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Books > Music > Contemporary popular music
This book about Miles Davis is more psychologically driven than a
straight biography; but it does cover his musical career, as well
his spirituality as a jazz musician. Davis rocketed to jazz fame as
a trumpeter, making a plethora of jazz recordings during his life
time; and his music kept the "jazz world" on edge for almost fifty
years. This book also discusses Davis's religion, politics, civil
rights activism, and his personal struggles as a Black man in the
United States. Miles Davis and Jazz as Religion: The Politics of
Social Music also shows how Miles Davis made a political statement,
as he challenged racial stereotypes in jazz or "social music."
Artistically, Davis was able to integrate rock, jazz, classical
music, rap and blues, in his music, as he had a passion for
changing his "social music." In this regard, Miles Davis's music
was important to him intellectually, spiritually, and
psychologically, because he wanted to make his musical
contributions count.
This scholarly analysis of the music of Taylor Swift identifies how
and why she is one of the early 21st century's most recognizable
and most popular stars. By the age of 13, singer-songwriter Taylor
Swift had already inked a development deal with a major record
label. This early milestone was an appropriate predictor of what
accomplishments were to come. Now a superstar artist with an
international fanbase of millions and several critically acclaimed
and commercially successful albums, Swift has established herself
as one of the most important musicians of the 21st century. This
accessible book serves Taylor Swift fans as well as students of
contemporary popular music and popular culture, critically
examining all of this young artist's work to date. The book's
organization is primarily chronological, covering Taylor Swift's
album and single releases in order of release date while also
documenting the elements of her music and personality that have
made her popular with fans of country music and pop music across a
surprisingly diverse age range of listeners. The chapters address
how Swift's songs have been viewed by some fans as anthems of
empowerment or messages of encouragement, particularly by members
of the LGBTQ community, those who have been bullied or been seen as
outsiders, and emerging artists. The final chapter places Swift's
work and her public persona in the context of her times with
respect to her use of and relationship with technology-for example,
her use of social media and songwriting technology-and her
expressions of a new type of feminism that is unlike the feminism
of the 1970s. Provides the only scholarly critical analysis of the
songs and recordings of megastar Taylor Swift Places Swift, her
work, and her public stances in the context of her generation and
its definition of "empowerment" and "feminism" Explores Swift's
work as an extension of the early 1970s' confessional
singer-songwriter movement
Released in 2008, J-pop trio Perfume's GAME shot to the top of
Japanese music charts and turned the Hiroshima trio into a
household name across the country. It was also a high point for
techno-pop, the genre's biggest album since the heyday of Yellow
Magic Orchestra. This collection of maximalist but emotional
electronic pop stands as one of the style's finest moments, with
its influence still echoing from artists both in Japan and from
beyond. This book examines Perfume's underdog story as a group long
struggling for success, the making of GAME, and the history of
techno-pop that shaped it. 33 1/3 Global, a series related to but
independent from 33 1/3, takes the format of the original series of
short, music-basedbooks and brings the focus to music throughout
the world. With initial volumes focusing on Japanese and Brazilian
music, the series will also include volumes on the popular music of
Australia/Oceania, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and more.
For centuries many have pondered the prospect of an afterlife and
feared what came to be known as 'hell'. In the near future, we map
the elusive 'dark matter' around us, only to find out that it is
hell itself, and it is very real... As the satanic President Razour
attempts to bring forward Armageddon to prevent humanity repenting,
the fate of us all rests in the hands of Cleric20, a hedonistic
loner with a chequered past, and his robot sidekick, GiX. An
action-packed literary shock to the senses that mixes flights of
comic fantasy with bouts of brutal violence. Mankind's only hope
seems to be having a very bad day. Can Cleric20 halt Razour's
devilish plans after an experimental bioweapon deployed to kill him
accidentally gives him superpowers? Has the Devil inadvertently
created a hero who could actually stop him? See why this was voted
as one of Den of Geek UK's Top Books of 2019. Little can prepare
you for this spiritually-charged, cyber-noir thrill ride.
