Examining the cultural, political, economic, technological and institutional aspects of popular music throughout Asia, this book is the first comprehensive analysis of Asian popular music and its cultural industries. Concentrating on the development of popular culture in its local socio-political context, the volume highlights how local appropriations of the pop music genre play an active rather than reactive role in manipulating global cultural and capital flows.
Unlike many studies on globalization which highlight functional disjunctures of 'cultural imperialism', "Refashioning Pop Music in Asia" stresses that it is the local context which imbues specific meanings for different audiences, in turn allowing a creative synthesis that makes pop music a unique channel through which cultural identity, political resistance, social expression and personal desire can be experienced. Popular musical expression in Asia-its meaning and its practice-cannot be reduced to the State, market, tradition or to a simple appropriation of Western forms, rather, it is at the juncture of the local and global that an aesthetic refashioning of traditional and pop music genres emerge.
Broad in geographical sweep and rich in contemporary examples, this work will appeal to those interested in Asian popular culture from a variety of perspectives including, political economy, anthropology, communication studies, media studies and ethnomusicology.

This engrossing book tells the tale of the Detroit duo who shook up the music world with their candy-colored gothic-coated world of melody rhythm and storytelling. These unlikely-looking saviors reinvigorated the blues and blues-rock for a new generation. Writer Denise Sullivan relates The White Stripes' story with a keen eye for detail a music lover's ear for influences and references a fan's appreciation of the layers and subtleties and a journalist's nose for a good story with all its twists and curves half-truths and elaborate theories. Includes dozens of rare photographs a full discography and a song concordance. 7-1/4 x 9-1/4 176 pages

This book provides a detailed analysis of the lyrics of the German rock musician Udo Lindenberg and of the singer-songwriter Konstantin Wecker. The investigation starts from the assumption that lyrics which are not in English put more weight onto the textual side of popular songs; the lyrics are therefore analysed separately from music and performance. Furthermore, this study goes beyond the distinction between dominant and mass literature which, within literary studies, has so far prevented an unbiased approach towards song lyrics. Finally, it is suggested that Lindenberg's and Wecker's lyrics can be read as contemporary variations of « Gebrauchslyrik« , a concept that was developed by major representatives of the German cabaret culture during the 1920s and 1930s. Hence, the book recapitulates the history of both the German cabaret and the development of German popular music, and places Lindenberg and Wecker within these cultural movements.

Pop Music Production delves into academic depths around the culture, the business, the songwriting, and most importantly, the pop music production process. Phil Harding balances autobiographical discussion of events and relationships with academic analysis to offer poignant points on the value of pure popular music, particularly in relation to BoyBands and how creative pop production and songwriting teams function. Included here are practical resources, such as recording studio equipment lists, producer business deal examples and a 12-step mixing technique, where Harding expands upon previously released material to explain how 'Stay Another Day' by East 17 changed his approach to mixing forever. However, it is important to note that Harding almost downplays his involvement in his career. At no point is he center stage; he humbly discusses his position within the greater scheme of events. Pop Music Production offers cutting-edge analysis of a genre rarely afforded academic attention. This book is aimed at lecturers and students in the subject fields of Music Production, Audio Engineering, Music Technology, Popular Songwriting Studies and Popular Music Culture. It is suitable for all levels of study from FE students through to PhD researchers. Pop Music Production is also designed as a follow-up to Harding's first book PWL from the Factory Floor (2010, Cherry Red Books), a memoir of his time working with 1980s pop production and songwriting powerhouse, Stock Aitken Waterman, at PWL Studios.

