Popular Music Books

New and Published Books

1. Words and Songs of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone

   Sound Motion, Blues Spirit, and African Memory

   By Melanie E. Bratcher

   Series: Studies in African American History and Culture

   This book explores the relationship between three African American women's dance-art-music sensibilities within the context of a Pan African aesthetic. Its purpose is three-fold: to show commonalities between Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone's lives and original compositions; to codify,...

   Published February 22nd 2012 by Routledge
2. Chinese Entertainment

   Edited by Kwok-Bun Chan

   Scholarly studies of Chinese culture, history and society, both within and outside of China, generally pay little attention to leisure, entertainment and amusement, though it has long been known that this aspect of life gives a deep understanding of the psyche and soul, and the hopes and fears, of...

   Published December 4th 2011 by Routledge
3. Popular Music Culture: The Key Concepts

   3rd Edition

   By Roy Shuker

   Series: Routledge Key Guides

   Now in an updated 3rd edition this popular A-Z student handbook provides a comprehensive survey of key ideas and concepts in popular music culture. With new and expanded entries on genres and sub-genres the text comprehensively examines the social and cultural aspects of popular music, taking into...

   Published December 1st 2011 by Routledge
4. The Sound Handbook

   By Tim Crook

   Series: Media Practice

   'Tim Crook has written an important and much-needed book, and its arrival on our shelves has come at a highly appropriate time.' Professor Seán Street, Bournemouth University The Sound Handbook maps theoretical and practical connections between the creation and study of sound across the multi-media...

   Published November 20th 2011 by Routledge
5. Popular Culture

   Edited by Chris Rojek

   Series: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies

   Research in and around popular culture continues to flourish. And its study is, more than ever, a key component of Media and Communications Studies courses, and a vital part of Cultural Studies and Cultural Sociology curricula. The sheer scale of the available research exploring popular culture—and...

   Published September 19th 2011 by Routledge
6. Making Music in Japan’s Underground

   The Tokyo Hardcore Scene

   By Jennifer Milioto Matsue

   Series: East Asia: History, Politics, Sociology and Culture

   Grounded in the fields of Ethnomusicology, Anthropology, Popular Music Studies, and Japanese Studies, this book explores the underground Tokyo hardcore scene, ultimately asking what play as resistance through performance of the scene tells us about Japanese society in general. Matsue highlights the...

   Published July 28th 2011 by Routledge
7. The Music Industry Handbook

   By Paul Rutter

   Series: Media Practice

   The Music Industry Handbook provides a clear introduction to how the music industry works, unpacking the complex structures within the industry and mapping it as it exists today. Paul Rutter introduces readers to key industry sectors in an easy-to-digest format, then goes on to explore the...

   Published May 19th 2011 by Routledge
8. Twentieth Century Music and the Question of Modernity

   By Eduardo de la Fuente

   Series: Routledge Advances in Sociology

   In the first decade of the twentieth-century, many composers rejected the principles of tonality and regular beat. This signaled a dramatic challenge to the rationalist and linear conceptions of music that had existed in the West since the Renaissance. The ‘break with tonality’, Neo-Classicism,...

   Published July 29th 2010 by Routledge
9. Xenakis

   His Life in Music

   By James Harley

   Xenakis: His Life in Music is a full-length study of the influential contemporary composer Iannis Xenakis. Following the trajectory of Xenakis’s compositional development, James Harley, who studied with Xenakis, presents the works together with clear explanations of the technical and conceptual...

   Published July 20th 2010 by Routledge
10. Sporting Sounds

    Relationships Between Sport and Music

    Edited by ANTHONY Bateman, John Bale

    Music and sport are both highly significant cultural forms, yet the substantial and longstanding connections between the two have largely been overlooked. Sporting Sounds addresses this oversight in an intriguing and innovative collection of essays. With contributions from leading international...

    Published February 1st 2010 by Routledge