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On Popular Music and Its Unruly Entanglements comprises eleven essays that explore the myriad ways in which popular music is entwined within social, cultural, musical, historical, and media networks. The authors discuss genres as diverse as mainstream pop, hip hop, classic rock, instrumental synthwave, video game music, amateur ukelele groups, and audiovisual remixes, while also considering the music's relationship to technological developments, various media and material(itie)s, and personal and social identity. The collection presents a range of different methodologies and theoretical positions, which results in an eclecticism that aptly demonstrates the breadth of contemporary popular music research. The chapters are divided into three major sections that address: wider theoretical and analytical issues ("Broad Strokes"), familiar repertoire or concepts from a new perspective ("Second Takes"), and the meanings to arise from music's connections with other media forms ("Audiovisual Entanglements").
List of contents
Introduction; Nick Braae and Kai Arne Hansen.- Section I: Broad Strokes.- 1. Scratching the Surface: Texts and Textures in Music Studies-or, Musicology without Music; Kyle Devine.- 2. From Music Analysis to Narrative Reading: A Case Study of Recorded Popular Song; Alex C. Harden.- 3. Kristeva and Popular Music; Nathan Wiseman-Trowse.- 4. The Shape of the Voice: Analyzing Vocal Gestures in Irish Traditional Music and Popular Song; Bláithín Duggan.- 5. It's a Dark Philosophy: The Weeknd, Intermediality, and the Aestheticization of Provocative Themes; Kai Arne Hansen .- Section II: Second Takes.- 6. Treating Cultural Trauma with Music: The Representation of War in the Music of Bruce Springsteen; Susanna Välimäki.- 7. Linear Temporality in Popular Song; Nick Braae.- 8. "To Prepare a Face to Meet the Faces that you Meet": The Instrumental Retrowave Persona; Andrei Sora.- 9. Electric Affinities: Wagner, Hendrix, and the Thingness of Sound; Erik Steinskog.- Section III: Entanglements.- 10. Timbre, Genre, and Polystylism in Video Game Music; Megan Lavengood.- 11. A Musical Exploration of Incongruity and its Humorous Effects; Ragnhild Brøvig-Hanssen.- 12. The Empowerment of the Listener in Kendrick Lamar's "Backseat Freestyle"; Steven Gamble.- 13. Psychedelic Ways of Listening: A Gothic Case Study; Claire Rebecca Bannister.- 14. Taken by Strum: Ukulele Jamming as Musical Experience; Matthew Bannister.- Afterword; Allan F. Moore.
About the author
Nick Braae is an academic staff member in Music at the Waikato Institute of Technology, New Zealand.
Kai Arne Hansen is Associate Professor of Music in the Department of Art and Cultural Studies, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences.
Summary
On Popular Music and Its Unruly Entanglements comprises eleven essays that explore the myriad ways in which popular music is entwined within social, cultural, musical, historical, and media networks. The authors discuss genres as diverse as mainstream pop, hip hop, classic rock, instrumental synthwave, video game music, amateur ukelele groups, and audiovisual remixes, while also considering the music’s relationship to technological developments, various media and material(itie)s, and personal and social identity. The collection presents a range of different methodologies and theoretical positions, which results in an eclecticism that aptly demonstrates the breadth of contemporary popular music research. The chapters are divided into three major sections that address: wider theoretical and analytical issues (“Broad Strokes”), familiar repertoire or concepts from a new perspective (“Second Takes”), and the meanings to arise from music’s connections with other media forms (“Audiovisual Entanglements”).
