Bloomsbury Academic Media Narratives in Popular Music

The historical significance of music-makers, music scenes, and music genres has long been mediated through academic and popular press publications such as magazines, films, and television documentaries. Media Narratives in Popular Music examines these various publications and questions how and why they are constructed. It considers the typically linear narratives that are based on simplifications, exaggerations, and omissions and the histories they construct - an approach that leads to totalizing “official” histories that reduce otherwise messy narratives to one-dimensional interpretations of a heroic and celebratory nature. This book questions the basis on which these mediated histories are constructed, highlights other, hidden, histories that have otherwise been neglected, and explores a range of topics including consumerism, the production pressure behind documentaries, punk fanzines, Rolling Stones covers, and more. Review A much-needed book, Media Narratives and Popular Music shows us how meanings attached to music are shaped by and contested within the media. The book, full of leading scholars, is sure to be essential reading for students of popular culture long into the 21st century. --Matthew Worley, Professor of Modern History, University of Reading, UK This book features dynamic, vivid scholarship on everything from the marginalisation of women in mediation of genres like Northern Soul and EDM, to the erosion of the presence of Islam and black nationalism in hip hop. It not only unearths hidden histories, but reshapes the way that popular music history has been canonized as white and male. An essential text on the mediation of music. --Lucy O’Brien, author of She Bop: the definitive history of women in popular music (4th edition, 2020) This book features dynamic, vivid scholarship on everything from the marginalisation of women in mediation of genres like Northern Soul and EDM, to the erosion of the presence of Islam and black nationalism in hip hop. It not only unearths hidden histories, but reshapes the way that popular music history has been canonized as white and male. An essential text on the mediation of music. --Lucy O’Brien, author of She Bop: the definitive history of women in popular music (4th edition, 2020) About the Author Chris Anderton is Associate Professor in Cultural Economy at Solent University, UK. He has published on a variety of topics including the recorded and live music industries, music festivals, music history, music culture, music marketing, music cities, event management, and the intersection of fan practices and intellectual property law. He is the author of Music Festivals in the UK: Beyond the Carnivalesque (2019) and co-author of both Understanding the Music Industries (2013) and Music Management, Marketing and PR: Creating Connections and Conversations (in press). He is also co-editor of Researching Live Music: Gigs, Tours, Concerts and Festivals (in press). Martin James is Professor of Creative and Cultural Industries at Solent University, UK. His areas of specialist interest include music journalism and the music press, music and cultural cities, and late twentieth-century alternative music; specifically punk, post punk and electronic musics. Martin’s publications have focused on hidden histories in the mediated narratives of popular music. He is author of several critically acclaimed books about music, including French Connections: From Discotheque to Discovery (2003), State of Bass: Jungle – The Story So Far (1997; 2020) and co-authored Understanding the Music Industries (2013).