Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Genre in Popular Music
    Genre in Popular Music
    Genre in Popular Music
    Ebook238 pages6 hours

    Genre in Popular Music

    By Fabian Holt

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The popularity of the motion picture soundtrack O Brother, Where Art Thou? brought an extraordinary amount of attention to bluegrass, but it also drew its share of criticism from some aficionados who felt the album’s inclusion of more modern tracks misrepresented the genre. This soundtrack, these purists argued, wasn’t bluegrass, but “roots music,” a new and, indeed, more overarching category concocted by journalists and marketers. Why is it that popular music genres like these and others are so passionately contested? And how is it that these genres emerge, coalesce, change, and die out?

    In Genre in Popular Music, Fabian Holt provides new understanding as to why we debate music categories, and why those terms are unstable and always shifting. To tackle the full complexity of genres in popular music, Holt embarks on a wide-ranging and ambitious collection of case studies. Here he examines not only the different reactions to O Brother, but also the impact of rock and roll’s explosion in the 1950s and 1960s on country music and jazz, and how the jazz and indie music scenes in Chicago have intermingled to expand the borders of their respective genres. Throughout, Holt finds that genres are an integral part of musical culture—fundamental both to musical practice and experience and to the social organization of musical life.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateOct 15, 2009
    ISBN9780226350400
    Genre in Popular Music

    Related to Genre in Popular Music

    Related ebooks

    Music For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      More Is More Immersive Audio

      Aug 30, 2018

      More Is More Immersive Audio
      4 min read

    • Article

      Ivo van Hove

      Feb 14, 2020

      Ivo van Hove
      1 min read

    • Article

      The Plot Against Persona

      Sep 15, 2019

      The Plot Against Persona
      8 min read

    • Article

      Songwriting Pro Advice

      Sep 19, 2019

      Songwriting Pro Advice
      11 min read

    • Article

      Re-Revising 'The History Of Jazz'

      Jul 15, 2021

      Ted Gioia first published his History of Jazz in 1997, updating it for the first time in 2011. This year he did so again, after a very important decade for the genre.

      11 min read

    • Article

      Mix Masters

      Aug 28, 2019

      Mix Masters
      9 min read

    • Article

      Composing Pro Tips

      Jan 16, 2020

      Mercury Music Prize-nominated songwriter, composer and producer Ed Harcourt revealed his perspective on music making to us this year, when we visited his unique Wolf Cabin studio. Top Tip “I’ve learned new things from writing with other people, and s

      4 min read

    • Article

      Drum Pattern Building

      Sep 7, 2022

      Drum Pattern Building
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Importance of Musicality

      Aug 16, 2021

      THE importance of musical intelligence can sometimes be overlooked in the drive for technical accomplishment, and yet it is an essential component of a dancer’s toolkit. Musicality is a “sensitivity to, knowledge of, or talent for music” (according t

      5 min read

    • Article

      Programming ‘Real’ Drums

      Jul 15, 2020

      Many computer musicians shy away from programming their own acoustic (as opposed to electronic) drum tracks, understandably concerned that since they don’t know how to play a real drum kit, any attempt to create a performance on a virtual one will fa

      10 min read

    • Article

      The Ultimate Guide To Remixing

      Sep 1, 2016

      The Ultimate Guide To Remixing
      18 min read

    • Article

      The Fundamentals Of EDM

      Apr 16, 2020

      The Fundamentals Of EDM
      9 min read

    • Article

      Equal At Last? Women In Jazz, By The Numbers

      Jan 12, 2021

      Half of the top 10 spots in 2019's NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll went to women. But a deeper look at the data from across the poll's lifetime complicates claims about women's equality in jazz.

      14 min read

    • Article

      Tone Talk

      Jan 4, 2022

      Describing the tone of Lemmy’s overdriven bass isn’t easy, although many have tried. The classic Motörhead line-up with guitarist ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke and drummer Phil ‘Philthy’ Taylor didn’t sound like other bands, precisely because of the sound eman

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Ultimate Guide To Digital Synthesis

      Dec 20, 2022

      Like all of history's great rivalries, the long-fought battle between analog and digital ebbs and flows. Early digital synths were seen as convenient, affordable and more powerful than analog rivals, but their ubiquity and supposed ‘cold’ sound drove

      12 min read

    • Article

      How Pop Music’s Teenage Dream Ended

      Sep 1, 2020

      A decade ago, Katy Perry’s sound was ubiquitous. Today, it’s niche. How did a genre defined by popularity become unpopular?

      9 min read

    • Article

      Grace Notes

      Aug 10, 2021

      Grace Notes
      3 min read

    • Article

      The History Of Electronic Music

      Mar 23, 2022

      Where do you begin a history of electronic music and the synthesiser? The popular and somewhat easy view is that the two are entwined, that electronic music started with the invention of the synthesiser and its use in the 60s and 70s. And indeed, tha

      13 min read

    • Article

      Trap

      Apr 21, 2020

      Trap
      8 min read

    • Article

      God Save The Kinks

      Mar 28, 2024

      THE KINKS ARE NO STRANGERS to our national conversation. Having played their last note in 1996, they’ve now been defunct for nearly as long as they were together. Yet their stock continues to rise. At the 2012 London Olympics, their signature song “W

      6 min read

    • Article

      Remembering John Renbourn

      Aug 28, 2019

      After touring in the south west of England in the early 1960s, John Renbourn first came to prominence when he formed a duo with Bert Jansch, riding the wave of the great English folk revival, but blazing a trail for what became known as ‘folk baroque

      7 min read

    • Article

      Feedback

      Feb 2, 2024

      Feedback
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Genre in Popular Music

    4/5

    4 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Fascinating read. Skipped large portions, as my interest is mainly in jazz. But the approach and analysis makes for a good thought-starter. Helped me clarify my own place in the music world.