ABSTRACT

As a sociologist Simon Frith takes the starting point that music is the result of the play of social forces, whether as an idea, an experience or an activity. The essays in this important collection address these forces, recognising that music is an effect of a continuous process of negotiation, dispute and agreement between the individual actors who make up a music world. The emphasis is always on discourse, on the way in which people talk and write about music, and the part this plays in the social construction of musical meaning and value. The collection includes nineteen essays, some of which have had a major impact on the field, along with an autobiographical introduction.

chapter 1|28 pages

Youth and music

chapter 3|17 pages

Rock and Sexuality

chapter 4|6 pages

Afterthoughts

chapter 5|12 pages

Formalism, Realism and Leisure

The case of punk [1980]

chapter 7|26 pages

The Industrialization of Popular Music

chapter 8|18 pages

Playing with Real Feeling:

Making Sense of Jazz in Britain

chapter 10|18 pages

The Discourse of World Music

chapter 11|16 pages

Pop music

chapter 13|11 pages

Music and Everyday Life

chapter 14|30 pages

Why do songs have words?

chapter 15|18 pages

Hearing secret harmonies

chapter 16|17 pages

Towards an aesthetic of popular music

chapter 17|17 pages

Adam Smith And Music

chapter 18|20 pages

Music and Identity

chapter 19|22 pages

What is Bad Music?