His witty, characterful, and occasionally provocative style simultaneously draws you into the conversation of newness and invites critical response.

• Prologue: Nothing Has Been Done BeforePart 1: The Past in the PresentRevivals Are Revisions: New Millennial Folk Music Rolls the Dice"Love and Theft": Transgression and the Cultural ArchiveThe Problem of Knowing Too Much: Meta-Rock and the Anxiety of InfluenceSounds Before Our Time: Replicating the Old to Make the NewPart 2: The American WowSpectaglam! Katy Perry and the American WowThe New Digital Empire: Consumerism, Technology, and the NewWe Can Flux: Prince Queers Democracy and the NewKanye's Night at the Museum: The Iconoclast Goes to WorkPower Up: Persona and Anonymity Trouble the American WowPart 3: Shouting at the Hard of HearingOn the Good Side: Anti-War Music in the 2000sShouting at the Hard of Hearing: Springsteen Finds a New AudienceLiving in the Interval: Political Hip Hop, Rap, Revolution, and To Pimp a ButterflyBodies in the River: Tradition and "The Body Electric"Epilogue: Nothing Has Been Done Before, AgainNotesBibliographyAcknowledgments and PermissionsIndex

Robert Loss is an assistant professor in Writing, Literature, and Philosophy at Columbus College of Art and Design, USA.

The ever prized prospect of the ‘new’ excites and nourishes the commercial music industry as much as it does the desire of musicians to shape their own space within its leaky borders. In Nothing Has Been Done Before Robert Loss cuts an idiosyncratic path through late 20th and 21st century popular music, tipping its hat to the renowned and the obscure along the way. Wearing his musical proclivities and political beliefs on his sleeve, Loss visits amongst others the familiar subjects of race, gender, protest song, and the role of technology to frame his hunt for the elusive signs of newness in popular music. His witty, characterful, and occasionally provocative style simultaneously draws you into the conversation of newness and invites critical response.

• Prologue: Nothing Has Been Done BeforePart 1: The Past in the PresentRevivals Are Revisions: New Millennial Folk Music Rolls the Dice"Love and Theft": Transgression and the Cultural ArchiveThe Problem of Knowing Too Much: Meta-Rock and the Anxiety of InfluenceSounds Before Our Time: Replicating the Old to Make the NewPart 2: The American WowSpectaglam! Katy Perry and the American WowThe New Digital Empire: Consumerism, Technology, and the NewWe Can Flux: Prince Queers Democracy and the NewKanye's Night at the Museum: The Iconoclast Goes to WorkPower Up: Persona and Anonymity Trouble the American WowPart 3: Shouting at the Hard of HearingOn the Good Side: Anti-War Music in the 2000sShouting at the Hard of Hearing: Springsteen Finds a New AudienceLiving in the Interval: Political Hip Hop, Rap, Revolution, and To Pimp a ButterflyBodies in the River: Tradition and "The Body Electric"Epilogue: Nothing Has Been Done Before, AgainNotesBibliographyAcknowledgments and PermissionsIndex