During the formative years of jazz (1890-1917), the Creoles of
Color-as they were then called-played a significant role in the
development of jazz as teachers, bandleaders, instrumentalists,
singers, and composers. Indeed, music penetrated all aspects of the
life of this tight-knit community, proud of its French heritage and
language. They played and/or sang classical, military, and dance
music, as well as popular songs and cantiques that incorporated
African, European, and Caribbean elements decades before early jazz
appeared. In Jazz a la Creole: French Creole Music and the Birth of
Jazz, author Caroline Vezina describes the music played by the
Afro-Creole community since the arrival of enslaved Africans in La
Louisiane, then a French colony, at the beginning of the eighteenth
century, emphasizing the many cultural exchanges that led to the
development of jazz. Vezina has compiled and analyzed a broad scope
of primary sources found in diverse locations from New Orleans to
Quebec City, Washington, DC, New York City, and Chicago. Two
previously unpublished interviews add valuable insider knowledge
about the music on French plantations and the danses Creoles held
in Congo Square after the Civil War. Musical and textual analyses
of cantiques provide new information about the process of their
appropriation by the Creole Catholics as the French counterpart of
the Negro spirituals. Finally, a closer look at their musical
practices indicates that the Creoles sang and improvised music
and/or lyrics of Creole songs, and that some were part of their
professional repertoire. As such, they belong to the Black American
and the Franco-American folk music traditions that reflect the rich
cultural heritage of Louisiana.
This book is a lively, comprehensive and timely reader on the music
video, capitalising on cross-disciplinary research expertise, which
represents a substantial academic engagement with the music video,
a mediated form and practice that still remains relatively
under-explored in a 21st century context. The music video has
remained suspended between two distinct poles. On the one hand, the
music video as the visual sheen of late capitalism, at the
intersection of celebrity studies and postmodernism. On the other
hand, the music video as art, looking to a prehistory of
avant-garde film-making while perpetually pushing forward the
digital frontier with a taste for anarchy, controversy, and the
integration of special effects into a form designed to be
disseminated across digital platforms. In this way, the music video
virally re-engenders debates about high art and low culture. This
collection presents a comprehensive account of the music video from
a contemporary 21st century perspective. This entails revisiting
key moments in the canonical history of the music video, exploring
its articulations of sexuality and gender, examining its
functioning as a form of artistic expression between music, film
and video art, and following the music video's dissemination into
the digital domain, considering how digital media and social media
have come to re-invent the forms and functions of the music video,
well beyond the limits of "music television".
Development Drowned and Reborn is a "Blues geography" of New
Orleans, one that compels readers to return to the history of the
Black freedom struggle there to reckon with its unfinished
business. Reading contemporary policies of abandonment against the
grain, Clyde Woods explores how Hurricane Katrina brought
long-standing structures of domination into view. In so doing,
Woods delineates the roots of neoliberalism in the region and a
history of resistance. Written in dialogue with social movements,
this book offers tools for comprehending the racist dynamics of
U.S. culture and economy. Following his landmark study, Development
Arrested, Woods turns to organic intellectuals, Blues musicians,
and poor and working people to instruct readers in this
future-oriented history of struggle. Through this unique optic,
Woods delineates a history, methodology, and epistemology to grasp
alternative visions of development. Woods contributes to debates
about the history and geography of neoliberalism. The book suggests
that the prevailing focus on neoliberalism at national and global
scales has led to a neglect of the regional scale. Specifically, it
observes that theories of neoliberalism have tended to overlook New
Orleans as an epicenter where racial, class, gender, and regional
hierarchies have persisted for centuries. Through this Blues
geography, Woods excavates the struggle for a new society.
Smith examines the different ways in which gay men use pop music,
both as producers and consumers, and how, in turn, pop uses gay
men. He asks what role culture plays in shaping identity and why
pop continues to thrill gay men. These 40 essays and interviews
look at how performers, from The Kinks' Ray Davies to Gene's Martin
Rossiter, have used pop as a platform to explore and articulate,
conform to or contest notions of sexuality and gender. A defence of
cultural differences and an attack on cultural elitism, Seduced and
Abandoned is as passionate and provocative as pop itself.
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