Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

The Value of Popular Music pp 35–67Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Tracking Popular Music History with an Aesthetic Map

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

  • 524 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter looks at the impact of aesthetic values on the making of popular music and especially the division between ‘rock’―supposedly serious, authentic, and creative―and ‘pop’―supposedly manufactured, formulaic, and ephemeral. After explaining key historical statements of these aesthetic values, the chapter looks at their impact on progressive rock, punk rock, especially Wire, and efforts to reclaim pop by synth-pop bands of the early 1980s, especially the Human League. The chapter concludes that aesthetic values cannot be abandoned but that we need a new aesthetic of popular music.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   34.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   44.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Bibliography

  • ———. 1991. The culture industry: Selected essays on mass culture. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ahlkvist, Jarl. 2011. What makes rock music ‘Prog?’ Fan evaluation and the struggle to define progressive rock. Popular Music and Society 34(5): 639–660.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anderton, Chris. 2010. A many-headed beast: Progressive rock as European meta-genre. Popular Music 29(3): 417–435.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Atton, Chris. 2001. ‘Living in the past’?: Value discourses in progressive rock fanzines. Popular Music 20(1): 29–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bannister, Matthew. 2006. White boys, white noise: Masculinities and 1980s indie guitar rock. Farnham/Surrey: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Battersby, Christine. 1994. Gender and genius: Towards a feminist aesthetics. London: The Women’s Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Borthwick, Stuart, and Ron Moy. 2004. Popular music genres: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buchenau, Stephanie. 2013. The founding of aesthetics in the German enlightenment: The art of invention and the invention of art. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Buskin, Richard. 2010. Classic tracks: Human League: Don’t You Want Me. Sound on Sound. July. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul10/articles/classictracks_0710.htm. Accessed 26 Feb 2015.

  • Carpenter, Alexander. 2012. The ‘Ground Zero’ of goth: Bauhaus, ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ and the origins of gothic rock. Popular Music and Society 35(1): 25–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Covach, John. 1997. Progressive rock, ‘Close to the Edge’, and the boundaries of style. In Understanding rock: Essays in musical analysis, ed. John Covach, and Graeme M. Boone, 3–32. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2006. What’s that sound?: An introduction to rock and its history. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coyle, Michael, and Jon Dolan. 1999. Modeling authenticity, authenticating commercial models. In Reading rock and roll: Authenticity, appropriation, aesthetics, ed. Kevin J.H. Dettmar, and William Richey, 17–36. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dettmar, Kevin J.H., and William Richey (ed). 1999. Reading rock and roll: Authenticity, appropriation, aesthetics. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duncombe, Stephen, and Maxwell Tremblay (ed). 2011. White riot: Punk rock and the politics of race. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Durant, Alan. 1984. Conditions of music. Albany: SUNY Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dyer, Richard. 1995. In defence of disco. In The Faber book of pop, ed. Hanif Kureishi, and Jon Savage, 518–527. London: Faber & Faber. Essay originally published in 1979.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eagleton, Terry. 1988. The ideology of the aesthetic. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Echols, Alice. 2010. Hot stuff: Disco and the remaking of American culture. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Everett, Walter. 1999. The Beatles as musicians: Revolver through the Anthology. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fricke, David. 1999. The Ramones … Loud and fast. Booklet accompanying Ramones: Anthology: Hey Ho Let’s Go! Warner Bros.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1996. Performing rites: Evaluating popular music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2001. Pop music. In The Cambridge companion to pop and rock, ed. Simon Frith, Will Straw, and John Street, 93–108. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Frith, Simon, and Howard Horne. 1987. Art into pop. London: Methuen.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frith, Simon, and Lee Marshall (ed). 2004. Music and copyright, 2nd edn. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garnett, Robert. 1999. Too low to be low: Art pop and the Sex Pistols. In Punk rock: So what?: The cultural legacy of punk, ed. Roger Sabin, 17–30. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garofalo, Reebee. 2010. Rockin’ out: popular music in the USA, 5th edn. New York: Pearson.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2002. From Montmartre to the Mudd club: Popular music and the avant-garde. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodwin, Andrew. 1990. Sample and hold: Pop music in the digital age of reproduction. In Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin, ed. On Record, 258–273. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gracyk, Theodore. 2013. On music. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guralnick, Peter. 1988. Sweet soul music: Rhythm and blues and the southern dream of freedom. New York: Harper Collins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The meaning of style. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, G. W. F. 1970. Aesthetics: Lectures on fine art. 2 vols. Trans. T.M. Knox. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howes, Frank. 1962. A critique of folk, popular and ‘Art’ music. British Journal of Aesthetics 2(3): 239–248.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Irvin, Sherri. 2008. The pervasiveness of the aesthetic in ordinary experience. British Journal of Aesthetics 48(1): 29–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kant, Immanuel. 1987. Critique of judgement. Trans. Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis: Hackett. Original German publication in 1790 (first edn) and 1793 (second edn).

