Reading Pop Approaches to Textual Analysis in Popular Music [Paperback]

Why do we enjoy pop songs (or not)? Why do they mean so much to us? Whatdothey 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 journalPopular 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.

Reading Popwill be required reading for all serious students and lovers of popular music.

Preface
Introduction: Locating the Popular Music Text,Richard Middleton
Part 1: Analyzing the Music
1. Randy Newman's Americana,Peter Winkler
2. Prince: Harmonic Analysis of Anna Stesia ,Stan Hawkins
3. Analyzing Popular Music: Theory, Method, and Practice,Philip Tagg
4. Popular Music Analysis and Musicology: Bridging the Gap,Richard Middleton
5. James Brown's Superbad and the Double-Voiced Utterance,David Brackett
6. Maybellene: Meaning and the Listening Subject,Sean Cubitt
Part 2: Words and Music
7. His Name was in Lights: Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode ,Timothy Taylor
8. Listening to Peter Gabriel's I Have the Touch ,Umberto Fiori
9. Three Tributaries to ThlL