Written against the academically dominant but simplistic romanticization of popular music as a positive force, this book focuses on the 'dark side' of the subject. It is a pioneering examination of the ways in which popular music has been deployed in association with violence, ranging from what appears to be an incidental relationship, to one in which music is explicitly applied as an instrument of violence. A preliminary overview of the physiological and cognitive foundations of sounding/hearing which are distinctive within the sensorium, discloses in particular their potential for organic...

Canons are central to our understanding of our culture, and yet in the last thirty years there has been much conflict and uncertainty created by the idea of the canon. In essence, the canon comprises the works and artists that are widely accepted to be the greatest in their field. Yet such an apparently simple construct embodies a complicated web of values and mechanisms. Canons are also inherently elitist; however, Carys Wyn Jones here explores the emerging reflections of values, terms and mechanisms from the canons of Western literature and classical music in the reception of rock music....

The use of popular music in advertising represents one of the most pervasive mergers of cultural and commercial objectives in the modern age. Steady public response to popular music in television commercials, ranging from the celebratory to the outraged, highlights both unresolved tensions around such partnerships and the need to unpack the complex issues behind everyday media practice. Through an analysis of press coverage and interviews with musicians, music supervisors, advertising creatives, and licensing managers, As Heard on TV considers the industrial changes that have provided a...

This book brings together important material from a range of sources and highlights how government organizations, musicians, academics and commercial companies are concerned with, and seek to use, a particular notion of Irish musical identity. Rooting the study in the context of the recent history of popular, traditional and classical music in Ireland, as well as providing an overview of aspects of the national field of music production and consumption, O'Flynn goes on to argue that the relationship between Irish identity and Irish music emerges as a contested site of meaning. His analysis...

The first concept album in the history of popular music, the soundtrack of the Summer of Love or 'Hippy Symphony No. 1': Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is first and foremost the album that gave rise to 'hopes of progress in pop music' (The Times, 29 May 1967). Sgt. Pepper and the Beatles commemorates the fortieth anniversary of this masterpiece of British psychedelia by addressing issues that will help put the record in perspective. These issues include: reception by rock critics and musicians, the cover, lyrics, songwriting, formal unity, the influence of non-European music and art...

Nick Cave is now widely recognized as a songwriter, musician, novelist, screenwriter, curator, critic, actor and performer. From the band, The Boys Next Door (1976-1980), to the spoken-word recording, The Secret Life of the Love Song (1998), to the recently acclaimed screenplay of The Proposition (2005) and the Grinderman project (2008), Cave's career spans thirty years and has produced a comprehensive (and sometimes controversial) body of work that has shaped contemporary alternative culture. Despite intense media interest in Cave, there have been remarkably few comprehensive appraisals of...

Ireland has exerted an important influence on the development of the traditional, popular and art musics of other regions. This book provides ethnographic and ethnomusicological studies of a group of traditional musicians from County Antrim. It offers a co

Barbara Lebrun traces the evolution of 'protest' music in France since 1981, exploring the contradictions that emerge when artists who take their musical production and political commitment 'seriously', cross over to the mainstream, becoming profitable and consensual. Contestation is understood as a discourse shaped by the assumptions and practices of artists, producers, the media and audiences, for whom it makes sense to reject politically reactionary ideas and the dominant taste for commercial pop. Placing music in its economic, historical and ideological context, however, reveals the...