Analysing Popular Music
Image, Sound and Text
- David Machin - Örebro University, Sweden
Popular music is far more than just songs we listen to; its meanings are also in album covers, lyrics, subcultures, voices and video soundscapes. Like language these elements can be used to communicate complex cultural ideas, values, concepts and identities.
Analysing Popular Music is a lively look at the semiotic resources found in the sounds, visuals and words that comprise the 'code book' of popular music. It explains exactly how popular music comes to mean so much. Packed with examples, exercises and a glossary, this book provides the reader with the knowledge and skills they need to carry out their own analyses of songs, soundtracks, lyrics and album covers.
Written for students with no prior musical knowledge, Analysing Popular Music is the perfect toolkit for students in sociology, media and communication studies to analyze, understand,and celebrate, popular music.
A definitive guide to issues of textual analysis, representation and semiotics in popular music. Informed, instructive and refreshingly accessible; it boasts a host of original examples, exercises and invaluable resources
Bill Osgerby
London Metropolitan University
David Machin has the gift of explaining complex ideas in clear and direct language that will engage students and enrich their experience of music
Theo Van Leeuwen
University of Technology Sydney
A comprehensive and innovative addition to the literature on the analysis of popular music. Scholars and students will find this an essential reference text for future work
Brian Longhurst
University of Salford
David Machin's book will be invaluable for anyone who wants to systematically analyse the way that popular music is meaningful in the media. He provides clear, accurate, explanations of the ideas of other writers, and sets out helpful approaches to analysing popular music as a modern form of visual and sound communication. The book will now be on my recommended reading lists for both undergraduate and postgraduate students
Tim Wall
Birmingham City University
In this innovative and invaluable book, David Machin has attempted to address the areas of representation, textual analysis and semiotics in popular music. He presents complex ideas in a way that will be useful to students of media, culture and communications and to any scholars with an interest in why music is made meaningful but with no background in musicology... I would strongly recommend this book for any music and media students, and for anyone with an interest in developing a deeper understanding of popular music
Martin James, Southampton Solent University
THE Textbook Guide
Equipped with theories, specific examples, detailed analysis and a useful and concise glossary, Machin's Analysing Popular Music is a useful, practical and manageable toolkit for students with no prior musical knowledge who are interested in multimodal discourse, and for students in sociology, media and communication studies to analyse and appreciate popular music.
This book presents an extremely interesting model for a multimodal analysis of music as a complex text. Machin's examination of the many layers of meanings generated by musical products is original and effective. This will be a very useful resource for students of media and cultural studies, particularly those who are not familiar with the topic. The book will also provide a starting point for reflecting on popular music from a different angle.
Analysing Popular Music: Image, Sound and Text is a book the methods of which is tried at tested with the students who inspired in at the University of Leicester. If you are teaching music to students who have no formal training in musicology but who love the sounds and sights of music, this is the one to have!
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Dr. E. Anna Claydon
University of Leicester
This textbook covers a very contentious debate about the relationship between: (a) popular music &; (b) youth issues. It clearly exposes the strength of such a relationship & discusses ways in which popular music can play a highly positive role in addressing (& overcoming) many problems which many young people can encounter throughout their adolescence,
Recommended for the following modules:
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BA - 2nd year Marcoms
BA - 3rd year Advertising
BA - 3rd year Branding
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MA - Marcoms, Branding and Advertising
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An interesting and insightful book, which will help students to consider the role of music in depth. Of particular use to dissertation students
This book is engaging and informative, and should provide students with an analytical 'tool-kit' to improve their understanding of the complexities of popular music.
This book will definitely be added to the bibliography of the module.
The book seems to fit perfectly into our course \The Aesthetics of Popular Culture in the 20th Century" (undergraduate course for international students); we are, however, planning to construct a new course with special focus on music and popular culture in intermedia studies (also for international students). The new course is due spring 2011. Intermedia studies focus on how meaning is constructed, which means that in order to analyse e.g. musical meaning one has to consider the way music is presented to us (the context); music is almost always multi- and intermedial (even so-called instrumental classical music). That's why Analysing Popular Music: Image, Sound and Text is a book fits into intermedia studies.
I consider this to be an original and useful text for the study of popular music. It is written in a language that is easy to understand (for both musicians and non musicians alike) and has many incredibly useful concepts to inspire future research. I will be asking my library to include the text as supplementary reading on the course, and I will certainly be using the text in my lecture series next semester.
