Genre in Popular Music

The popularity of the soundtrack to the motion picture "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 examines 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 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.

ISBN 0226350398   Pages 224 ISBN13 9780226350394 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher The University of Chicago Press   Weight (grammes) 328 Imprint University of Chicago Press   Published in Chicago, IL Format Paperback   Height (mm) 227 Publication date 31 Aug 2007   Width (mm) 152 Library of Congress 2006101402   Spine width (mm) 13 DEWEY 781.64   Academic level Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC22

1		Introduction		1
2		Roots and refigurations		31
		Double session I : reactions to rock : a model of genre transformation		53
3		Country music and the Nashville sound		63
4		Jazz and jazz-rock fusion		81
		Double session II : urban boundaries
5		Jeff Parker and the Chicago jazz scene		105
6		A closer look at Jeff Parker and his music		129
7		Music at American borders		151
App		The Jeff Parker discography		181

"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 multisited 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"

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