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 Reading
Pop : Approaches to Textual Analysis in Popular Music
by Richard Middleton (Editor)
Why do we
enjoy pop songs (or not)? Why do they mean so much to us? What
do they mean? Is it the sounds, the rhythms, or the words? Is
it the singing, the personae of the stars, or the messages and
images that the songs conjure up?
Plenty of
people have written about pop personalities, the music industry,
or about their own tastes, but serious analysis of the songs themselves
is still rare. This collection of essays, all previously published
in the leading journal Popular Music, brings together key studies
by many of the leading scholars studying pop music today. Together
they add up to the first substantial anthology to focus on musical
"texts." Collecting a wide range of approaches, and
looking at songs by performers as varied as Irving Berlin, Hank
Williams, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Bruce Springsteen, Prince,
Peter Gabriel, Jimi Hendrix, John Mellencamp, David Bowie, James
Brown, Randy Newman, and John Zorn, the book marks out a distinctive
new territory characterized by the fusion of cultural studies
and pop musicology. (Amazon.com)
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