This provocative volume of essays is now available in paperback. The contributors to this volume - musicologists, sociologists, cultural theorists - all challenge the view that music occupies an autonomous aesthetic sphere. Recently, socially and politically grounded enterprises such as feminism, semiotics and deconstruction have effected a major transformation in the ways in which the arts and humanities are studied, leading in turn to a systematic investigation of the implicit assumptions underlying the critical methods of the last two hundred years. Influenced by these approaches, the writers here question a prevailing ideology that insists there is a division between music and society and examine the ways in which the two do in fact interact and mediate one another within and across socio-cultural boundaries.

This new edition of Popular Music and Society, fully revised and updated, continues to pioneer an approach to the study of popular music that is informed by wider debates in sociology and media and cultural studies. Astute and accessible, it continues to set the agenda for research and teaching in this area. The textbook begins by examining the ways in which popular music is produced, before moving on to explore its structure as text and the ways in which audiences understand and use music. Packed with examples and data on the contemporary production and consumption of popular music, the book also includes overviews and critiques of theoretical approaches to this exciting area of study and outlines the most important empirical studies which have shaped the discipline. Topics covered include: • The contemporary organisation of the music industry; • The effects of technological change on production; • The history and politics of popular music; • Gender, sexuality and ethnicity; • Subcultures; • Fans and music celebrities. For this new edition, two whole new chapters have been added: on performance and the body, and on the very latest ways of thinking about audiences and the spaces and places of music consumption. This second edition of Popular Music and Society will continue to be required reading for students of the sociology of culture, media and communication studies, and popular culture.

Cited by Soundpost as "remarkable and revolutionary" upon its publication in 1977, Music, Society, Education has become a classic in the study of music as a social force. Christopher Small sets out to examine the social implications of Western classical music, effects that until recently have been largely ignored or dismissed by most musicologists. He strives to view the Western musical tradition "through the mirror of these other musics [Balinese and African] as it were from the outside, and in so doing to learn something of the inner unspoken nature of Western culture as a whole." As series co-editor Robert Walser writes, "By pointing to the complicity of Western culture with Western imperialism, Small challenges us to create a future that is more humane than the past. And by writing a book that enables us to rethink so fundamentally our involvements with music, he teaches us how we might get there."

A society is the result of interacting individuals, and individuals are also the result of this interaction. This interaction happens through music, among other factors. As such, music constitutes a powerful resource for symbolic interaction, which constitutes the medium and substance of a culture. The importance of music in a society is clearly brought to light in the role that it plays in the three basic parameters of the social logics: identity, social order and the need for exchange. If music is so important to us, it is because, apart from its assigned aesthetic values, it fits closely with the dynamics of each of these three different parameters. These parameters, which are consubstantial to the social nature of the human being, constitute the core of the book as they manifest in musical practices. This publication addresses important issues such as the role of music in shaping identities, how music and social order are intertwined and why music is so relevant in human interaction. The last part of the book explores issues related to the social application of musical research. The volume brings together specialists from different academic disciplines with the same powerful starting point: music is not merely something related to the social, but rather a social life itself, something capable of structuring the social experience.

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 of great interest, to draw students in and bring life to their study of sociology. The new edition has been updated with cutting edge thinking on and current examples of subcultures, politics, and technology.

In this pioneering new book, Dr Martin presents a lively and accessible introduction to the social analysis of music. Dr Martin argues that musical meaning must be understood as socially constructed, rather than inherent, and that the notion of a correspondence between social and musical structures is highly problematic. An alternative approach, based on the ‘social action’ pespective is outlined, and the book concludes with a discussion of the social situation of music in advanced capitalist society. Along the way, leading thinkers are introduced: Adorno, Weber and Schntz as well as, more recently, John Shepherd and the feminist musicologists. The book draws on studies spanning the whole spectrum of Western music - rock bands to symphony orchestras, medieval plainchant to avant-garde jazz and concludes with a discussion of the social situation of music in advanced capitalist society.

Influences: Music and Society provokes any reader to realize the influences that music and society have on one another while explaining how this phenomenon came to be and is flourishing. Influences: Music and Society also inspires and motivates any reader to appreciate the beauty of music and society while realizing just how much they coincide. This book looks at how music influences society, american business, and the human mind and body. It also looks deepely into how society, technology, social events, and american law have changed music.