Author Biography

Ralf von Appen holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Giessen, Germany, where he has been working as a teaching and research assistant since 2004. He has published widely about the history, psychology, aesthetics and analysis of popular music. Andre Doehring studied Musicology and Sociology and is working as a musicologist at the University of Giessen, Germany. His current research topics focus on jazz, electronic dance music, popular music journalism, analysis and the sociology of music. Dietrich Helms is Professor of Music History at the University of Osnabruck, Germany. He studied Musicology, English and Sociology at the University of Munster, Germany, and the Universities of East Anglia and Oxford, UK. He has published widely on music at the court of Henry VIII, popular music, music of early modern times and musical theatre for children. Allan Moore is Professor of Popular Music at the University of Surrey, UK. His chief research interests lie in the domain of the interaction of music and lyrics in recorded song in the service of potential readings. He is series editor of Ashgate's 'Library of Essays in Popular Music' and author to date of five monographs including Rock: the Primary Text and Song Means (both Ashgate).

Table of Contents

Introduction; I: Listening Alone; 1: Death Cab for Cutie's 'I Will Follow You Into The Dark' as Exemplar of Conventional Tonal Behaviour in Recent Rock Music; 2: Ear Candy; 3: Metrical Ambiguity or Microrhythmic Flexibility? Analysing Groove in 'Nasty Girl' by Destiny's Child; 4: Pragmatic 'Poker Face'; 5: Can't Get Laid in Germany – Rammstein's 'Pussy' (2009); 6: An Analysis of Space, Gesture and Interaction in Kings of Leon's 'Sex On Fire'; 7: Andrés's 'New For U'; 8: So Just What Kind of Life Is This? Amy Macdonald's 'This Is The Life'; II: Listening Together; 9: An Ambiguous Murder; 10: Interpreting Meaning in/of Janelle Monáe's 'Tightrope'; 11: 'Can't Keep it to Myself'; 12: How to Make a Global Dance Hit; 13: Analytical Approaches to Björk's 'Crystalline'

Review

"This book could be an important first step in shifting the field from entrenched habits of sole-authorship to the incorporation of many different kinds of collaboration, including smaller groups, junior-senior scholar pairings, or single-author analyses with responses and revisions published together. This book reminds us that there is no one way to "do" popular music analysis and is an opportunity to think even more creatively about what effective and fulfilling research can look like."- Alexa Woloshyn, Carnegie Mellon University"Taken as a whole, this essay collection not only makes a convincing case for the relevance of musicological analysis in the study of popular music, but also provides us with an impressive demonstration of the myriad ways by which it can be done."- Nadav Appel, Bar-Ilan University, Israel; Open University of Israel, Israel"I know of no other instance in popular-music analysis in which multiple authors reconcile their views within the bounds of a single essay, and so this effort should be applauded for its original approach."- Trevor de Clercq, Middle Tennessee State University"This book offers an engaging read and presents multiple approaches to musical analysis, which is to be expected given the diversity of its contributors."- Donna Weston, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
'The last twenty years or so have seen a marked increase in academic writing about popular music by musicologists and music theorists. Song Interpretation in 21st-Century Pop Music brings together a talented group of scholars to make a significant and much anticipated contribution to this increasingly diverse field of analytical approaches and repertories. It will be required reading for anyone interested in hearing, and then re-hearing, recent popular music.' John Covach, Institute for Popular Music, University of Rochester, USA 'At last, a new, quality collection of pop music essays that truly values analysis, close reading and listener interpretation. It's refreshing to see the wide range of genres covered as well - it makes for a great post-modern playlist.' --Justin A. Williams, University of Bristol, UK'This book could be an important first step in shifting the field from entrenched habits of sole-authorship to the incorporation of many different kinds of collaboration, including smaller groups, junior-senior scholar pairings, or single-author analyses with responses and revisions published together. This book reminds us that there is no one way to "do" popular music analysis and is an opportunity to think even more creatively about what effective and fulfilling research can look like.' --Alexa Woloshyn, Carnegie Mellon University 'Taken as a whole, this essay collection not only makes a convincing case for the relevance of musicological analysis in the study of popular music, but also provides us with an impressive demonstration of the myriad ways by which it can be done.'--Nadav Appel, Bar-Ilan University, Israel; Open University of Israel, Israel'I know of no other instance in popular-music analysis in which multiple authors reconcile their views within the bounds of a single essay, and so this effort should be applauded for its original approach.' --Trevor de Clercq, Middle Tennessee State University

Long Description

Existing books on the analysis of popular music focus on theory and methodology, and normally discuss parts of songs briefly as examples. The impression often given is that songs are being chosen simply to illuminate and exemplify a theoretical position. In this book the obverse is true: songs take centre stage and are given priority. The authors analyse and interpret them intensively from a variety of theoretical positions that illuminate the song. Thus, methods and theories have to prove their use value in the face of a heterogeneous, contemporary repertoire. The book brings together researchers from very different cultural backgrounds and encourages them to compare their different hearings and to discuss the ways in which they make sense of specific songs.All songs analysed are from the new millennium, most of them not older than three years. Because the most widely popular styles are too often ignored by academics, this book aims to shed light on how million sellers work musically. Therefore, it encompasses a broad palette, highlighting mainstream pop (Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, Lucenzo, Amy McDonald), but also accounting for critically acclaimed 'indie' styles (Fleet Foxes, Death Cab for Cutie, PJ Harvey), R&B (Destiny's Child, Janelle Monae), popular hard rock (Kings of Leon, Rammstein), and current electronic music (Andr

Review Quote

'The last twenty years or so have seen a marked increase in academic writing about popular music by musicologists and music theorists. Song Interpretation in 21st-Century Pop Music brings together a talented group of scholars to make a significant and much anticipated contribution to this increasingly diverse field of analytical approaches and repertories. It will be required reading for anyone interested in hearing, and then re-hearing, recent popular music.'John Covach, Institute for Popular Music, University of Rochester, USA 'At last, a new, quality collection of pop music essays that truly values analysis, close reading and listener interpretation. It's refreshing to see the wide range of genres covered as well - it makes for a great post-modern playlist.'Justin A. Williams, University of Bristol, UK

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