Reading Pop: Approaches to Textual Analysis in Popular Music (review)

Reading Pop: Approaches to Textual Analysis in Popular Music. Edited by Richard Middleton. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. [xi, 388 p. ISBN 0-19-816612-5 (cloth); 0-19-816611-7 (pbk.). $70 (cloth); $19.95 (pbk.).]

In his introduction to this anthology of sixteen essays by various authors on the topic of popular music (all of which have appeared in the journal Popular Music), editor Richard Middleton concludes that "the best 'new musicology' of pop has grasped the need to hear harmony in new ways, to develop new models for rhythmic analysis, to pay attention to nuances of timbre and pitch inflection, to grasp textures and forms in ways that relate to generic and social function, to escape from 'notational centricity' " (p. 4). Many of the articles in this volume satisfy in varying degrees these admirable goals for a musicology of popular music. Yet several of them also demonstrate the need for Middleton's methodological prescription, as they labor under either the specter of analytical formalism, in which music analysis contributes little toward a useful interpretation of a song's musical meaning, or a historical analysis or analysis of lyrics that all but ignores the contribution of musical sound.

Middleton's introduction is itself of article length, containing a comprehensive historical survey of popular music analysis, supplemented by critiques of the current directions in the literature. I recommend it to anyone wishing to gain an understanding of the field's historical and current trends, though it presupposes some familiarity with the concepts of both contemporary musicology and critical theory. Middleton also contributes a separate article, "Popular Music Analysis and Musicology: Bridging the Gap," in which he develops a theory of musical gesture that he hopes can provide a systematic method for approaching the sounds heard in popular music, without resorting to analytical formalism. Middleton is particularly interested in the gesture of the rhythmic groove, a crucial element in popular music. He suggests the possibility of a graphical representation of the groove and the musical gestures that accompany it, and he provides a convincing example of how such a representation might be laid out.

Richard Leppert and George Lipsitz contribute a detailed study of the music of Hank Williams in " 'Everybody's Lonesome for Somebody': Age, the Body, and Experience in the Music of Hank Williams." They trace the social and historical conditions existing at the time of Williams's rise to fame immediately following World War II, "a time when diverse currents of resistance to class, race, and gender oppressions flowed together to form a contradictory, but nonetheless real, unity of opposites" (p. 307). Through specific examples drawn from Williams's short recording career, connected with perceptive analysis of postwar American society, the authors construct a convincing account of how and why Williams's music captured the insecurities and conflicting emotions of the age. Though some may balk at their use of Freudian psychological concepts (specifically, their claim that Williams resisted the "oedipal narrative" because of his father's unavailability during his youth), Leppert and Lipsitz present convincing evidence for their arguments. Of particular interest is their discussion of Williams's alcohol-ravaged body as a site of contestation of the tensions inherent in postwar cultural norms regarding sexuality and gender roles.

Philip Tagg's "Analyzing Popular Music: Theory, Method, and Practice" presents a comprehensive and critical overview of the relatively immature condition of popular music analysis and suggests methodological tools for bringing it up to speed. These include a useful checklist of musical qualities the analyst should consider in the search for musical meaning within popular music. Yet Tagg regrettably employs a number of scientific-sounding acronyms as shorthand for what he perceives to be important analytical objects. For example, he uses IOCM to refer to "interobjective comparison material" (i.e., other music examples from which homologous comparisons can be drawn) and EMFA to refer to "extramusical fields of association." While these acronyms may shorten...