Popular Music and Automobiles

Description

Particularly since the 1950s, cars and popular music have been constantly associated. As complementary goods and intertwined technologies, their relationship has become part of a widely shared experience-one that connects individuals and society, private worlds and public spheres. Popular Music and Automobiles aims to unpack that relationship in more detail. It explores the ways in which cars and car journeys have shaped society, as well as how we have shaped them. Including both broad synergies and specific case studies, Popular Music and Automobiles explores how attention to an ongoing relationship can reveal insights about the assertion and negotiation of identity. Using methods of enquiry that are as diverse as the topics they tackle, its contributors closely consider specific genders, genres, places and texts.

Mark Duffett is a Gales-listed academic author, known for two decades of research in popular music studies and fan studies. He is writer of Understanding Fandom (Bloomsbury, 2013) and Counting Down Elvis (2018), editor of Popular Music Fandom (2015), Fan Identities and Practices in Context (2018), and editor or co-editor of several special edition journals for Popular Music and Society, Rock Music Studies, and the IASPM journal. Beate Peter is Senior Lecturer in German at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. As a member of the Research Centre for Applied Social Sciences at MMU, she is currently leading a team of researchers that investigate the role that music (acid house) played in shaping the social, political, and cultural landscape in Britain. She is also a convener of Manchester's Music and Sonic Studies research network. Her research interests focus on music and identity, in particular the role of affect and musical memories.

Popular Music and Automobiles is an outstanding scholarly examination of motorvatin' music. Chuck Berry would approve of this literary lionizing of car tunes ... this Bloomsbury Academic publication is a gem. It elevates car song analysis to new heights. It presents informed and insightful international perspectives about automotive technology. Best of all, the essays are lucid and logical, fun to read, and valuable sources of reflection. * Popular Music and Society * Popular Music and Automobiles is a fresh take on a profoundly powerful socio-musicological combination. Not only do chapters cover canonical US examples (e.g. The Beach Boys) from new perspectives, but there are case studies from Wales, England, Germany, and Colombia. Authors cover both the more celebratory aspects of pop and cars as well as more difficult topics such as press coverage of popular musicians in car crashes and the role of music in White supremacist violence against those who are so-called 'driving while black.' * Justin A. Williams, Senior Lecturer in Music, University of Bristol, UK, and co-editor, with Katherine Williams, of The Singer-Songwriter Handbook (Bloomsbury, 2017) * Mark Duffett and Beate Peter's Popular Music and Automobiles not only helps remedy the paucity of writings on this subject, but does so in an entertaining and informative fashion. This book sheds new light on two postwar pop culture passions and their relationship to each other. * Timothy D. Taylor, Professor of Ethnomusicology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA, and author of Music and Capitalism: A History of the Present (2016) and Music in the World: Selected Essays (2017) * Literally and figuratively, cars and music move us; they transport us physically and emotionally. The connection between the two, now more than a century old, is the subject of this fascinating, provocative collection. Ranging across decades, genres, and continents, Popular Music and Automobiles is a powerful vehicle for exploring the complexities of culture and identity. * Mark Katz, Professor of Music, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, and author of Capturing Sound: How Technology has Changed Music (2004) *