Bücher der Reihe Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series

At times it appears that a whole industry exists to perpetuate the myth of origin of the Beatles. This book tells the history of the disparate and now partially hidden musical strands that contributed to Liverpool's musical countenance. It is also a critique of Beatles-related institutionalized popular music mythology.

Michael Scott argues that New Zealand's pop music renaissance of the early 2000s was supported by state policies. He shows how the state built market opportunities for popular musicians through public-private partnerships and organisational affinity with existing music industry institutions.

Journeys deep into the heart of the Turkish heavy metal scene, uncovering the emergence, evolution, and especially the social implications of this controversial musical genre in a Muslim society. This book explores how Turkish metalheads, against all odds, manage to successfully claim public spaces of their own.

Queer Tracks describes motifs in popular music that deviate from heterosexual orientation, the binary gender system and fixed identities. This cutting-edge work deals with the key concepts of current gender politics and queer theory in rock and pop music, including irony, parody, camp, mask/masquerade, mimesis/mimicry, cyborg, transsexuality.

This is the first book to explore the creative and collaborative processes of groups of DJs working together as hip-hop turntable teams. Focusing on a variety of subjects - from the history of turntable experimentation and the development of innovative sound manipulation techniques, to turntable team formation.

The cover phenomenon may be viewed as a postmodern manifestation in music as artists revisit, reinterpret and re-examine a significant cross section of musical styles, periods, genres, individual records and other artists and their catalogues of works. This title offers critical perspectives on the many facets of cover songs in popular music.

To date there has been a significant gap in existing knowledge about the social history of music in Britain from 1950 to the present day. The three volumes of The History of Live Music in Britain address this gap and do so from the unique perspective of the music promoter. The books offer new insights into a variety of issues.

Despite the musical and social roles they play in many parts of the world, wind bands have not attracted much interest from sociologists. The Sociology of Wind Bands provides a sociological account of this musical universe. Based on a qualitative and quantitative survey conducted in north-eastern France.

The popularity of the long-running television show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997-2003) has long been matched by the range and depth of the academic critical response. This book describes the show's imaginative and widely varied use of music, sound and silence.

Explores the music, reception and cultural significance of 1960s girl singers and girl groups in the US and the UK. This interdisciplinary work links close musical readings with cultural analysis in the treatment of artists such as Martha and the Vandellas, The Crystals, The Blossoms, Brenda Lee, Dusty Springfield, Lulu, and Marianne Faithfull.

Presents a study of recorded popular song, from the recordings of the 1920s through to the present day.

From the ragtime one-step of the early twentieth century to the contemporary practices of youth club cultures, popular dance and music are inextricably linked. This collection reveals the intimate connections between the corporeal and the sonic in the creation, transmission and reception of popular dance and music.

Singer-Songwriters and Musical Open Mics is an ethnographic exploration of New York City's live music events where musicians signup and perform short sets. Drawing from multiple qualitative methods, Aldredge describes how open mics have etched a vital organizational place in the Western and urban musical landscape.

Looks at Bhangra's global flows from one of its originary sites, the Indian subcontinent, to contribute to the understanding of emerging South Asian cultural practices such as Bhangra or Bollywood in multi-ethnic societies.

Through an analysis of press coverage and interviews with musicians, and advertising creatives, this book considers the industrial changes that have provided a foundation for the increased use of popular music in advertising, and explores issues and debates surrounding media alliances that blur cultural ambitions with commercial goals.

This book explores how people may use music in ways that are helpful for them, especially in relation to a sense of wellbeing, belonging and participation. The central premise for the study is that help is not a decontextualized effect that music produces. The book contributes to the current discourse on music.

Devoted exclusively to the Britpop phenomenon and its contexts, this book examines issues such as the historical antecedents of Britpop, the subjectivities governing the performative conventions of Britpop, the cultural context within which Britpop unfolded, and its influence on the post-Britpop music scene in the UK.

Mark E Smith remains one of the most divisive and idiosyncratic figures in popular music after a recording career with his band - The Fall - that spans thirty years. This book offers a comprehensive range of approaches to the work of Mark E Smith and his band The Fall in relation to music, art and politics.

Nick Cave is widely recognized as a songwriter, musician, novelist, screenwriter, curator, critic, actor and performer. This book presents ways of seeing and understanding Cave's contributions to contemporary culture, and sets up a dialog between fields all-too-often separated in the academy and in the media.

With the espousal of a discrete Ulster Scots tradition since the signing of the Belfast (or 'Good Friday') Agreement in 1998, the characteristics of the traditional music performed in Northern Ireland, and the place of Protestant musicians within popular Irish culture, clearly require a thoroughgoing analysis. This book provides such analysis.

The first concept album in the history of popular music, the soundtrack of the Summer of Love or 'Hippy Symphony Number 1': Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is first and foremost the album that gave rise to hopes of progress in pop music. This title addresses issues that help put the record in perspective.

The first concept album in the history of popular music, the soundtrack of the Summer of Love or 'Hippy Symphony Number 1': Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is first and foremost the album that gave rise to hopes of progress in pop music. This title addresses issues that help put the record in perspective.

Highlights how government organisations, musicians, academics and commercial companies are concerned with and seek to use a particular notion of Irish musical identity. This book illustrates how settings, genres, social groups and values can influence individual identifications or negations of Irishness in music.

The world's largest and longest-running song competition, the Eurovision Song Contest is a significant and extremely popular media event throughout the continent and abroad. This title explores how the contest sheds light on issues of European politics, national and European identity, race, gender and sexuality, and the aesthetics of camp.

Explores the influence of the emergence of rock'n'roll in the early 1950s in the way it shaped the subsequent trajectory and development of popular music. It considers the history, place and time of each event, locates the performances within their social and professional contexts, and considers their immediate and long-term musical consequences.

In 1974, the British progressive rock group Genesis released their double concept album "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway". This study analyses "The Lamb" both within the context of progressive rock, examining its special place in Genesis' recorded output and in the progressive rock genre as a whole.

Reveals how the music classroom can draw upon the world of popular musicians' informal learning practices, so as to recognize and foster a range of musical skills and knowledge that have long been overlooked within music education. This book investigates how far informal learning practices are possible and desirable in a classroom context.

Ubiquitous Musics offers a multidisciplinary approach to the pervasive presence of music in everyday life. The essays address a variety of situations in which music is present alongside other activities and does not demand focused attention from (sometimes involuntary) listeners.