Simon Frith - The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock

The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock

This Companion maps the world of pop and rock, pinpointing the most significant moments in its history and presenting the key issues involved in understanding popular cultures most vital art form. Expert writers chart the changing patterns in the production and consumption of popular music, tracking the emergence of a vast industry with a turnover of billions and following the rise of global stars from Elvis to Public Enemy, Nirvana to the Spice Girls. They trace the way new technologies from the amplifier to the Internethave changed the sounds and practices of pop and they analyse the way maverick entrepreneurs have given way tomultimedia corporations. In particular they focus on the controversial issues concerning race and ethnicity, politics, gender and globalisation. But at the heart of this Companion is the music itself rock, pop, black music, dance music, world music its impact, its power and its pleasures.

SIMON FRITH is Professor of Film and Media at Stirling University and is founder member and former Chair of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. He is the author of Sound Effects (1981), Art into Pop (1987), Music for Pleasure (1988) and Performing Rites (1996).

WILL STRAW is Associate Professor of Communications in the Department of Art History and Communications Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. He is the founding editor of Topia: A Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. Dr Straw is co-investigator in a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Major Collaborative Research Project on Cultures of the City.

JOHN STREET is Reader in Politics in the School of Economic and Social Studies, University of East Anglia. He is the author of Rebel Rock: The Politics of Popular Music (1986), Politics and Technology (1992), and Politics and Popular Culture (1997), and co-author of Deciding Factors in British Politics (1992).

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The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock

Edited by Simon Frith, Will Straw and John Street

The Cambridge Companion to

EDITED BY

Simon Frith

Will Straw and

John Street

PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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Cambridge University Press 2001

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2001

Reprinted 2004 (twice)

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

Typeface Minion 10.75/14 pt System QuarkXPress [SE]

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

Cambridge companion to pop and rock / edited by Simon Frith, Will Straw, and John Street. p. cm. (Cambridge companions to music)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0 521 55369 5 (hardback) ISBN0 521 55660 0 (paperback)

1. Popular music History and criticism. 2. Rock music History and criticism. I. Frith,

Simon. II. Straw, Will, 1954. III. Street, John, 1952. IV. Series.

ML3470.C36 2001 781.64dc21 00068908

ISBN 0 521 55369 5 hardback

ISBN 0 521 55660 0 paperback

Contents

Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix,

The Rolling Stones, James Brown, Marvin Gaye

Bob Marley, David Bowie, Abba, Madonna, Nirvana,

Public Enemy, Derrick May, The Spice Girls

Notes on contributors

Sara Cohen gained a DPhil in Social Anthropology from Oxford University in 1987, and is currently lecturing at Liverpool Universitys Institute of Popular Music. She is the author of Rock Culture in Liverpool: Popular Music in the Making, and she has published numerous articles based on ethnographic research into popular music. Her most recent work has focused on popular music, place and local identity. She is a member of the editorial group of the journal Popular Music.

Jan Fairley has a BA in Comparative Literature, an MPhil (Oxford) in Latin American Studies and a PhD in Ethnomusicology (Edinburgh). She works as a freelance journalist and broadcaster specialising in world music, regularly interviewing musicians and reviewing music. She pioneered world music on BBC Radio Scotland, compiling and presenting a weekly one-hour programme, Earthbeat, for four years in the 1990s. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Popular Music at Liverpool University. Her current research is on singersongwriters in Latin America and Spain, and Cuban music.

Simon Frith is Professor of Film and Media at Stirling University, Scotland. He has been a rock critic for publications ranging from Creem and the Village Voice to The Sunday Times and the Scotsman. His last book was Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music