Listening to popular music, or, How I learned to stop worrying and love Led Zeppelin / Theodore Gracyk.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gracyk, Theodore.

Series:

Tracking pop

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Popular music--Philosophy and aesthetics.

Popular music.

Physical Description:

xii, 245 pages ; 23 cm.

Other Title:

Listening to popular music

How I learned to stop worrying and love Led Zeppelin

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2007]

Summary:

It has long been assumed that people who prefer Led Zeppelin to Mozart live aesthetically impoverished lives. But why? In Listening to Popular Music, award-winning popular music scholar Theodore Gracyk argues that aesthetic value is just as important in popular listening as it is with "serious" music. And we don't have to treat popular music as art in order to recognize its worth. Aesthetic values are realized differently in different musical styles, and each requires listening skills that people must learn.

Boldly merging insights from popular music studies, aesthetic theory, cognitive science, psychology identity theory, and cultural studies, Gracyk crafts an innovative study that argues that understanding aesthetic value is crucial to the enjoyment of all forms of music. Listening to Popular Music thus offers a new, general framework for understanding what it means to appreciate music, showing that an informed preference for popular music is a response to real values of the music, including aesthetic values.

Contents:

Aesthetics without elitism. Separating aesthetics from art ; Clearing space for aesthetic value ; Aesthetic principles and aesthetic properties

The aesthetic value of the popular. Appreciating, valuing, and evaluating music ; The ideas of hearing and listening

Listening as engagement with symbols. Music's worldly uses ; Taste and musical identity.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-230) and index.

ISBN:

9780472099832

0472099833

9780472069835

0472069837

OCLC:

72987903