ABSTRACT
The difference in apportioning authorship goes right to the core of debates on the topic within popular music studies. Authorship can itself be viewed as a meta-narrative, and in some manifestations, it is a restrictive and damaging one. In common with Eisenberg's construction of the phonologist and post-structuralism's construction of the reader as author, prominent scholars in the field of popular music studies have adopted a similar epistemological rationale. Popular music is a chaotic enterprise often working within rigid structures, stereotypes and assumptions. Within its bounds lie the implicit contradictions of authorship. The form has never been just about notions of the romantic, individual author, but neither is it solely about collective authorship, and people must continue to be wary about pronouncements that do not recognize the possibility for future authorial shifts. The world of popular music offers endless possibilities for mutability, and the concept of authorship mutates alongside such changes.
