Categorizing sound
Subtitle: genre and twentieth-century popular music
By: David Brackett
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 368
ISBN-13: 9780520248717; 9780520291614; 9780520965317
Copyright date: 2016
Subjects: Analysis, appreciation; Popular music genres; Popular music; History and criticism
Other titles: Genre and twentieth-century popular music
Description: "Categorizing Sound addresses the relationship between categories of music and categories of people: in other words, how do particular ways of organizing sound become integral parts of whom we perceive ourselves to be and of how we feel connected to some people and disconnected from others? After an introduction that discusses the key theoretical concepts to be deployed, Categorizing Sound presents a series of case studies that range from foreign music, race music, and old-time music in the 1920s up through country and rhythm and blues in the 1980s. Each chapter focuses not so much on the musical contents of these genres as on the process of 'gentrification' through which these categories are produced."--Provided by publisher.
Notes: "List of musical examples": pages xi-xii.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction. They never even knew. What is a popular music genre? ; Music/Identification ; Charting popularity; title: Foreign music and the emergence of phonography. Sound recording and new modes of the musical imaginary ; Category and genre, ca. 1920 : a special case ; Foreign music : from race to ethnicity; title: Forward to the past : race music in the 1920s. Who had the blues before 1920? ; Recording the blues; What's in a name? The coalescence of race music; title: The newness of old-time music. A few early recordings and a welter of names ; Two recordings and two artists ; "Hillbilly" : the other within; title: From jazz to pop: swing in the 1940s. Jazz history, popular music history ; Popular music and the work concept ; Two stops at "Tuxedo Junction" ; From "Junction" to "Richard" ; One door opens, another one closes; title: The corny-ness of the folk. One early jukebox hillbilly hit ; National breakthroughs and cover tunes ; From "Mama" to "Smoke!" ; Where there's "Smoke!" there's fire; title: The dictionary of soul. The disappearance ; The reappearance ; From R&B to soul; title: Crossover dreams : from urban cowboy to the King of Pop. A brief history of crossover ; Urban cowboy : crossover and gender in early 1980s country ; From soul to Black and beyond ; Enter MJ; title: Notes toward a conclusion.