Contemporary Popular Music

Contemporary Popular Music: Industry and Society gives students a thorough introduction to debates about popular music. It provides an overview of essential theoretical approaches to the subject, illustrating key issues throughout with clear examples drawn from contemporary popular music culture. The first part of the book examines how popular music is produced and disseminated, emphasising the huge changes that have taken place in the industry over the last twenty years and concentrating, in particular, on the impact of music television and the Internet. The second part looks at the profound impact that popular music has had on contemporary society, including the ways in which popular music engages with issues of gender and ethnicity. Topics such as textual analysis, the organisation of the music industry and stardom are addressed discreetly, and artists such as Eminem and Madonna and phenomenon such as the global prominence of hip-hop culture, are the focus of case studies. This book is a valuable resource for undergraduates taking courses in popular music and popular culture.