In the 1950s and '60s those shiny 45-rpm records with the big hole in the middle were the primary delivery system for popular American music especially rock 'n' roll. Cheap to manufacture and available to even fly-by-night record operations the donut disc changed the way popular music was written recorded promoted and marketed and it broke a at least for a time a the iron-fisted dominance of the major record corporations. This book traces the 7-inch single's origins back to the 1880s and explains the personality conflicts that led an eccentric genius to develop the 45 into one of postwar America's most popular consumer products. It explores how the jukebox the autonomous disc jockey and payola and artist rip-offs kept the 45 at the forefront of rock for 20 years. There are also chapters on the most valuable (and legendary) 45s of all time as well as the oddities oddballs and freak hits that make listening to 45s so much fun. With over 80 illustrations a many in full color.

In Songs in the Key of Black Life, acclaimed cultural critic Mark Anthony Neal turns his attention to Rhythm and Blues. He argues that R&B - often dismissed as 'just a bunch of love songs', yet the second most popular genre in terms of sales - can tell us much about the dynamic joys, apprehensions, tensions, and contradictions of contemporary black life. With a voice as heartfelt and compelling as the best music, Neal guides us through the work of classic and contemporary artists ranging from Marvin Gaye to Macy Gray. In the first section of the book, 'Rhythm', he uses the music of Meshell N'degeocello, Patti Labelle, Jill Scott, Alicia Keys, and others as guideposts to the major concerns of contemporary black life-issues such as gender, feminist politics, political activism, black masculinity, celebrity, and the fluidity of racial and sexual identity. The second part of the book, 'Blues', uses the improvisational rhythms of black music as a metaphor to examine currents in black life including the public dispute between Cornel West and Harvard President Lawrence Summers and the firing of BET's talk-show host Tavis Smiley.
Songs in the Key of Black Life is a remarkable contribution to the study of black popular music, and valuable reading for anyone interested in how race is lived in America.

In Songs in the Key of Black Life, acclaimed cultural critic Mark Anthony Neal turns his attention to Rhythm and Blues. He argues that R&B-often dismissed as "just a bunch of love songs," yet the second most popular genre in terms of sales - can tell us much about the dynamic joys, apprehensions, tensions, and contradictions of contemporary black life, if we listen closely. With a voice as heartfelt and compelling as the best music, Neal guides us through the work of classic and contemporary artists ranging from Marvin Gaye to Macy Gray. In the first section of the book, "Rhythm," he uses the music of Meshell N'degeocello, Patti Labelle, Jill Scott, Alicia Keys, and others as guideposts to the major concerns of contemporary black life-issues such as gender, feminist politics, political activism, black masculinity, celebrity, and the fluidity of racial and sexual identity. The second part of the book, "Blues," uses the improvisational rhythms of black music as a metaphor to examine currents in black life including the public dispute between Cornel West and Harvard President Lawrence Summers and the firing of BET's talk-show host Tavis Smiley.
Songs in the Key of Black Life is a remarkable contribution to the study of black popular music, and valuable reading for anyone interested in how race is lived in America.

After the breakup of the Beatles in 1971, Paul McCartney formed Wings with his wife Linda on keyboards, ex-Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine, and American session drummer Denny Seiwell. For ten dramatic and turbulent years, the band weathered the critics, endured pot busts, survived a harrowing recording stint in Nigeria, changed drummers constantly, and produced a great deal of remarkable music. McGee's tale of one of the most successful bands of the seventies-the first book to focus exclusively on Paul's post-Beatles years-tells the stories behind the #1 hits "Listen To What the Man Said," "My Love," "Band on the Run," "Jet," "With a Little Luck," and "Coming Up." McGee reveals the band's inner dynamics and its relationship with the press and public, examining Paul's determination to pursue a new sound, the criticisms Linda initially got from fans and bandmates, and the character conflicts that kept the lineup changing. Appendices include interviews with former Wings guitarist Henry McCullough, a complete discography, a list of singles with Paul's comments on each, and rankings from the sales charts. Band on the Run also includes a trove of rare Wings promotional material-album covers, posters, ads, and candid photos of the band on tour.

