Sounding Out Pop: Analytical Essays in Popular MusicMark Stuart Spicer, John Rudolph Covach "A variety of approaches are brought to bear on fascinating repertoire, but with the underlying aim of better understanding some brilliant music. There’s nothing more exciting in music writing than something which entices you to listen to what’s familiar to you in a new way, and this collection brings such excitement in abundance." "These essays bring together a remarkable range of tools and perspectives to such diverse topics and contexts as the behind-the-scenes collaborations of composers, performers, arrangers, producers and engineers; pop culture; narratology; and race, politics and gender. The reader continuously benefits from a complementary lineup of sensitive ears that discover novelty in the familiar, exposing the heart of many rock and pop classics through imaginative and authoritative prose." The nine essays in Sounding Out Pop work together to map the myriad styles and genres of the pop-rock universe through detailed case studies that confront the music from a variety of engaging, thought-provoking perspectives---from historical to music-analytic, aesthetic to ethnographic, with several authors drawing liberally from ideas in other disciplines. The range of bands and artists covered is as vast and varied as the more than fifty-year history of pop and rock music, from the Coasters and Roy Orbison to Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan, Radiohead, Beck, Genesis, Tori Amos, and the Police. Together these diverse essays cover a broad spectrum of studies ideally suited for classroom use and for other readers interested in gaining a deeper knowledge of the way popular music works. Mark Spicer is Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Music at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. His writings have appeared in Contemporary Music Review, Gamut, Music Theory Online, twentieth-century music, and other scholarly journals and essay collections. John Covach is Professor of Music at the University of Rochester and Professor of Theory at the Eastman School of Music. He is the author of the college textbook What's That Sound? An Introduction to Rock and Its History and the coeditor of Understanding Rock, American Rock and the Classical Music Tradition, and Traditions, Institutions, and American Popular Music. Cover art credit: © iStockphoto.com/Aleksandar Dickov |
Contents
Leiber and Stoller the Coasters and | 1 |
Only the Lonely | 18 |
Ego and Alter | 42 |
Marvin Gaye as Vocal Composer | 63 |
A Study of Maximally Smooth Voice Leading in | 99 |
Reggatta de Blanc | 124 |
Vocal Authority and Listener Engagement | 154 |
Recombinant Style Topics | 193 |
The Vanishing Subject in Radioheads Kid A | 214 |
Contributors | 245 |
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Sounding Out Pop: Analytical Essays in Popular Music Mark Stuart Spicer,John Rudolph Covach No preview available - 2010 |