Pop Music, Pop Culture

"This book's conclusion is like a pop song that ends with an unexpected major chord." Steven Poole, The Guardian "This is an indispensable systematisation of pop music cultural theory incorporating a vast sweep of references." Jon Stewart, Brighton Institute of Modern Music, for Times Higher Education "What Are You Reading?" "This well-organized and well-written book takes a sweeping look at various approaches to the study of popular music, including a musicological one ... An excellent learning tool and a fantastic contribution to the literature." Choice "'Pop' is popular with huge listening audiences and not with many music critics - not even as a category to describe a big segment of popular music. Chris Rojek challenges standard ways of dividing the commercial from the authentic and the light from the serious. He does this by a creative engagement with theory and by systematic analysis of issues from modes of distribution to subcultures, the power of record companies, and the nature of collaborative labor and joint authorship. His book is a must-read intervention for all of cultural studies." Craig Calhoun, New York University "Joining extraordinary empirical range with shrewd, unflinching theoretical judgment, Rojek has produced a major sociological work on contemporary popular culture. Even as Pop Music, Pop Culture explores the rapidly shifting technological and economic infrastucture of music, Rojek shows us how music connects us to structures of meaning and feeling, and how in a mobile and de-territoralized world, popular music remains ever more important for that." Jeff Alexander, Yale University