208 Pages
by
Routledge
206 Pages
by
Routledge
206 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Studies of opera, film, television, and literature have demonstrated how constructions of madness may be referenced in order to stigmatise but also liberate protagonists in ways that reinforce or challenge contemporaneous notions of normality. But to date very little research has been conducted on how madness is represented in popular music. In an effort to redress this imbalance, Nicola Spelman... Read more
Introduction; Chapter 1 ‘All the Madmen’: Denouncing the Psychiatric Establishment and Supposedly ‘Sane’ Through the Art of Role Play; Chapter 2 ‘Kill Your Sons’: Lou Reed’s Verification of Psychiatry’s Covert Social Function; Chapter 3 Reversing Us and Them: Anti-Psychiatry and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon; Chapter 4 ‘The Ballad of Dwight Fry’: Madness as Social Deviancy, and the Condemnation of Involuntary Confinement; Chapter 5 The Fool’s Demise: Critiques of Social Exclusion Found in the Beatles’ ‘The Fool on the Hill’ and Elton John’s ‘Madman Across the Water’; Chapter 6 Conclusion;
Biography
Nicola Spelman is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Salford where she teaches popular music composition and musicology. Her research interests surround issues of representation within popular music and she is currently working on her second book, this time exploring women musicians and their challenge to the 'myths of madness'.
'It is extraordinary that this will be the first academic text to explore portrayals of madness in popular music. Nicola Spelman's timely exploration of songs that problematise popular conceptions of madness provides new insights into the 1960s and 1970s which cause the reader to think again - an excellent outcome for an academic text. I am confident that her research will create a tsunami of interest among scholars, researchers and doctoral students alike. A highly recommended read.' Sheila Whiteley, The University of Salford, UK 'There is much that Spelman does well, not the least of which is to undertake the study in the first place, the serious engagement of madness mythology in popular music being a surprisingly underexamined subject to date.' Popular Music and Society
