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Analysing Popular Music
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Analysing Popular Music
Image, Sound and Text

March 2010 | 240 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
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Popular music is far more than just songs we listen to; its meanings are also in album covers, lyrics, subcultures, voices and video soundscapes. Like language these elements can be used to communicate complex cultural ideas, values, concepts and identities.

Analysing Popular Music is a lively look at the semiotic resources found in the sounds, visuals and words that comprise the 'code book' of popular music. It explains exactly how popular music comes to mean so much. Packed with examples, exercises and a glossary, this book provides the reader with the knowledge and skills they need to carry out their own analyses of songs, soundtracks, lyrics and album covers.

Written for students with no prior musical knowledge, Analysing Popular Music is the perfect toolkit for students in sociology, media and communication studies to analyse, understand - and celebrate - popular music.

 
Introduction
 
Discourses of Popular Music
 
Album Iconography: Postures, Objects, Settings
 
Visual Composition: Typeface and Colour
 
Analyzing Lyrics: Values, Participants, Agency
 
Semiotic Resources in Sound: Pitch, Melody and Phrasing
 
Sound Qualities: Arrangement and Rhythm
 
Analyzing Genre: The Sounds of Britpop
 
Analyzing Music in Film
 
Analyzing Music in Video and Television
 
Conclusion

An excellent book which provides in-depth examples of how to 'do' textual analysis with popular music texts. Written in a clear and engaging manner throughout and supported with good examples, this book should prove to be a valuable resource for tutors, researchers and students working in the field of popular music studies.

Mr Liam French
other, College of St Mark and St John
March 30, 2010
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