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In 1956 many people thought rock n' roll was a passing fad, yet over forty years later, more than ever, Popular Music is a part of contemporary culture, reinventing itself for successive generations. Pop embraces its own history, with musicians from every genre routinely sampling the sounds of the past. present.
Living Through Pop explores popular music's history, and the ways in which it has been produced by musicians, broadcasters, critics and fans. In discussing this complex relationship between the past and the present, the contributors investigate signficant moments in music's history, from the Rolling Stones and the Velvet Underground to the Sex Pistols and the Verve, from drum n' bass to European extreme techno.
List of contents
Introduction: what’s the story? PART I Living in history 1 Loosen up: the Rolling Stones ring in the 1960s, 2 White light/white heat: jouissance beyond gender in the Velvet Underground PART II Living the business 3 I was there: putting punk on television 4 Making noise: notes from the 1980s PART III Getting to the present 5 Decoding Society versus the Popsicle Academy: on the value of being unpopular 6 Exploding silence: African-Caribbean and African-American music in British culture towards 2000 98, 7 Listening back from Blackburn: virtual sound worlds and the creation of temporary autonomy PART IV Living through contemporary pop 8 Living in France: the parallel universe of Hexagonal pop 9 Thinking about mutation: genres in 1990s electronica, 10 ‘It’s like feminism, but you don’t have to burn your bra’: girl power and the Spice Girls’ breakthrough, 1996–7
About the author
Andrew Blake is Head of the School of Cultural Studies at King Alfred's College, Winchester.
Summary
Living Through Pop explores pop's history and the ways in which it has been produced by musicians, boradcasters, critics and fans.
