Expression in Pop-Rock Music: Critical and Analytical Essays

by Walter Everett (Editor)

Expression in Pop-Rock Music is a collection of critical and analytical essays written by today’s top scholars on pop and rock music. Applying a wide variety of analytical techniques and critical approaches in the study of songs by artists such as Tori Amos, David Bowie, James Brown, the Cure, Genesis, Radiohead, and Frank Zappa, these essays tackle the musical text itself in coming to terms with political, social, cultural, and stylistic issues expressed in the most popular music of the past half-century. It has been expanded in its second edition to include three new essays and other additions accounting for the changes to the popular music landscape since its first edition, with particular attention paid to the rise of hip-hop and country music.

402 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Tom Blurbgess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hugely interesting range of essays on different rock artists by a range of authors, even if slightly hit and miss. Favourite chapters were 1 and 4, respectively on the nature of pop-rock criticism (Hubbs), and large-scale design in Genesis' music (Spicer). I was particularly struck by the former's discerning overview of popular music, accompanied by some reapplied Jungian concepts that for once prove more illuminating than tangential.

[Adam Joseph Kivisaari]

Mostly pre-sourcing for my own work, but it is good to know there is active scholarship such as this on popular music within the academic community.