- Introduction: Who’ll Write the Book of Love? Pop Music and Pop Prose [Eric Weisbard]
- I. Narratives
- 1. “And I Guess It Doesn’t Matter Any More”: European Thoughts on American Music [Simon Frith]
- 2. US and Them: Are American Pop (and Semi-Pop) Still Exceptional? And by the Way, Does That Make Them Better? [Robert Christgau]
- 3. How Come Jazz Isn’t Dead? [Gary Giddins]
- 4. Sister Rosetta Tharpe and the Prehistory of “Women in Rock” [Gayle Wald]
- 5. The Birth of the Blues [Luc Sante]
- 6. Richard Speaks! Chasing a Tune from the Chitlin Circuit to the Mormon Tabernacle [RJ Smith]
- 7. Interrupted Symphony: A Recollection of Movie Music from Max Steiner to Marvin Gaye [Geoffrey O’Brien]
- 8. Burnt Sugar: Post-Soul Satire and Rock Memory [Daphne A. Brooks]
- II. Authorship
- 9. Bits of Me Scattered Everywhere: Ray Davies and the Kinks [Robert Polito]
- 10. Authenticity, Gender, and Personal Voice: She Sounds So Sad, Do You Think She Really Is? [Sarah Dougher]
- 11. All the Memories Money Can Buy: Marketing Authenticity and Manufacturing Authorship [David Sanjek]
- 12. Authorship Meets Downpression: Translating the Wailers into Rock [Jason Toynbee]
- 13. Creativity and Band Dynamics [Deena Weinstein]
- 14. “O Secret Stars Stay Secret”: Rock and Roll in Contemporary Poetry [Stephen Burt]
- 15. Compressing Pop: How Your Favorite Song Got Squished [Douglas Wolk]
- 16. Rapping about Rapping: The Rise and Fall of a Hip-Hop Tradition [Kelefa Sanneh]
- III. Values
- 17. Bread and Butter Songs: Unoriginality in Pop [Ann Powers]
- 18. Good Pop, Bad Pop: Massiveness, Materiality, and the Top 40 [Joshua Clover]
- 19. The Carly Simon Principle: Sincerity and Pop Greatness [Chuck Klosterman]
- 20. Groove as Niche: Earth, Wind & Fire [Robert Walser]
- 21. Unpacking Our Hard Drives: Discophilia in the Age of Digital Reproduction [Julian Dibbell]
- 22. Lost in Music: Obsessive Record Collecting [Simon Reynolds]
- 23. Topless at the Arco Arena: Looking for the Line between Abandon and Irresponsibility During the Dot-com Explosion [Tim Quirk]
- 24. More Rock, Less Talk: Live Music Turns Off the Voices in Our Heads [Carrie Brownstein]
- 25. The Persistence of Hair [John Darnielle]
- Notes
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Index
This Is Pop
In Search of the Elusive at Experience Music Project
Product Details
PAPERBACK
$37.00 • £32.95 • €33.95
ISBN 9780674013445
Publication Date: 05/31/2004
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