THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Head behind the curtain in the refreshingly honest and intimate story of Gary Barlow's life 'Warm, wise . . . A never-before-seen insight into one of Britain's greatest songwriters' Woman's Own 'I just wanted to share my personal journey through the last five decades - the highs and lows, the ups and downs. So in A Different Stage, this is me opening the curtains and sharing moments nobody has heard or seen before . . .' __________ In this warm, intimate and humorous book, rich with nostalgia and unexpected intimate detail, Gary Barlow unpacks the people, music, places, things and cultural phenomena that have made him the man that he is. From the working men's club where it all began through to the sold out stadium tours, this is the story of Gary's life told through music. Filled with a mixture of brand new photography from Gary's current one-man show and incredibly personal unseen photos and notebooks, A Different Stage is a beautiful book about the man we've spent our lives listening to. __________ 'Refreshingly honest . . . Think you know everything there is to know about the Take That megastar? Think again' Woman & Home

Despite the presence of the Flaming Lips in a commercial for a copier and Iggy Pop's music in luxury cruise advertisements, Jeffrey T. Nealon argues that popular music has not exactly been co-opted in the American capitalist present. Contemporary neoliberal capitalism has, in fact, found a central organizing use for the values of twentieth-century popular music: being authentic, being your own person, and being free. In short, not being like everybody else. Through a consideration of the shift in dominant modes of power in the American twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from what Michel Foucault calls a dominant "disciplinary" mode of power to a "biopolitical" mode, Nealon argues that the modes of musical "resistance" need to be completely rethought and that a commitment to musical authenticity or meaning-saying "no" to the mainstream-is no longer primarily where we might look for music to function against the grain. Rather, it is in the technological revolutions that allow biopolitical subjects to deploy music within an everyday set of practices (MP3 listening on smartphones and iPods, streaming and downloading on the internet, the background music that plays nearly everywhere) that one might find a kind of ambient or ubiquitous answer to the "attention capitalism" that has come to organize neoliberalism in the American present. In short, Nealon stages the final confrontation between "keepin' it real" and "sellin' out."

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".

Triple Entendre discusses the rise and spread of background music in contexts as diverse as office workplaces, shopping malls, and musical performance. Herve Vanel examines background music in several guises, beginning with Erik Satie's "Furniture Music" of the late 1910s and early 1920s, which first demonstrated the idea of a music not meant to be listened to and was later considered a precedent to modern, functional background music. Vanel argues that when the Muzak Corporation's commercialized ambient music became a predominant feature of modern life in the 1940s--both as a brand and a genre of background music--it also became a powerful instrument of social engineering in an advanced capitalist society. Different kinds of music were developed to encourage or incite greater productivity in the workplace, more energetic shopping, or more animated socializing. Vanel's discussion culminates in the creative response of the composer John Cage to the pervasiveness and power of background music in contemporary society. Cage neither opposed nor rejected Muzak, but literally answered its challenge by formulating a parallel concept that he called "Muzak-Plus." Forty years after Satie presented his work to general critical puzzlement, Cage saw how background music could be combined with mid-century technology and theories of art and performance to create a participatory soundscape on a scale that Satie could not have envisioned, again reconfiguring the listener's stance to music. By examining the subterranean connections existing between these three formulations of a singular idea, Triple Entendre analyzes and challenges the crucial boundary that separates an artistic concept from its actual implementation in life.

The long-awaited autobiography of entertainment icon Jerry Blavat, You Only Rock Once is the wildly entertaining and unfiltered story of the man whose career began at the age of 13 on the TV dance show Bandstand and became a music legend. Lifelong friendships with the likes of Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra, a controversial relationship with Philadelphia Mafia boss Angelo Bruno that resulted in a decade-long FBI investigation, and much more colours this amazing journey from the early 60s through today. Now, some 50 years after his first radio gig, Blavat puts it all in perspective in this uniquely American tale of a little cockroach kid" borne out of the immigrant experience who lived the American Dream.

That rare thing, an academic study of music that seeks to tie together the strands of the musical text, the industry that produces it, and the audience that gives it meaning... A vital read for anyone interested in the changing nature of popular music production and consumption" - Dr Nathan Wiseman-Trowse, The University of Northampton Popular music entertains, inspires and even empowers, but where did it come from, how is it made, what does it mean, and how does it eventually reach our ears? Tim Wall guides students through the many ways we can analyse music and the music industries, highlighting crucial skills and useful research tips.

Taking into account recent changes and developments in the industry, this book outlines the key concepts, offers fresh perspectives and encourages readers to reflect on their own work. Written with clarity, flair and enthusiasm, it covers:

Histories of popular music, their traditions and cultural, social, economic and technical factors Industries and institutions, production, new technology, and the entertainment media Musical form, meaning and representation Audiences and consumption.

Students' learning is consolidated through a set of insightful case studies, engaging activities and helpful suggestions for further reading.

"K-Pop: Popular Music, Cultural Amnesia, and Economic Innovation in South Korea" seeks at once to describe and explain the emergence of export-oriented South Korean popular music and to make sense of larger South Korean economic and cultural transformations. John Lie provides not only a history of South Korean popular music--the premodern background, Japanese colonial influence, post-Liberation American impact, and recent globalization--but also a description of K-pop as a system of economic innovation and cultural production. In doing so, "K-Pop" delves into the broader background of South Korea that gave rise to K-pop in this wonderfully informed history and analysis of a pop culture phenomenon sweeping the globe.

The third edition of Popular Music and Society is fully revised and updated, deftly exploring the study of popular music in the context of wider debates in sociology and media and cultural studies. Astute and accessible, it continues to set the agenda for research and teaching in this area. The book begins by examining the ways in which popular music is produced, before moving on to explore its structure as text and the ways in which audiences understand and use music. Packed with up-to-date examples and data on the contemporary production and consumption of popular music, the book includes overviews and critiques of theoretical approaches to this exciting area of study and outlines the most important empirical studies which have shaped the discipline. Topics covered include: * The contemporary organization of the music industry * The effects of technological change on production * The history and politics of popular music * Gender, sexuality and ethnicity * Subcultures * Fans and music celebrities This new edition adds sections on the impact of digital media on popular music production and consumption and incorporates original ethnographic research on musicianship and musical practices. It will continue to be required reading for students of the sociology of culture, media and communication studies, and popular culture.

The historical significance of music-makers, music scenes, and music genres has long been mediated through academic and popular press publications such as magazines, films, and television documentaries. Media Narratives in Popular Music examines these various publications and questions how and why they are constructed. It considers the typically linear narratives that are based on simplifications, exaggerations, and omissions and the histories they construct - an approach that leads to totalizing "official" histories that reduce otherwise messy narratives to one-dimensional interpretations of a heroic and celebratory nature. This book questions the basis on which these mediated histories are constructed, highlights other, hidden, histories that have otherwise been neglected, and explores a range of topics including consumerism, the production pressure behind documentaries, punk fanzines, Rolling Stones covers, and more.

A son of poor Jamaican immigrants who grew up in Depression-era Harlem, Harry Belafonte became the first black performer to gain artistic control over the representation of African Americans in commercial television and film. Forging connections with an astonishing array of consequential players on the American scene in the decades following World War II-from Paul Robeson to Ed Sullivan, John Kennedy to Stokely Carmichael-Belafonte established his place in American culture as a hugely popular singer, matinee idol, internationalist, and champion of civil rights, black pride, and black power. In Becoming Belafonte, Judith E. Smith presents the first full-length interpretive study of this multitalented artist. She sets Belafonte's compelling story within a history of American race relations, black theater and film history, McCarthy-era hysteria, and the challenges of introducing multifaceted black culture in a moment of expanding media possibilities and constrained political expression. Smith traces Belafonte's roots in the radical politics of the 1940s, his careful negotiation of the complex challenges of the Cold War 1950s, and his full flowering as a civil rights advocate and internationally acclaimed performer in the 1960s. In Smith's account, Belafonte emerges as a relentless activist, a questing intellectual, and a tireless organizer. From his first national successes as a singer of Calypso-inflected songs to the dedication he brought to producing challenging material on television and film regardless of its commercial potential, Belafonte stands as a singular figure in American cultural history-a performer who never shied away from the dangerous crossroads where art and politics meet.

Over the Rainbow, "Stormy Weather," and "One for My Baby" are just a few of Harold Arlen's well-loved compositions. Yet his name is hardly known--except to the musicians who venerate him. At a gathering of songwriters George Gershwin called him "the best of us." Irving Berlin agreed. Paul McCartney sent him a fan letter and became his publisher. Bob Dylan wrote of his fascination with Arlen's "bittersweet, lonely world." A cantor's son, Arlen believed his music was from a place outside himself, a place that also sent tragedy. When his wife became mentally ill and was institutionalized he turned to alcohol. It nearly killed him. But the beautiful songs kept coming: "Blues in the Night," "My Shining Hour," "Come Rain or Come Shine," and "The Man That Got Away." Walter Rimler drew on interviews with friends and associates of Arlen and on newly available archives to write this intimate portrait of a genius whose work is a pillar of the Great American Songbook.

Widespread distribution of recorded music via digital networks affects more than just business models and marketing strategies; it also alters the way we understand recordings, scenes and histories of popular music culture. This Is Not a Remix uncovers the analog roots of digital practices and brings the long history of copies and piracy into contact with contemporary controversies about the reproduction, use and circulation of recordings on the internet. Borschke examines the innovations that have sprung from the use of recording formats in grassroots music scenes, from the vinyl, tape and acetate that early disco DJs used to create remixes to the mp3 blogs and vinyl revivalists of the 21st century. This is Not A Remix challenges claims that 'remix culture' is a substantially new set of innovations and highlights the continuities and contradictions of the Internet era. Through an historical focus on copy as a property and practice, This Is Not a Remix focuses on questions about the materiality of media, its use and the aesthetic dimensions of reproduction and circulation in digital networks. Through a close look at sometimes illicit forms of composition-including remixes, edits, mashup, bootlegs and playlists-Borschke ponders how and why ideals of authenticity persist in networked cultures where copies and copying are ubiquitous and seemingly at odds with romantic constructions of authorship. By teasing out unspoken assumptions about media and culture, this book offers fresh perspectives on the cultural politics of intellectual property in the digital era and poses questions about the promises, possibilities and challenges of network visibility and mobility.

