Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music

Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music Review

Musicians strive to “keep it real”; listeners condemn “fakes”; ... but does great music really need to be authentic? Did Elvis sing from the heart, or was he just acting? Were the Sex Pistols more real than disco? Why do so many musicians base their approach on being authentic, and why do music buffs fall for it every time? By investigating this obsession in the last century through the stories of John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Jimmie Rodgers, Donna Summer, Leadbelly, Neil Young, Moby, and others, Faking It rethinks what makes popular music work. Along the way, the authors discuss the segregation of music in the South, investigate the predominance of self-absorption in modern pop, reassess the rebellious ridiculousness of rockabilly and disco, and delineate how the quest for authenticity has not only made some music great and some music terrible but also shaped in a fundamental way the development of popular music in our time.

Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil

Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil Review

“Hello, hello Brazil” was the standard greeting Brazilian radio announcers of the 1930s used to welcome their audience into an expanding cultural marketplace.  New genres likesamba and repackaged older ones like choro served as the currency in this marketplace, minted in the capital in Rio de Janeiro and circulated nationally by the burgeoning recording and broadcasting industries. Bryan McCann chronicles the flourishing of Brazilian popular music between the 1920s and the 1950s. Through analysis of the competing projects of composers, producers, bureaucrats, and fans, he shows that Brazilians alternately envisioned popular music as the foundation for a unified national culture and used it as a tool to probe racial and regional divisions.

McCann explores the links between the growth of the culture industry, rapid industrialization, and the rise and fall of Getúlio Vargas’sEstado Novo dictatorship. He argues that these processes opened a window of opportunity for the creation of enduring cultural patterns and demonstrates that the understandings of popular music cemented in the mid–twentieth century continue to structure Brazilian cultural life in the early twenty-first.

Call Me the Seeker: Listening to Religion in Popular Music

Call Me the Seeker: Listening to Religion in Popular Music Review

·One of very few books on religion and popular music ·Covers a wide range of musical styles, from heavy metal and rap to country, jazz and Broadway musicals ·The essays are written by academics and informed by their enthusiasm for the music Many books have explored the relationship between religion and film, but few have yet examined the significance of religion to popular music. Call Me The Seeker steps into that gap. Michael Gilmour’s introductory essay gives a state-of-the-discipline overview of research in the area. He argues that popular songs frequently draw from and “interpret” themes found in the conceptual and linguistic worlds of the major religions and reveal underlying attitudes in those who compose and consume them. He says these “texts” deserve more serious study. The essays in the book start an on-going conversation in this area, bringing a variety of methodologies to bear on selected artists and topics. Musical styles covered range from heavy metal and rap to country, jazz, and Broadway musicals.

Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling

Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling Review

Write songs that sell! Hit-songwriter/educator Andrea Stolpe shares time-tested tools of commercial songwriting. Her ten-step process will help you to craft lyrics that communicate heart to heart with your audience. She analyzes hit lyrics from artists such as Faith Hill and John Mayer, and reveals why they are successful and how you can make your own songs successful too. Stolpe advises on how to: streamline and accelerate your writing process; use lyric structures and techniques at the heart of countless hit songs; write even when you're not inspired; more!

Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World Part 1 Media, Industry, Society (Volume 1)

Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World Part 1 Media, Industry, Society (Volume 1) Review

'This is an extraordinary achievement and it will become an absolutely vital and trusted resource for everyone working in the field of popular music studies. Even more broadly, anyone interested in popular music or popular music culture more generally will enjoy — and find many uses for — the wealth of information and insight captured in this volume.'Lawrence Grossberg, Morris Davis Professor of Communication Studies and Cultural Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The first comprehensive reference work on popular music of the world

Contributors are the world's leading popular music scholars

Includes extensive bibliographies, discographies, sheet music listings and filmographies.

Popular music has been a major force in the world since the nineteenth century. With the advent of electronic and advanced technology it has become ubiquitous. This is the first volume in a series of encyclopedic works covering popular music of the world. Consisting of some 500 entries by 130 contributors from around the world. Entries range between 250 and 5000 words, and is arranged in two Parts: Part 1: Social and Cultural Dimensions, covering the social phenomena of relevance to the practice of popular music. Part II: The Industry, covers all aspects of the popular music industry, such as copyright, instrumental manufacture, management and marketing, record corporations, studios, companies, and labels. Entries include bibliographies, discographies and filmographies, and an extensive index is provided.

For more information visit the website at: www.continuumpopmusic.com

Sonic Synergies: Music, Technology, Community, Identity (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series)

Sonic Synergies: Music, Technology, Community, Identity (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series) Review

"Sonic Synergies: Music, Technology, Community, Identity" focuses on the new and emerging synergies of music and digital technology within the new knowledge economies. Eighteen scholars representing six international perspectives explore the global and local ramifications of rapidly changing new technologies on creative industries, local communities, music practitioners and consumers. Diverse areas are considered, such as production, consumption, historical and cultural context, legislation, globalization and the impact upon the individual. Drawing on a range of musical genres from jazz, heavy metal, hip-hop and trance, and through several detailed case studies reflecting on the work of professional and local amateur artists, this book offers an important discussion of the ways in which the face of music is changing. Approaching these areas from a cultural studies perspective, this text will be a valuable tool for anyone engaged in the study of popular culture, music or digital technologies.

The Quiz Show (Popular TV Genres)

The Quiz Show (Popular TV Genres) Review

Despite its enduring popularity with both broadcasters and audiences, the quiz show is marginalized in studies of popular television. Su Holmes takes a fresh approach to quiz shows while also revisiting, updating, and expanding existing quiz show scholarship. Discussing Double Your Money, The ,000 Dollar Question, Twenty-One, The Price is Right, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and The Weakest Link, Holmes addresses the relationship between quiz shows and the television genre; the early broadcast history of the quiz show; questions of institutional regulation; quiz show aesthetics; the social significance of "games;" "ordinary" people as television performers, and questions of quiz show reception, from interactivity to on-line fandom.