Organized around the idea of crisis and adversity, be it personal, social, or categorical, the contributors to Pop When the World Falls Apart showcase the range of ways that pop music studies has responded to the social, political, and cultural shifts that are reshaping the world today.

Introduction / Eric Weisbard 1Collapsing Distance: The Love-Song of the Wanna-Be, or The Fannish Auteur / Jonathan Lethem 7Black Rockers vs. Blackies Who Rock, or The Difference between Race and Music / Greg Tate 15Toward an Ethics of Knowing Nothing / Alexandra T. Vazquez 27Divided Byline: How a Student of Leslie Fiedler and a Colleague of Charles Keil Became the Ghostwriter for Everybody from Ray Charles to Cornell West / David Ritz 40Boring and Horrifying Whiteness: The Rise and Fall of Reaganism as Prefigured by the Career Arcs of Carpenters, Lawrence Welk, and the Beach Boys in 1973¿74 / Tom Smucker 47Perfect is Dead: Karen Carpenter, Theodor Adorno, and the Radio, or If Hooks Could Kill / Eric Lott 62Agents of Orange: Studio K and Cloud 9 / Karen Tongson 82Belliphonic Sounds and Indoctrinated Ears: The Dynamics of Military Listening in Wartime Iraq / J. Martin Daughtry 111Since the Flood: Scenes for the Fight for New Orleans Jazz Culture / Larry Blumenfeld 145(Over the) Rainbow Warrior: Israel Kamakawiwo'ole and Another Kind of Somewhere / Nate Chinen 176Travel with Me: Country Music, Race, and Remembrance / Diane Pecknold 185The Comfort Zone: Shaping the Retro-Soul Audience / Oliver Wang 201Within Limits: On the Greatness of Magic Slim / Carlo Rotella 230Urban Music in the Teenage Heartland / Brian Goedde, Austin Bunn, and Elena Passarello 240"Death to Racism and Punk Revisionism": Alice Bag's Vexing Voice and the Unspeakable Influence of Canción Ranchera on Hollywood Punk / Michelle Habell-Pallán 247Of Wolves and Vibrancy: A Brief Explanation of the Marriage Made in Hell between Folk Music, Dead Cultures, Myth, and Highly Technical Modern Extreme Metal / Scott Seward 271The New Market Affair: Media Pranks, the Music Industry's Last Big Gold Rush, and the Hunt for Hits in the Shenandoah Valley / Kembrew McLeod 282All That Is Solid Melts into Schmaltz: Poptimism vs. the Guilty Displeasure / Carl Wilson 299Contributors 313Index 317