Books in the Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series series

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.

These essays bring together the stories of 23 debut albums over a nearly fifty year span, ranging from Buddy Holly and the Crickets in 1957 to The Go! Team in 2004. In addition to biographical background and a wealth of historical information about the genesis of each album, essayists look back at the albums and place them within multiple contexts, particularly the artist's career development. In this way, the book will be of as much interest to sociologists and historians as to culture critics and musicologists.

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.

Fado, often described as 'urban folk music' emerged from the streets of Lisbon in the mid-nineteenth century and went on to become Portugal's 'national' music during the twentieth. This title considers the ways in which fado songs bear witness to the city of Lisbon, in relation to the construction and maintenance of the local.

Throughout his 40-year career, Michael Jackson intrigued and captivated public imagination through musical ingenuity, sexual and racial spectacle, savvy publicity stunts, odd behaviours, and a seemingly apolitical (yet always political) offering of popular art. This book includes essays that aim to understand Jackson from multiple perspectives.

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.

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.

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.

How is popular music culture connected with the life, image, and identity of a city? This book explores the relationship between popular music and the city using Liverpool as a case study. It examines the impact of social and economic change within that city on its popular music culture, focusing on de-industrialization and economic restructuring.

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.

Arguing that music not only affects our identities but shapes them, this work explores the interpretation of popular music. It examines the functions of pop music within a constantly shifting social plane from the 1980s onwards, suggesting various approaches for the analysis of pop music.

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.

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.

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. The contributors present different theoretical perspectives on the increasing ubiquity of music and its implications for the experience of listening.

Black British musicians have been making jazz since around 1920. This book reveals their hidden history and major contribution to the development of jazz in the UK. The chapters show the importance of black British jazz in terms of musical hybridity and the cultural significance of race.

By surveying the development of Welsh-language popular music from 1945-2000, this work examines those moments of crisis in Welsh cultural life which signalled a burgeoning sense of national identity, which challenged paradigms of linguistic belonging, and out of which emerged different expressions of Welshness.

Traces the development of government attitudes and policies towards popular music. This book examines the development of policy under New Labour; numerous reports which have charted the economics of the industry; and the Deal for Musicians scheme and the impact of devolution on music policy in Scotland.

A song tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages and troubadours of the 12th and 13th centuries, chanson is part of the texture of everyday life in France - a part of the national identity and a barometer of popular taste. This study examines the background and development of the genre.

Focusing on four principal areas in which TV organizes and presents popular music, this book investigates a diverse range of musical genres and styles, factual and fictional programming, historical and geographical demographics, and the constraints of commerce and technology to give an account of the place of popular music on British television.

Presents a collection of essays that explore British Heavy Metal from its beginning through The New Wave of British Heavy Metal up to the increasing internationalization and widespread acceptance in the late 1980s. This book offers a critical analysis of the politics and ideology behind the lyrics, images and performances.