Popular Music and Society

Front Cover
Polity, May 7, 2007 - Music - 304 pages
This new edition of Popular Music and Society, fully revised and updated, continues to pioneer an approach to the study of popular music that is informed by wider debates in sociology and media and cultural studies. Astute and accessible, it continues to set the agenda for research and teaching in this area.

The textbook begins by examining the ways in which popular music is produced, before moving on to explore its structure as text and the ways in which audiences understand and use music. Packed with examples and data on the contemporary production and consumption of popular music, the book also includes overviews and critiques of theoretical approaches to this exciting area of study and outlines the most important empirical studies which have shaped the discipline.

Topics covered include:

• The contemporary organisation of the music industry;
• The effects of technological change on production;
• The history and politics of popular music;
• Gender, sexuality and ethnicity;
• Subcultures;
• Fans and music celebrities.

For this new edition, two whole new chapters have been added: on performance and the body, and on the very latest ways of thinking about audiences and the spaces and places of music consumption.

This second edition of Popular Music and Society will continue to be required reading for students of the sociology of culture, media and communication studies, and popular culture.

From inside the book

Contents

Constraints and Creativity Arguments and Framework
1
Part I Production
25
1 The Pop Music Industry
27
2 The Social Production of Music
51
Part II Text
85
3 History Politics and Sexuality
87
Genres and Social Constructions
118
5 Texts and Meaning
150
Part III Audience
197
7 Effects Audiences and Subcultures
199
8 Fans Production and Consumption
226
New Audiences Scenes and Everyday Life
246
Conclusion
264
Further Reading
267
References
271
Index
289

6 Performance Dance Distinction and the Body
180

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About the author (2007)

Brian Longhurst is Professor of Sociology at the University of Salford.

Bibliographic information