Description
Book SynopsisWho''s better? Billie Holiday or P.J. Harvey? Blur or Oasis? Dylan or Keats? And how many friendships have ridden on the answer? Such questions aren''t merely the stuff of fanzines and idle talk; they inform our most passionate arguments, distil our most deeply held values, make meaning of our ever-changing culture. In Performing Rites, one of the most influential writers on popular music asks what we talk about when we talk about music. What''s good, what''s bad? What''s high, what''s low? Why do such distinctions matter? Instead of dismissing emotional response and personal taste as inaccessible to the academic critic, Simon Frith takes these forms of engagement as his subject and discloses their place at the very centre of the aesthetics that structure our culture and colour our lives. Taking up hundreds of songs and writers, Frith insists on acts of evaluation of popular music as music. Ranging through and beyond the twentieth century, Performing Rites puts the Pet Shop Boys and Pu
Trade ReviewFrith understands precisely what pop music is actually for, and thus has a right to write about it that few others share. * Pete Townshend *
This is a good, and arguably a great book. * Colin McCabe, New Statesman & Society *
quite simply one of the best books I've ever read about music * BBC Music Magazine *
Pop music matters to Frith, and he gives one of the best accounts yet written of how and why this should be so ... a very necessary book. * Peter Aspden, Financial Times *
Table of ContentsACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; PART I MUSIC TALK: 1 THE VALUE PROBLEM IN CULTURAL STUDIES; 2 THE SOCIOLOGICAL RESPONSE; 3 COMMON SENSE AND THE LANGUAGE OF CRITICISM; 4 GENRE RULES; PART II ON MUSIC ITSELF: 5 WHERE DO SOUNDS COME FROM?; 6 RHYTHM: RACE, SEX, AND THE BODY; 7 RHYTHM: TIME, SEX, AND THE MIND; 8 SONGS AS TEXTS; 9 THE VOICE; 10 PERFORMANCE; 11 TECHNOLOGY AND AUTHORITY; PART III WHY MUSIC MATTERS: 12 THE MEANING OF MUSIC; 13 TOWARD A POPULAR AESTHETIC; NOTES; INDEX.