The canzone napoletana-Neapolitan song-was one of the first international popular musics of the modern era, traveling beyond the city of Naples and the borders of Italy. Its success was due largely to Italian emigrants, who composed, performed, recorded, sold, and consumed the music in the forms of sheet music, piano rolls, 78 rpm recordings, and performances. In Neapolitan Postcards contributors address the unexplored transnational aspects of the Neapolitan song. From its origins in Naples to its arrival-with such classic songs as Core 'ngrato (1911) to Senza Mamma (1925)-in New York City, Neapolitan song gained popularity among a larger American public even as Italian immigrants were victimized as racialized others. Its spread across the world over the course of the twentieth century became evident as singers and musicians like the Andrews Sisters, Charles Aznavour, Count Basie, Elvis Presley, Violeta Rivas, Caetano Veloso, Frank Zappa, and others recorded Neapolitan songs or incorporated it into their compositions.Contributors address a broad range of topics raised by this song tradition, such as its transnational character in Franco Fabbri's examination of the song genre's movement between Naples, Smyrna and Athens; its role as a cultural signifier in Paolo Proto's study of Neapolitan song ethnic stereotypes; its presence on stage in Giuliana Muscio's look at Italian-American sceneggiata; and its place on screen in Giorgio Bertellini's essay on the recently re-discovered film, Santa Lucia Luntana. The book is the first scholarly work that considers specifically the complexity of the international Neapolitan song scene through case studies from Greece, Argentina, the Middle East, and the United States, employing analyses of iconographical sources and international films devoted to the canzone napoletana.

From ancient times to the present day, writers and thinkers have remarked on the unique power of music to evoke emotions, signal identity, and bond or divide entire societies, all without the benefit of literal representation. Even if we can't say precisely what our favorite melody means, we know very well what kind of effect it has on us, and on our friends and neighbors. According to Aram Sinnreich, this power helps to explain why music has so often been regulated in societies around the globe and throughout history. Institutional authorities ranging from dynastic China's "Office to Harmonize Sounds" to today's copyright collecting societies like BMI and ASCAP leverage the rule of law and the power of the market to make sure that some musical forms and practices are allowed and others are prohibited. Yet, despite the efforts of these powerful regulators, musical cultures consistently devise new and innovative ways to work around institutional regulations. These workarounds often generate new styles and traditions in turn, with effects far beyond the cultural sphere. Mashed Up chronicles the rise of "configurability," an emerging musical and cultural moment rooted in today's global, networked communications infrastructure. Based on interviews with dozens of prominent DJs, attorneys, and music industry executives, the book argues that today's battles over sampling, file sharing, and the marketability of new styles such as "mash-ups" and "techno" presage social change on a far broader scale. Specifically, the book suggests the emergence of a new ethic of configurable collectivism; an economic reunion of labor; a renegotiation of the line between public and private; a shift from linear to recursive logic; and a new "DJ consciousness," in which the margins are becoming the new mainstream. Whether these changes are sudden or gradual, violent or peaceful, will depend on whether we heed the lessons of configurability, or continue to police and punish the growing ranks of the mashed up.

Like Fela Kuti and Bob Marley, singer, composer, and bandleader Thomas Mapfumo and his music came to represent his native country's anticolonial struggle and cultural identity. Mapfumo was born in 1945 in what was then the British colony of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The trajectory of his career-from early performances of rock 'n' roll tunes to later creating a new genre based on traditional Zimbabwean music, including the sacred mbira, and African and Western pop-is a metaphor for Zimbabwe's evolution from colony to independent nation. Lion Songs is an authoritative biography of Mapfumo that narrates the life and career of this creative, complex, and iconic figure. Banning Eyre ties the arc of Mapfumo's career to the history of Zimbabwe. The genre Mapfumo created in the 1970s called chimurenga, or "struggle" music, challenged the Rhodesian government-which banned his music and jailed him-and became important to Zimbabwe achieving independence in 1980. In the 1980s and 1990s Mapfumo's international profile grew along with his opposition to Robert Mugabe's dictatorship. Mugabe had been a hero of the revolution, but Mapfumo's criticism of his regime led authorities and loyalists to turn on the singer with threats and intimidation. Beginning in 2000, Mapfumo and key band and family members left Zimbabwe. Many of them, including Mapfumo, now reside in Eugene, Oregon. A labor of love, Lion Songs is the product of a twenty-five-year friendship and professional relationship between Eyre and Mapfumo that demonstrates Mapfumo's musical and political importance to his nation, its freedom struggle, and its culture.