'This could be heaven or this could be hell...' So sings Don Henley on their biggest hit, 'Hotel California', yet for The Eagles their story was one where the dividing line between ultimate Hollywood highs and subterranean LA lows was blurred beyond recognition, blinded by white-powdered double-visions and buried beneath greenback mountains. The band that embodied the American dream with globe-straddling success, impossibly luxurious lives, almost supernatural talent also descended into nightmare with bloodletting betrayal, hate-filled hubris, the skeletons of perceived enemies, brutally discarded lovers and former band mates left unburied in the road behind them. The story of The Eagles is a truly gothic American fable: one of ultimate power and rivers of money; of sex and drugs at a time when both were the lingua-franca of sophisticated So-Cal living; of a band who sang of peaceful easy feelings in public while threatening to kill each other in private. Now, for the first time, esteemed music biographer Mick Wall will provide the definitive insight into America's best-selling band of all time, a band who have sold more records than Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones combined, exploring their meteoric rise to fame, and the hedonistic days of the 70s music scene in LA, when American music was taking over the world.

(Book). Although together for only five years, The Yardbirds exerted tremendous influence on the music and style of the '60s and for decades beyond. Their impact has been felt throughout the rock genre, from psychedelia to blues-rock, heavy metal, and the music of today's jam bands. The Yardbirds came from middle-class England, embraced the soulful music of the African-American South, and helped re-import it back into the States as the embryo of heavy metal music. In the process, the band produced three guitar greats: Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. Every fan of The Yardbirds, or of '60s-derived music in general, will revel in this book (which includes more than 50 photos from the group's heyday, plus a detailed diary of every gig, recording and broadcast they did) and enjoy reading the stories old and new as much as Clayson enjoys telling them.

Colin Escott is famous for unearthing little-known stories behind the sometimes forgotten figures in pop music history. He is the author of several best-selling books on music, including Hank Williams: The Biography and Good Rockin' Tonight: The Sun Records Story. His new book presents an array of talents, form the famous (Roy Orbison, Perry Como) to the more obscure (Sonny Burgess, the Collins Kids). Writing in a colourful style, Escott shows how these individual stories illuminate an entire era of music history. Illustrated with wonderful period photographs, Roadkill will appeal to all fans of rock, pop and country music.

Popular musicians acquire some or all of their skills and knowledge informally, outside school or university, and with little help from trained instrumental teachers. How do they go about this process? Despite the fact that popular music has recently entered formal music education, we have as yet a limited understanding of the learning practices adopted by its musicians. Nor do we know why so many popular musicians in the past turned away from music education, or how young popular musicians today are responding to it. Drawing on a series of interviews with musicians aged between fifteen and fifty, Lucy Green explores the nature of pop musicians' informal learning practices, attitudes and values, the extent to which these altered over the last forty years, and the experiences of the musicians in formal music education. Through a comparison of the characteristics of informal pop music learning with those of more formal music education, the book offers insights into how we might re-invigorate the musical involvement of the population. Could the creation of a teaching culture that recognizes and rewards aural imitation, improvisation and experimentation, as well as commitment and passion, encourage more people to make music? Since the hardback publication of this book in 2001, the author has explored many of its themes through practical work in school classrooms. Her follow-up book, Music, Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy (2008) appears in the same Ashgate series.

From Prince's superstardom to studio seclusion, this second book in the award-winning Prince Studio Sessions series spotlights how Prince, the biggest rock star on the planet at the time, risked everything to create some of the most introspective music of his four-decade career. Duane Tudahl takes us on an emotional and intimate journey of love, loss, rivalry, and renewal revealed through unprecedented access to dozens of musicians, singers, studio engineers, and others who worked with him and knew him best-with never-before-published memories from the Revolution, the Time, the Family, and Apollonia 6. Also included is a heartfelt foreword by musical legend Elton John about his time and friendship with Prince.