    Google Scholar 

  • Knightley, Keir. 2001. Reconsidering rock. In The Cambridge companion to pop and rock, ed. Simon Frith, Will Straw, and John Street, 109–142. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Korsmeyer, Carolyn. 2004. Gender and aesthetics. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • ——— (ed). 1998. Aesthetics: The big questions. Malden: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kristeller, Paul Oskar. 1951. The modern system of the arts: A study in the history of aesthetics (I). Journal of the History of Ideas 12(4): 496–527.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laing, Dave. 1985. One chord wonders: Power and meaning in punk rock. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lester, Paul. 2008. Steel crazy: The Human League, ABC, Heaven 17. In The Scotsman 13 Nov. http://www.scotsman.com/what-s-on/music/steel-crazy-the-human-league-abc-heaven-17-1-1146635. Accessed 26 Feb 2015.

  • Macan, Edward. 1997. Rockin’ the classics: English progressive rock and the counterculture. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Marcus, Greil. 1978. Wire, ‘Pink Flag’. Rolling Stone 20 April. http://greilmarcus.net/2014/10/14/wire-pink-flag-042078/. Accessed 23 Feb 2015.

  • ———. 2011. Lipstick traces: A secret history of the twentieth century. Twentieth anniversary edn. London: Faber & Faber. Originally published in 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mill, John Stuart. 1859. Bentham. In Dissertations and discussions: Political, philosophical and historical, vol 1, 330–392. London: John W. Parker and Son.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moon, Tony, ed. 1977. Sideburns 1. Jan. Available to download at URL: http://daveo-musicandstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/sideeburns-no1-this-is-chord-this-is.html. Accessed 27 Feb 2015.

  • Northcutt, William M. 2006. The spectacle of alienation: Death, loss and the crowd in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. In Reading the Beatles, ed. Kenneth Womack, and Todd F. Davis, 129–146. Albany: SUNY Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Numan, Gary, with Steve Malins. 1997. Praying to the aliens: An autobiography. London: André Deutsch.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oxford English Dictionary. 2013. Rock. Full entry. 2nd, revised edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pedler, Dominic. 2003. The songwriting secrets of the Beatles. London: Omnibus.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reynolds, Simon. 2005. Rip it up and start again. London: Faber & Faber.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sabin, Roger. 1999a. ‘I won’t let that dago go by’: Rethinking punk and racism. In Punk rock: So what?: The cultural legacy of punk, 199–218. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saito, Yuriko. 2010. Everyday aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Savage, Jon. 1989. Sleeve notes to Wire: On returning (1977-1979). EMI. [LP].

    Google Scholar 

  • Schlegel, Friedrich. 1971. Lucinde and the Fragments. Trans. Peter Firchow. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schopenhauer, Arthur. 1966. The world as will and representation. 2 vols. Trans. E.F.J. Payne. Mineola: Dover Press. Original German publication in 1819 (first edn) and 1844 (second edn).

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, Derek B. 2008. Sounds of the metropolis: The 19th-century popular music revolution in London, New York, Paris, and Vienna. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shiner, Larry. 2001. The invention of art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shuker, Roy. 2001. Understanding popular music, 2nd edn. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2000. Performing live: Aesthetic alternatives for the ends of art. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sinnreich, Aram. 2011. Mashed up: Music, technology and the rise of configurable culture. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stevens, Rachael. 2013. The Human League and a vision of the future. Creative review: Advertising, design and visual culture. CR Blog. 11 October. http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2013/october/travelogue. Accessed 25 Feb 2015.

  • Stubbs, David. 2014a. Future days: Krautrock and the building of modern Germany. London: Faber & Faber.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, Charles. 1975. Hegel. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Turino, Thomas. 2008. Music as social life: The politics of participation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wald, Elijah. 2009. How the Beatles destroyed rock ‘n’ roll: An alternative history of American popular music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walser, Robert. 1993. Running with the devil: Power, gender and madness in heavy metal music. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weinberg, Norman. 1998. Guide to standardized drum notation. Lawton: Percussive Arts Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Raymond. 1983. Keywords. Revised edn. London: Fontana.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2015. The ancient and modern system of the arts. British Journal of Aesthetics 55(1): 1–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Alison Stone

Authors
  1. Alison Stone
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Stone, A. (2016). Tracking Popular Music History with an Aesthetic Map. In: The Value of Popular Music. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46544-9_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation