Banding Together: How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music

Jennifer C. Lena; Jennifer C. Lena

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Banding Together

How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music

and

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2012

About this book

Why do some music styles gain mass popularity while others thrive in small niches? Banding Together 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--Jennifer Lena uncovers the shared grammar that allows us to understand the cultural language and evolution of popular music.

What are the common economic, organizational, ideological, and aesthetic traits among contemporary genres? Do genres follow patterns in their development? Lena 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 she examines in the music of China, Serbia, Nigeria, and Chile. Offering a rare analysis of how music communities operate, she 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.

Author / Editor information

Jennifer C. Lena is visiting assistant professor of sociology at Barnard College.

Reviews

"Lena demonstrates a remarkable scope of knowledge in American popular music. Integrating it with a wide research body in cultural sociology, she delivers a delightful reading for sociologists who are popular music fans. The clear analysis, rich examples and insightful observations should make this book a staple in music sociology and indeed in cultural sociology as a whole."---Motti Regev, Sociologica --- "Sociologists of music, as well as musical practitioners and fans, will find in Banding Together an engaging story about the commonalities shared by a variety of musical genres, despite their inherent stylistic differences. Through its wealth of examples, the book puts flesh on the otherwise counterintuitive contention that artistic creativity is a collective endeavor. Yet it goes beyond this well-established sociological observation to demonstrate how these musical art-worlds share a strikingly unified developmental grammar."---Amir Goldberg, American Journal of Sociology --- "This book should be required reading for anyone interested in the role of music--all music--in culture. Although Lena's focus is on the rise of 20th-century American popular idioms, the questions she asks are appropriate for and applicable to a number of significant canons. . . . A significant contribution to the literature." --- "Banding Together is an essential read for fans of popular music, thanks in no small part to Lena's wealth of music knowledge, as the book draws together the studies of music communities and music genres into a coherent whole."---Martin James, Times Literary Supplement --- "One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2012"

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Frontmatter
i

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Contents
vii

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Acknowledgments
ix

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Chapter 1. Music Genres
1

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Chapter 2. Three Musics, Four Genres: Rap, Bluegrass, and Bebop Jazz
27

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Chapter 3. Music Trajectories
65

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Chapter 4. The Government-purposed Genre
117

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Chapter 5. On Classification Systems
145

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Notes
171

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References
205

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Index
233

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Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

June 16, 2015

eBook ISBN:

9781400840458

Edition:

Course Book

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400840458

eBook ISBN: 9781400840458

Keywords for this book

Genre; For Example; Record label; Music industry; Music genre; Country music; Doo-wop; Folk music; Popular music; Music community; Pop music; Hip hop music; Sociology; Record producer; Western swing; Disc jockey; Music history; Techno; Turbo-folk; Polka; Musician; Social movement; Grunge; Ideology; Technology; Rock music; Punk rock; Rapper's Delight; Music Is; Independent record label; Example (musician); Guitar; Musical History; Country rock; Gangsta rap; Publication; Reggae; Psychedelic rock; Graduate school; Dance music; Recording studio; Billboard (magazine); The Byrds; Afrobeat; Classical music; Newport Folk Festival; Popular culture; Bandleader; Boundary object; Case study; Rapper (electrostatic precipitation); Miles Davis; Rapping; Nashville sound; Composer; Southern gospel; Record chart; Music publisher (popular music); Parents Music Resource Center; Social structure; Ozzy Osbourne; Gospel music; Outlaw country; Glam rock; Art music; Narrative; Oligopoly; Jazz; Sheet music; Fine art

Audience(s) for this book

For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research

Princeton University Press

Banding Together

Overview

About this book

Author / Editor information

Reviews

Topics

Table of contents

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Music Genres

Chapter 2. Three Musics, Four Genres: Rap, Bluegrass, and Bebop Jazz

Chapter 3. Music Trajectories

Chapter 4. The Government-purposed Genre

Chapter 5. On Classification Systems

Notes

References

Index

Bibliographic data