The Popular Music Studies Reader [Paperback]

Andy Bennett (Editor), Barry Shank (Editor), Jason Toynbee (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 17, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0415307104 | ISBN-13: 978-0415307109 | Edition: 3rd Revised edition

The Popular Music Studies Reader maps the changing nature of popular music over the last decade and considers how popular music studies has expanded and developed to deal with these changes.

A wide range of international contributors featuring some of the biggest names in popular music and cultural studies including Philip Auslander, Paul Gilroy and Kodwo Eshun and discuss:

* the increasing participation of women in the industry
* the changing role of gender and sexuality in popular music
* the role of new technologies, especially in production and distribution
* the changing nature of the relationship between music production and consumption.

The Popular Music Studies Reader places popular music in its cultural context, looks at the significance of popular music in our everyday lives, and examines the global nature of the music industry.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

University of Surrey, UK Ohio State University, USA Coventry University, UK

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 3rd Revised edition edition (December 17, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415307104
• ISBN-13: 978-0415307109
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #426,603 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great collection butchered by extensive excerpting, January 5, 2010

By 

Steward Willons (Illinois) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: The Popular Music Studies Reader (Paperback)

There is a wide selection of articles (some canonical, some more recent) on a wide variety of topics, and this is really what The Popular Music Studies Reader has going for it. There is one crucial point that you will not discover until you buy the book, as I did: the articles are heavily edited, sometimes to a mere fraction of their original length. For example, Susan Fast's article, "Rethinking Issues of Gender and Sexuality in Led Zeppelin: A Woman's View of Pleasure and Power in Hard Rock," originally weighed in at close to 70 pages. Of those 70 pages, the editors saw fit to reduce it to EIGHT pages - that's a huge reduction.

The book is more like a survey of ideas than an anthology of articles. Yes, we get a taste of many important authors, but we get to read what the editors of this collection think are important. Each section has a nice introduction to frame the essays, and the selection of the essays themselves seems appropriately diverse, given the field of study; however, I just can't get around the hatchet job that Bennett, Shank, and Toynbee did on the writings. I don't think they did us any favors.

If you're looking for a wide-ranging overview without getting too deeply into any one article, this book may be just what you're looking for. If you were hoping to find an excellent collection of source readings, you're better off looking elsewhere.