Skip to Main Content

Banding Together: How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music

Online ISBN:
9781400840458
Print ISBN:
9780691150765
Publisher:
Princeton University Press
Book

Banding Together: How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music

Jennifer C. Lena
Jennifer C. Lena
Vanderbilt University
Find on
Published:
12 February 2012
Online ISBN:
9781400840458
Print ISBN:
9780691150765
Publisher:
Princeton University Press

Abstract

Why do some music styles gain mass popularity while others thrive in small niches? This book explores this question and reveals the attributes that together explain the growth of twentieth-century American popular music. Drawing on a vast array of examples from sixty musical styles—ranging from rap and bluegrass to death metal and South Texas polka, and including several created outside the United States—the book uncovers the shared grammar that allows us to understand the cultural language and evolution of popular music. The book discovers four dominant forms—avant-garde, scene-based, industry-based, and traditionalist—and two dominant trajectories that describe how American pop music genres develop. Outside the United States there exists a fifth form: the government-purposed genre, which the book examines in the music of China, Serbia, Nigeria, and Chile. Offering a rare analysis of how music communities operate, the book looks at the shared obstacles and opportunities creative people face and reveals the ways in which people collaborate around ideas, artworks, individuals, and organizations that support their work.

Contents
Close
This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Close

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

View Article Abstract & Purchase Options

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Close