Popular music Books

Expression in Pop-Rock Music is a collection of critical and analytical essays written by today's top scholars on pop and rock music. Applying a wide variety of analytical techniques and critical approaches in the study of songs by artists such as Tori...

This book provides a thorough analysis of terpsichorean lexis in Renaissance drama. Besides considering not only the Shakespearean canon but also the Bard's contemporaries (e.g., dramatists as John Marston and Ben Jonson among the most refined Renaissance...

Victorian Vocalists is a masterful and entertaining collection of 100 biographies of mid- to late-19th-century singers and stars. Kurt Gänzl paints a vivid picture of the Victorian operatic and concert world, revealing the backgrounds,...

Addressing the interart, intertextual, and intermedial dimensions of David Bowie's sonic and visual legacy, this book considers more than five decades of a career invested with a star's luminosity that shines well beyond the remit of pop music.The book...

One of the most beloved film musicals of all time, The Wizard of Oz represents an enduring family favorite and cultural classic. Yet there is much more to the story than meets the eye, and the MGM movie is just one of many ways in which it has been...

How the British rock band Radiohead subverts the idea of the concept album in order to articulate themes of alienation and anti-capitalism is the focus of Marianne Tatom Letts's analysis of Kid A and Amnesiac. These experimental albums marked a departure...

This book uniquely and successfully sustains a cohesive analysis of the work, career, and reception of a single artist. That the artist is Neil Young, one of the most confounding and mysterious of rock stars, is an added bonus. Finally someone will...

This is a comprehensive introduction to the inner workings of rock music. Everett takes readers through all aspects of the music and its lyrics, leading fans and listeners to new insights and new ways to develop their own interpretations of the aural...

Erroll Garner (1921-1977) was an inimitable jazz pianist and composer who enjoyed international recognition performing for audiences in concert halls and clubs throughout the world. He released many of his own compositions as well as popular songs on...

The Beatles made music within a virtuous circle, together reaching heights that none of them could alone. Then, in a flash, that circle collapsed, and the solo years which followed were patchy, indeed.But a secret has been hiding in plain sight ever...

Acoustic Blues Guitar Styles is an introduction to fingerstyle acoustic blues guitar, the style made popular by Robert Johnson, Bill Broonzy, and Mance Lipscomb. Following the success of the popular Acoustic Guitar Styles, Larry Sandberg's Acoustic Blues...

For nearly a century, the training of ballet and modern dancers has followed two divergent paths. Modern practitioners felt ballet was artificial and injurious to the body; ballet teachers felt that modern dancers lacked the rigorous discipline and...

Based on lengthy interviews with Ellington's bandmates, family and friends, Duke Ellington and His World offers a fresh look at this legendary composer, tracing his life and career in terms of the social, cultural, political and economic realities of his...

In Songs in the Key of Black Life, acclaimed cultural critic Mark Anthony Neal turns his attention to Rhythm and Blues. He argues that R&B-often dismissed as just a bunch of love songs, yet the second most popular genre in terms of sales-can tell us much...

Ben Green investigates the phenomenon of peak music experiences from a social and cultural perspective, including discussions on it as sources of inspiration; as a core motivation for ongoing musical and social activity; the significance of live music...

In this bubbling modern extravaganza for the young, the immaculate Miss Nadia Naive and her three pupils are swung into riotous Transylvanian happenings with the irrepressible Count and his gruesome acolytes. On the side of right are noble Nick...

This musical play bears little resemblance to the traditional tale of Mother Goose. It takes its inspiration from the books of nursery rhymes under the umbrella title "Mother Goose", published over the last two centuries. The play opens with them...

The double bass - the preferred bass instrument in popular music during the 1960s - was challenged and subsequently superseded by the advent of a new electric bass instrument. From the mid-1960s and throughout the 1970s, a melismatic and inconsistent...

Reimagining Sample-based Hip Hop: Making Records within Records presents the poetics of hip-hop record production and the significance of sample material in record making, providing analysis of key releases in hip-hop discography and interviews with...

Dancing Across Borders presents formal and non-formal settings of dance education where initiatives in different countries transcend borders: cultural and national borders, subject borders, professional borders and socio-economic borders. It includes...

In recent years, a growth in dance and wellbeing scholarship has resulted in new ways of thinking that place the body, movement, and dance in a central place with renewed significance for wellbeing. The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Wellbeing examines...

"Bill Snibson, a Lambeth costermonger, is revealed to be the new Earl of Hareford and his newly-discovered artistocratic relations are horrified. Bringing him to Hareford Hall, they attempt to educate Bill into the ways of the gentry and to separate him...

Speaking of Dance: Twelve Contemporary Choreographers on Their Craft delves into the choreographic processes of some of America's most engaging and revolutionary dancemakers. Based on personal interviews, the book's narratives reveal the methods and...

Made in Spain: Studies in Popular Music will serve as a comprehensive and rigorous introduction to the history, sociology and musicology of 20th century Spanish popular music. The volume will consist of 16 essays by leading scholars of Spanish music and...

The outdoor music festival market has developed and commercialised significantly since the mid-1990s, and is now a mainstream part of the British summertime leisure experience. The overall number of outdoor music festivals staged in the UK doubled...

This interdisciplinary volume enters the scholarly conversation about Bruce Springsteen at the moment when he has reinforced his status of global superstar and achieved the status of social critic. Covering musical and cultural developments, chapters...

Since the 1980s, music videos have been everywhere, and today almost all of the most-viewed clips on YouTube are music videos. However, in academia, music videos do not currently share this popularity. Music Video After MTV gives music video its due...

This book explores the highly-valued, and often highly-charged, ideal of authenticity in hip-hop - what it is, why it is important, and how it affects the day-to-day life of rap artists. By analyzing the practices, identities, and struggles that shape...

While attention has been paid to various aspects of music education in China, to date no single publication has systematically addressed the complex interplay of sociopolitical transformations underlying the development of popular music and music...

Heavy Metal, Gender and Sexuality brings together a collection of original, interdisciplinary, critical essays exploring the negotiated place of gender and sexuality in heavy metal music and its culture. Scholars debate the current state of play...

For decades, scholars have been trying to answer the question: how was colonial Burma perceived in and by the Western world, and how did people in countries like the United Kingdom and United States form their views? This book explores how Western...