Genre in Popular Music

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 224 pages
• Published by: University Of Chicago Press; New Ed edition October 1, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0226350398
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0226350394
• Book Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Weighs: 12 ounces

Product Review
Ronald Radano : “This is a masterful book, a carefully argued, scrupulously researched, and elegantly written examination of the ways in which genre categories have taken shape in American popular music over the past fifty-odd years. It is a mark of Holt’s skill and imagination that he has fashioned a study that reveals both the importance of genre in shaping our understanding of popular music and why genre simultaneously confuses meaning and reception. By effectively balancing broad-based theoretical reflections with empirically grounded investigations—together with an imaginative mix of history and ethnography—Holt offers a stunning exploration of the condition of musical experience in our acutely hybridized musical world. Simply brilliant.”—Ronald Radano, University of Wisconsin–Madison, author of Lying Up a Nation: Race and Black Music

Philip V. Bohlman : “Genre is the hot topic in popular music studies right now, and Fabian Holt’s book could not appear at a more critical moment, nor could it respond to that moment more forcefully. Fresh and innovative, Holt brilliantly takes readers across a multi-sited cultural landscape, gathering interviews from musicians and producers in Nashville and Chicago, radio-station owners in the rural South, and record shop clerks in the urban North, to uncover the complex role of genre in popular music.”--Philip V. Bohlman, University of Chicago, author of World Music: A Very Short Introduction 

Harris M. Berger : “With great creativity and insight, Fabian Holt explores the concept of genre and illustrates its relevance for the politics and aesthetics of popular music. His writing is lively and accessible, and his sophisticated mix of historical and ethnographic approaches puts the complexities of American music into sharp relief and reveals the ways in which ideas of genre shape experiences of music—even, or especially, when performers and listeners cross musical boundaries.”—Harris M. Berger, Past President of the US Branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music and author of Metal, Rock, and Jazz: Perception and the Phenomenology of Musical Experience


Library Journal : “This work fills a void in current thought and development regarding popular American music and its influences, and it provides a unique perspective and grounded research.”--Library Journal

Book Description
The popularity of the motion picture soundtrack O Brother, Where Art Thou? brought an extraordinary amount of attention to bluegrass, but it also drew its share of criticism from some aficionados who felt the album’s inclusion of more modern tracks misrepresented the genre. This soundtrack, these purists argued, wasn’t bluegrass, but “roots music,” a new and, indeed, more overarching category concocted by journalists and marketers. Why is it that popular music genres like these and others are so passionately contested? And how is it that these genres emerge, coalesce, change, and die out?

In Genre in Popular Music, Fabian Holt provides new understanding as to why we debate music categories, and why those terms are unstable and always shifting. To tackle the full complexity of genres in popular music, Holt embarks on a wide-ranging and ambitious collection of case studies. Here he looks at not only the different reactions to O Brother, but also the impact of rock and roll’s explosion in the 1950s and 1960s on country music and jazz, and how the jazz and indie music scenes in Chicago have intermingled to expand the borders of their respective genres. Throughout, Holt finds that genres are an integral part of musical culture—fundamental both to musical practice and experience and to the social organization of musical life.


Reader Reviews
While conducting research for "Genre in Popular Music" author Fabian Holt was surprised to learn that most musicians rarely discuss or even think about this subject. According to his sources, this was a topic that was most commonly discussed by educators and writers. Yet, these same individuals were quite curious to learn what Holt had discovered while researching this book. They understood that how music gets categorized could have important consequences for their careers. As a collector of popular music for more than four decades I was also quite interested to learn what Fabian Holt had uncovered in more than one year of research for this book. The fact of the matter is that "Genres In Popular Music" focuses on a subject that very little has been written about. Now whenever anyone attempts to categorize a subject as broad as American popular music there are sure to be disagreements. Fabian Holt comes up with a total of 9 different genres. I would beg to differ because he fails to make mention of one of my favorite categories which is doo wop/group harmony. Nevertheless, his list is quite interesting to be sure. Much of "Genre In Popular Music" focuses on the period from the mid 1950's through the mid 1970's when so many changes were taking place on the American music scene. Holt spends a considerable amount of time discussing how two major categories of American music, namely country and jazz reacted to the emergence of rock and roll. Powerful influences in the country music industry seemed to come to the conclusion that "if you can't beat'em, join 'em" and as a result brand new sounds like country-rock and folk-rock would gain in popularity. On the other hand the folks active in the jazz scene in this country largely resisted and resented the emergence of rock and roll. For one thing, rock and roll was cutting deeply into their market share and as a result many jazz musicians found themselves struggling just to survive. Having said that a few jazz artists such as Miles Davis and the group Weather Report would embrace this music and create new sounds all their own. I was also very interested to read the comments of Bettina Richards, President of a small Chicago indie label called Thrill Jockey. She dislikes identifying her labels recordings with a specific genre because "Once you name it as something, certain people say "Oh, I don't like that!" As such, she would much prefer that each one of the recordings her label releases be judged solely by the listeners response to what they are hearing. Towards the end of the book Fabian Holt introduces us to Jeff Parker, a fascinating musician born in Virginia, educated at the Berklee School of Music in Boston and currently making his living playing a variety of music with a number of groups in the Chicago area. Parker plays traditional jazz, improvisational jazz and rock and roll. Parker is an outstanding example of a musician who would be very difficult to pigeon hole into just one genre. Despite the fact that I have very little interest in jazz I am quite intrigued by him and am seriously considering purchasing one of his albums. Since I have had no formal musical training myself some of what Fabian Holt discusses in this book was a bit foreign to me. But overall I found "Genre In Popular Music" to be a very important addition to the literature of American popular music. I have gained valuable new insights to this very broad and extremely interesting subject. Recommended! Comment | | (Report this)