Friday 27 September 2019

Popular Music and Automobiles

I am pleased to announce a ground-breaking edited volume
from Bloomsbury, co-edited with Dr Beate Peter...


Particularly since the 1950s, cars and popular music have been constantly associated. As complementary goods and intertwined technologies, their relationship has become part of a widely shared experience-one that connects individuals and society, private worlds and public spheres. Popular Music and Automobiles aims to unpack that relationship in more detail. It explores the ways in which cars and car journeys have shaped society, as well as how we have shaped them. Including both broad synergies and specific case studies, Popular Music and Automobiles explores how attention to an ongoing relationship can reveal insights about the assertion and negotiation of identity. Using methods of enquiry that are as diverse as the topics they tackle, its contributors closely consider specific genders, genres, places and texts.

Here is what the book's reviewers are saying...

Mark Duffett and Beate Peter's Popular Music and Automobiles not only helps remedy the paucity of writings on this subject, but does so in an entertaining and informative fashion. This book sheds new light on two postwar pop culture passions and their relationship to each other. 



–  Timothy D. Taylor, Professor of Ethnomusicology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA.



Literally and figuratively, cars and music move us; they transport us physically and emotionally. The connection between the two, now more than a century old, is the subject of this fascinating, provocative collection. Ranging across decades, genres, and continents, Popular Music and Automobiles is a powerful vehicle for exploring the complexities of culture and identity.



–  Mark Katz, Professor of Music, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.



Popular Music and Automobiles is a fresh take on a profoundly powerful socio-musicological combination. Not only do chapters cover canonical US examples (e.g. The Beach Boys) from new perspectives, but there are case studies from Wales, England, Germany, and Colombia. Authors cover both the more celebratory aspects of pop and cars as well as more difficult topics such as press coverage of popular musicians in car crashes and the role of music in White supremacist violence against those who are so-called 'driving while black.'



–  Justin A. Williams, Senior Lecturer in Music, University of Bristol, UK.



Buy it from Amazon or find out more.