ABSTRACT
The chapter focuses on three particular forms of popular culture. Two of these are the most dominant forms in their global reach: association football and pop–rock music. The third is the diffuse, almost limitless, domain of consumer culture, discussion of which involves a brief excursion into the countryside. The chapter suggests that the general development of popular music in the second half of the twentieth century created new spaces for internationally shared and compelling cultural experiences. The blues music of the mid-twentieth century is a powerful language of loss which has deeply shaped pop music and which continues to be drawn on directly by new generations of artist. All music represents societal disciplines through the structures and conventions of its form, and all music presents opportunities for deep engagement with both desire and anxiety, along with models of how turbulence and loss can be survived and managed.