This book reveals how a diverse blend of styles, regions, and cultures swirled into the folk-rock revolution - infusing popular music with a controversial mix of literate lyricism, social consciousness, and rock 'n' roll rebellion. A richly woven narrative of firsthand stories and informed historical analysis, it covers all the key folk-rock innovators: Bob Dylan, the Byrds, Lovin' Spoonful, Buffalo Springfield, Simon & Garfunkel, the Mamas & the Papas, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and dozens more, plus lesser-knowns such as Phil Ochs and Jackie DeShannon. Incorporating insights from musicians, producers, managers, club owners, record label executives and others who drove the movement, Turn! Turn! Turn! focuses on the birth and development of the music, but also shows how folk-rock changed popular music, the music industry, and society forever. Setting the scene with America's traditional folk of the early '60s, the book describes the sea change that began in 1964 when the social consciousness of folk met the energy of rock. It concentrates on 1965-66, when the best, most popular, and most controversial folk-rock was created. The book explores the dizzyingly fast cross-fertilization of such giants as the Beatles, the Byrds, and Dylan; the passionate conflicts between folk devotees and folk-rockers; the sudden frenzy of the media; and the unforgettable music that was born. Turn! Turn! Turn! also examines how folk-rock continued to influence late '60s psychedelic rock, country-rock and the British scene, as well as its gradual, partial transformation into the singer-songwriter movement.

In " Subculture to Clubculture " Steve Redhead responds to the separation of 'youth' and 'pop' in the 1980's and the fragmentation of the audience for popular music in the 1990's.

First published in 1972, Ian Whitcomb's After the Ball is an exuberant account of the origins and explosion of popular music, informed by the author's store of experience in the field as a pop sensation of The Sixties. 'Brash, learned, funny and perspicacious.... The author of this free-wheeling, diverting history was a student at Trinity College, Dublin, when he created a rock hit 'You Turn Me On,' and experienced a brief, bewildering season as a touring rock celebrity. This book... is his effort to explain that experience to himself, and, well-educated man that he is, he goes all the way back to the first pop bestseller (in sheet music, of course), 'After The Ball,' and all the way forward to the 1960s.' New Yorker 'One of the best books on popular music to come along in the last few years.... Whitcomb's own involvement with music constantly surfaces to make the book both revealing and highly enjoyable.' Seattle Times

Bob Dylan is not a poet. He is a singer-songwriter, a performing artist. The unit of his art, as collected and documented by his intended audience, is the live performance. Right now, no existing technological tool can give researchers ready access to his entire corpus of work. Revised from the author's Ph.D. dissertation (UC Berkeley, 1978) and again from its first edition (Indiana UP, 1982), Performed Literature develops a methodology for close analysis of verbal art that is heard, not seen, using as comparative examples 24 performances of 11 songs by Bob Dylan. The second edition adds a preface, two major appendices and one minor one, and a detailed index.

Originally formed by singer-songwriter Ian Anderson in psychedelic 1968, the band Hethro Tull has been recording its own kind of rock and roll and touring the globe for more than three decades. This is a history of the band through the present, written by a personal acquaintance of several of its members. The book includes a chronology of all of the band's recordings and information on all accompanying tours, with the author's critiques as well as the band's own reminiscences and opinions of each album. Also included are previously unpublished interviews with founder Ian Anderson long-time band member David Pegg, Mick Abrahams, Jeffrey Hammond, and Doane Perry, and other band members.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER "Mark Lanegan-primitive, brutal, and apocalyptic. What's not to love?" NICK CAVE "A stoned cold classic" IAN RANKIN 'Mark Lanegan writes like he sings, from the pained heart of a damaged soul with brutal honesty' BOBBY GILLESPIE "Powerfully written and brutally, frighteningly honest" LUCINDA WILLIAMS A ROUGH TRADE AND MOJO BOOK OF THE YEAR From the back of the van to the front of the bar, from the hotel room to the emergency room, Mark Lanegan takes us back to the sinister, needle-ridden streets of Seattle, to an alternative music scene that was simultaneously bursting with creativity and saturated with drugs. He tracks the tumultuous rise and fall of Screaming Trees, from a brawling, acid-rock bar band to world-famous festival favourites with an enduring legacy, and tells of his own personal struggles with addiction, culminating in homelessness, petty crime, and the tragic deaths of his closest friends. Gritty, gripping and unflinchingly raw, SING BACKWARDS AND WEEP is about a man who learned how to drag himself from the wreckage, dust off the ashes, and keep living and creating. 'The most brutally honest rock memoir imaginable' DAILY TELEGRAPH

