Rock: The Primary Text: Developing a Musicology of Rock (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music) - Softcover

Moore, Allan F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0754602990 ISBN 13: 9780754602996

Publisher: Routledge, 2001

Synopsis

This thoroughly revised second edition of Allan Moore's ground-breaking book features new sections on melody, Britpop, authenticity, intertextuality, and an extended discussion of texture. Rock's 'primary text' - its sounds - is the focus of attention here. Allan Moore argues for the development of a musicology particular to rock within the context of the background to the genres, the beat and rhythm and blues styles of the early 1960s, 'progressive' rock and subsequent styles. He also explores the fundamental issue of rock as a medium for self-expression, and the relationship of this to changing musical styles. Rock: The Primary Text remains innovative in its exploration of an aesthetics of rock.

About this title

Synopsis

Revised to respond to developments within the discipline and with new material added to reflect the author's and others' further work in this field, this book's focus remains British rock. Its aims are: to establish analytic criteria for rock as a whole; to provide a historicized discussion of British rock; and to enable a critical re-evaluation of progressive rock itself. This book has been written in the conviction that, with "rock" criticism and commentary in general, insufficient attention is paid to what the author calls the "primary text" - that constituted by the sounds themselves, as opposed to commentaries on them. In the first chapter, Allan Moore argues for the development of a musicology particular to rock, which may share aspects of established musicology, but which acknowledges that rock differs in its purposes, publics and aims. The primary elements of such a musicology are then laid out in Chapter 2. Next, there are critiques of rock myths of authenticity and unmediated expression. These are centred on the ideological appropriation of the ethos and techniques of the "blues", and extend to discussions of a range of more recent rock styles.

The crucial role played by authenticity in the reception of rock is considered at more length in Chapter 5.

About the Author

Allan F. Moore, University of Surrey, UK

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0754602990
• ISBN 13: 9780754602996
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 272