The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music (Six Volume Set)

The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music (Six Volume Set) Review

Containing over 15,000 entries in its six volumes, this is a comprehensive encyclopaedia of popular music, with a history of each topic, birthdates and locations of individuals, a discography, a videography, and selected readings. Following the original publication in 1992, this second edition has been extensively revised and updated to cover the development of new and existing genres and the introduction of new artists and groups.

The Tapestry of Popular Songs in Sixteenth-and Seventeenth-Century China: Reading, Imitation, and Desire (Sinica Leidensia)

The Tapestry of Popular Songs in Sixteenth-and Seventeenth-Century China: Reading, Imitation, and Desire (Sinica Leidensia) Review

Popular songs in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century China form a rich and intriguing body of materials hardly studied so far in the English-speaking world. This book is about these songs and their impact on Chinese culture and literary practice.

It examines the tapestry books in which popular songs circulated, how books shaped readers, how books were shaped by a range of literacies, and how arrangements of performance-texts aided imitation and selection of words or phrases.

Publishing histories of the popular song collections bring to light how songs were duplicated for readers among the elite and sub-elite. The analysis of how popular songs bring together the "high" and the "low" is of special value for literary scholars and intellectual historians, and challenges the traditonal dichotomy between elite and popular culture.

Popular Music Journalism

Popular Music Journalism Review

This book explores a variety of arguments and perspectives on the role of the music journalist and the wider popular music press within the cultural and operational contexts of popular music.

Individual chapters will analyse the music magazine genre and markets through an exploration of the medium's long history and its substantial impact on both the mainstream media and youth subcultures.

Throughout the text the author will draw on interviews with leading figures working within the music press, internationally renowned musicians and figures from the music and media industries.

Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music

Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music Review

"Sylvan's thesis furnishes far more of the same valued experiences than is usually realized: ritual activity, communal ceremony, a philosophy and worldview, a code for living one's life, a cultural identity, a social structure, a sense of belonging, and crucially, Sylvan argues encounters with the numinous."
—Journal of Religion

Most studies of the religious significance of popular music focus on music lyrics, offering little insight into the religious aspects of the music itself. Traces of the Spirit examines the religious dimensions of popular music subcultures, charting the influence and religious aspects of popular music in mainstream culture today and analyzing the religious significance of the audience's experiences, rituals, and worldviews. Sylvan contends that popular music subcultures serve the function of religious communities and represent a new and significant religious phenomenon.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork using interviews and participant observation, Sylvan examines such subcultures as the Deadheads, raves and their participants, metalheads, and Hip Hop culture. Based on these case studies, he offers a comprehensive theoretical framework in which to study music and popular culture. In addition, he traces the history of West African possession religion from Africa to the diaspora to its integration into American popular music in such genres as the blues, rock and roll, and contemporary musical youth subcultures.

Popular World Music

Popular World Music Review

     Exploring Popular World Music is the first introductory level text written to introduce students to popular music styles from around the world. Focusing on styles that all students will know -- from Reggae to Klezmer, from Afro-Pop to Kodo drums--the book offers a comprehensive, listening-oriented introduction to the world's popular musical cultures.
    Each chapter will focus on a specific music style and its associated geographic locale. The salient musical and cultural features associated with each example are discussed in detail to increase our appreciation of the music. Relevant artists will be highlighted and suggestions for further reading and listening will be offered. By the end of the book, the student should be able to 1) recognize a variety of world music styles, 2) articulate musical and cultural knowledge associated with each style, and 3) identify important artists related to the genre.
    Supplementing the text will be a web site fcreated by the author) featuring the author's world music map, enabling students to explore pop music cultures as they relate to each other; as well as an iTunes playlist for all the highlighted selections in the book. This book should strongly appeal to Intro to World Music Courses for non-majors who wish to study popular rather than traditional musics of the world, which would encompass a large majority of students enrolled in these courses.

Popular Music and Human Rights (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series)

Popular Music and Human Rights (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series) Review

Popular music has long understood that human rights, if attainable at all, involve a struggle without end. The right to imagine an individual will, the right to some form of self-determination and the right to self-legislation have long been at the forefront of popular music's approach to human rights. In Eastern Europe, where states often tried to control music, the hundreds of thousands of Estonians who gathered in Tallinn between 1987 and 1991 are a part of the 'singing revolutions' that encouraged a sense of national consciousness, which had years earlier been crushed when Soviet policy declared Baltic folk music dead and ordered its replacement with mass song. Examples of this nature, where music has the power to enlighten, to mobilize, and perhaps even to change, suggest that popular music's response to issues of human rights has and will continue to be profound and sustained. This is the second volume published by Ashgate on Popular Music and Human Rights (the first volume covered British and American music). Contributors to this significant volume cover topics such as Movimento 77, Nepal's heavy metal scene, music and memory in Mozambique and Swaziland, hybrid metal in the muslim world, folksong in Latvia, popular music in the former Yugoslavia, indigenous human rights in Australia, Victor Jara, protest and gender in Ireland, rock and roll in China, and the anti-rock campaigns and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine.

Live from Dar es Salaam: Popular Music and Tanzania's Music Economy (African Expressive Cultures)

Live from Dar es Salaam: Popular Music and Tanzania's Music Economy (African Expressive Cultures) Review

When socialism collapsed in Tanzania, the government-controlled music industry gave way to a vibrant independent music scene. Alex Perullo explores the world of the bands, music distributors, managers, and clubs that attest to the lively and creative music industry in Dar es Salaam. Perullo examines the formation of the city's music economy, considering the means of musical production, distribution, protection, broadcasting, and performance. He exposes both legal and illegal strategies for creating business opportunities employed by entrepreneurs who battle government restrictions and give flight to their musical aspirations. This is a singular look at the complex music landscape in one of Africa's most dynamic cities.

British Science Fiction Television: A Hitchhiker's Guide (Popular TV Genres)

British Science Fiction Television: A Hitchhiker's Guide (Popular TV Genres) Review

From Doctor Who to Red Dwarf, Thunderbirds to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, some of the most memorable and cherished British television has been in the area of science fiction.This pioneering book, by leading writers in TV history and science fiction, offers for the first time a detailed national survey of this most well-loved of TV genres and provides in-depth reassessments of these shows, as well as others including Threads, Sapphire and Steel, Invasion: Earth and The Last Train. The volume argues that British science fiction television, too often in the past critically derided for the quality of its special effects compared to American equivalents such as Star Trek--deserves to be taken seriously as a legitimate object of cultural analysis, both in terms of its ambition and ideas and its value in illuminating wider aspects of recent social and cultural history. The book also features a contribution from an acclaimed biographer of the late Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, as well as an exclusive published interview with Thunderbirds creator and producer Gerry Anderson.