THINK ROCK is the first Music title in the THINK series. It is designed for an introduction to rock music course for the non-music major at an economical price. Taking a chronological approach, it offers a basic introduction to the key eras, performers, and songs that shaped rock music. THINK ROCK is a full history, beginning with pre-rock styles and covering all styles right up to today's latest sounds. In addition to the music itself, THINK ROCK addresses the rich cultural history of the rock era, and how social/cultural events shaped rock and were shaped by it. The book is richly illustrated with period photographs and reproductions of album covers and concert posters. An open access companion website is available with THINK ROCK at www.thethinkspot.com.

Key Benefit: The Fourth Edition builds upon the strengths of previous editions with its sustained attention to the context in which the literature was produced and its broadened scope of literature that includes the full cultural diversity of the British Isles. Key Topics: Includes canonical authors and newly visible authors. Extensive selections from previously underrepresented female writers are fully integrated. New "Responses" readings group works that were based on earlier writings to link works across time and place. "Perspectives" readings are broad groupings that illuminate underlying issues in a variety of the major works of a period. New to Volume 1A is the inclusion of new Penguin Classics translations of "Beowulf "by Michael Alexander and "Sir Gawain and theGreen Knight"by Brian Stone and the major classic work "The Tain. " Market: For anyone wanting a fresh approach to the study and enjoyment of British literature.

Considering the work of such artists as Madonna, George Clinton, U2, Elvis Costello, and Nirvana, the contributors deftly combine the rigors of scholarship with the energy of rock journalism to provide an analysis at once critical, contextualized, and enthusiastic. While a number of scholars have recently turned their attention to rock and pop music, most of their work has focused on providing sweeping cultural contexts for its popularity rather than exploring the music itself. Now, in "Reading Rock and Roll, " Kevin Dettmar and William Richey have gathered a wealth of erudite, original, and clever writings that perform close readings of rock music -- often with surprising results.

The authors in this volume view rock and roll as having had affinities with postmodernism from its inception. With its mongrel pedigree -- drawing on blues, folk, R and B, and bluegrass -- and its relation to mass media and high-tech modes of production, rock music has been self-conscious and full of irony from the beginning. These essays regularly call attention to the allusiveness and intertextuality of rock and roll, whether it is Kurt Cobain undermining the Beatles, M. C. Hammer stealing from Rick James's "Super Freak," or U2's use of Johnny Cash's legendary voice.

From a careful examination of the roles of addictions and female sexuality in the remakings of Courtney Love and Madonna, to the politics of George Clinton's uses and abuses of language, to the referencing of Elvis Costello in two recent novels and the use of 1970s rock in several recent film soundtracks, these essays are as varied as the artists they consider. Informal and theoretically informed, "Reading Rock and Roll" is an important investigation of the music that more than any other has defined our century.