ABSTRACT
Rock criticism needs to develop self-consciousness and reflexivity. In the place of consensus-based historical determinism there ought to be more discursive space. The use of such a framework to critically analyse discourses provides a means by which to explore and understand the multiple positions in which popular music meaning exists. By analysing significant creative spaces via discourse analysis researchers are able to explore new ways of examining popular music affect. Historians are not here to provide answers via unequivocal linear generalizations. Histories of popular music should be concerned with the pursuit of contemporary significances, the questioning of empiricism by theory, and the documenting of various repertoires and interpretative strategies used by myriad participants. In doing so, the popular music historian can then at least attempt to explain how these repertoires and strategies come to be adopted and adapted in different social settings and periods.