Progressive or art rock was one of the most important trends in rock and roll during the early and mid-'70s. Groups like Genesis, Yes, Procol Harum, and Pink Floyd broke new ground by taking classical composition techniques and structures and wedding them with the power and drive of rock. Yet, by the end of the decade, the punk backlash had pretty much ended prog-rock's reign as rock's leading style. Today, scholars of rock and popular culture have returned to these musical groups and their achievements with new recognition of the musical sophistication they brought to rock and roll. In this book, the glory days of progressive rock are relived in a series of insightful essays about the key bands, songwriters, and songs that made prog-rock such an innovative style. For fans-both old and new-this collection sheds new light on an important trend in rock and roll with repercussions still being felt among today's artists. Progressive Rock Reconsidered is a landmark work on this important era in rock's history.

Progressive or art rock was one of the most important trends in rock and roll during the early and mid-'70s. Groups like Genesis, Yes, Procol Harum, and Pink Floyd broke new ground by taking classical composition techniques and structures and wedding them with the power and drive of rock. Yet, by the end of the decade, the punk backlash had pretty much ended prog-rock's reign as rock's leading style. Today, scholars of rock and popular culture have returned to these musical groups and their achievements with new recognition of the musical sophistication they brought to rock and roll. In this book, the glory days of progressive rock are relived in a series of insightful essays about the key bands, songwriters, and songs that made prog-rock such an innovative style. For fans-both old and new-this collection sheds new light on an important trend in rock and roll with repercussions still being felt among today's artists. Progressive Rock Reconsidered is a landmark work on this important era in rock's history.

Million Dollar Quartet' is the name given to recordings made on Tuesday December 4, 1956 in the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. The recordings were of an impromptu jam session among Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash.The events of the session. Very few participants survive. Includes interviews with the drummer and the sound engineer. A detailed analysis of the music played - and its relevance to subsequent popular music. The early lives and careers of the quartet - where they were in 1956. Relevant social and economic factors which meant that a massive audience of young people were keenly looking for a new kind of music they could call their own. The "reunions" of surviving members of the quartet. The emergence of the tapes, first on bootleg and then on legitimate CDs. The genesis of the stage show and its reception - the enduring appeal of the music.

The members of Led Zeppelin are major deities in the pantheon of rock gods. The first and heaviest of the heavy metal monsters, they violently shook the foundations of rock music and took no prisoners on the road. Their tours were legendary, their lives were exalted--and in an era well known for sex and drugs, the mighty Zeppelin set an unattainable standard of excess and mythos for any band that tried to follow them. They were power, they were fantasy, they were black magic. No band ever flew as high as Led Zeppelin or suffered so disastrous a fall. And only some of them lived to tell the tale.

"Hammer of the Gods" is the "New York Times" bestselling epic saga of the hard reign of Page, Plant, Jones, and Bonham--a spellbinding, electrifying, no-holds-barred classic of rock 'n' roll history that has now been updated to include the continuing adventures of the band.

Curating Pop speaks to the rapidly growing interest in the study of popular music exhibitions, which has occurred alongside the increasing number of popular music museums in operation across the world. Focusing on curatorial practices and processes, this book draws on interviews with museum workers and curators from twenty museums globally, including the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, the Experience Music Project in Seattle and the PopMuseum in Prague. Through a consideration of the subjective experiences of curators involved in the exhibition of popular music in museums in a range of geographic locations, Curating Pop compares institutional practices internationally, illustrating the ways in which popular music history is presented to visitors in a wider sense.