Popular Music Books

New and Published Books

1. Redefining Mainstream Popular Music

   Edited by Sarah Baker, Andy Bennett, Jodie Taylor

   Redefining Mainstream Popular Music is a collection of seventeen essays that critically examines the idea of the "mainstream" in and across a variety of popular music styles and contexts. Notions of what is popular vary across generations and cultures – what may have been considered alternative to...

   Published January 24th 2013 by Routledge
2. Understanding Society through Popular Music

   2nd Edition

   By Joe Kotarba, Bryce Merrill, J Patrick Williams, Phillip Vannini

   Written for Introductory Sociology and Sociology of Popular Music courses, the second edition of Understanding Society through Popular Music uses popular music to illustrate fundamental social institutions, theories, sociological concepts, and processes. The authors use music, a social phenomenon...

   Published January 10th 2013 by Routledge
3. Local Music Scenes and Globalization

   Transnational Platforms in Beirut

   By Thomas Burkhalter

   Series: Routledge Studies in Ethnomusicology

   This book offers the first in-depth study of experimental and popular music scenes in Beirut, looking at musicians working towards a new understanding of musical creativity and music culture in a country that is dominated by mass-mediated pop music, and propaganda. Burkhalter studies the generation...

   Published December 18th 2012 by Routledge
4. Liveness in Modern Music

   Musicians, Technology, and the Perception of Performance

   By Paul Sanden

   Series: Routledge Research in Music

   This study investigates the idea and practice of liveness in modern music. Understanding what makes music live in an ever-changing musical and technological terrain is one of the more complex and timely challenges facing scholars of current music, where liveness is typically understood to represent...

   Published December 17th 2012 by Routledge
5. Vocal Music and Contemporary Identities

   Unlimited Voices in East Asia and the West

   Edited by Christian Utz, Frederick Lau

   Series: Routledge Research in Music

   Looking at musical globalization and vocal music, this collection of essays studies the complex relationship between the human voice and cultural identity in 20th- and 21st-century music in both East Asian and Western music. The authors approach musical meaning in specific case studies against the...

   Published December 17th 2012 by Routledge
6. Understanding Popular Music Culture

   4th Edition

   By Roy Shuker

   This extensively revised new edition of Understanding Popular Music Culture provides an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the production, distribution, consumption and meaning of popular music and the difficulties and debates that surround the analysis of popular culture and popular...

   Published October 25th 2012 by Routledge
7. The International Recording Industries

   Edited by Lee Marshall

   Series: Routledge Advances in Sociology

   The recording industry has been a major focus of interest for cultural commentators throughout the twenty-first century. As the first major content industry to have its production and distribution patterns radically disturbed by the internet, the recording industry’s content, attitudes and...

   Published October 4th 2012 by Routledge
8. The Rock History Reader

   2nd Edition

   Edited by Theo Cateforis

   The Rock History Reader is an eclectic compilation of readings that tells the history of rock as it has been received and explained as a social and musical practice throughout its six decade history. The readings range from the vivid autobiographical accounts of such rock icons as Ronnie Spector...

   Published September 16th 2012 by Routledge
9. Religion and Hip Hop

   By Monica R. Miller

   Series: Routledge Research in Religion, Media and Culture

   Religion and Hip Hop brings together the category of religion, Hip Hop cultural modalities and the demographic of youth. Bringing postmodern theory and critical approaches in the study of religion to bear on Hip Hop cultural practices, this book examines how scholars in religious and theological...

   Published August 7th 2012 by Routledge
10. Woody Guthrie

    Writing America's Songs

    By Ronald Cohen

    Series: Routledge Historical Americans

    Woody Guthrie is the most famous and influential folk music composer and performer in the history of the United States. His most popular song, "This Land is Your Land" has become the country's unofficial national anthem, known to every school child since the 1960s. His influence exceeded the realm...

    Published July 2nd 2012 by Routledge