There is a well-developed vocabulary for discussing classical music, but when it comes to popular music, how do we analyze its effects and its meaning? David Brackett draws from the disciplines of cultural studies and music theory to demonstrate how listeners form opinions about popular songs, and how they come to attribute a rich variety of meanings to them. Exploring several genres of popular music through recordings made by Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby, Hank Williams, James Brown, and Elvis Costello, Brackett develops a set of tools for looking at both the formal and cultural dimensions of popular music of all kinds.

Preface 1 Introduction Prelude I. Codes and competences II. Who is the author? III. Musicology and popular music IV. Postlude 2 Family values in music? Billie Holiday's and Bing Crosby's "I'll Be Seeing You" I. A tale of two (or three) recordings II. Critical discourse III. Biographical discourse IV. Style and history V. Performance, effect, and affect 3 When you're lookin' at Hank (you're looking at country) I. Lyrics, metanarratives, and the great authenticity debate II. Sound, performance, gender, and the hanky-tonk III. "A feeling called the blues" IV. The emergence of "country-western" 4 James Brown's "Superbad" and the double-voiced utterance I. The discursive space of black music II. Signifyin(g)-words and performance III. Musical signifyin(g) 5 Writing, music, dancing, and architecture in Elvis Costello's "Pills and Soap" I. The "popular aesthetic" II. Style and aesthetics III. Interpretation and (post)modern pop IV. A question of influence 6 Afterword: the citizens of Simpleton Appendix A. Reading the spectrum photos B. Registral terminology Notes Bibliography Select discography Index