Why Music Matters

Listen to David Hesmondhalgh discuss the arguments at the core of 'Why Music Matters' with Laurie Taylor on BBC Radio 4's Thinking Allowed here: bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03q9q2n/Thinking_Allowed_Why_Music_Matters_Bhangra_and_Belonging/ In what ways might music enrich the lives of people and of societies? What prevents it from doing so? Why Music Matters explores the role of music in our lives, and investigates the social and political significance of music in modern societies. First book of its kind to explore music through a variety of theories and approaches and unite these theories using one authoritative voice Combines a broad yet theoretically sophisticated approach to music and society with real clarity and accessibility A historically and sociologically informed understanding of music in relation to questions of social power and inequality By drawing on both popular and academic talk about a range of musical forms and practices, readers will engage with a wide musical terrain and a wealth of case studies

Listen to David Hesmondhalgh discuss the arguments at the core of 'Why Music Matters' with Laurie Taylor on BBC Radio 4's Thinking Allowed here: bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03q9q2n/Thinking_Allowed_Why_Music_Matters_Bhangra_and_Belonging/In what ways might music enrich the lives of people and of societies? What prevents it from doing so? Why Music Matters explores the role of music in our lives, and investigates the social and political significance of music in modern societies.* First book of its kind to explore music through a variety of theories and approaches and unite these theories using one authoritative voice* Combines a broad yet theoretically sophisticated approach to music and society with real clarity and accessibility* A historically and sociologically informed understanding of music in relation to questions of social power and inequality* By drawing on both popular and academic talk about a range of musical forms and practices, readers will engage with a wide musical terrain and a wealth of case studies

1 Music as Intimate and Social, Private and Public 12 Feeling and Flourishing 112.1 Music, Affect, Emotion 112.2 Emotions, Narrative Play, and Music 142.3 Human Flourishing, Aesthetic Experience, and Music 172.4 Musical Flourishing Beyond Contemplative Cultivation 202.5 Musical Aesthetics and Bodily Experience: Dancing 302.6 Approaches to Music and Emotion in Everyday Life:Contributions and Limitations 352.7 Problems of Self-realization in Modern Life and TheirRelation to Music 422.8 Competitive Individualism and Status Competition ThroughMusic 482.9 Review: Music's Constrained Enrichment of Lives 533 Love and Sex 573.1 Sex and Love and Rock and Roll 573.2 Two Approaches to Music, Sex, and Sexuality 583.3 The Pop-Rock Divide and Rock's Sexual Politics 613.4 Post-War Pop's Emotional Resources 653.5 Sex and Love on the Dance Floor 683.6 Critiques of Countercultural Sexual Freedom 713.7 Sex and Love in Punk, Alternative Rock, and Metal 743.8 Sexuality in Twenty-First-Century Pop 773.9 Black Music and Racialized Sexuality 814 Sociability and Place 844.1 Ways of Being Together: Forms of Publicness 844.2 Celebrations of Musical Participation and Their Limitations874.3 That Syncing Feeling 974.4 Ordinary Sociability I: Singing Together 1024.5 Ordinary Sociability II: Dancing Together 1094.6 Playing Together: Amateur Musicians 1124.7 Theorizing Positive Musical Sociality 1154.8 Spectres of Capitalist Modernity Revisited: Class andInequality 1204.9 Uneven Musical Development 1234.10 Elements of Thriving Musical Places 1254.11 Quality of Working Life of Professional Musicians 1275 Commonality and Cosmopolitanism 1305.1 Mediated Commonality in Modern Societies 1305.2 Aesthetic Experience and Aspirations to Commonality 1315.3 Redeeming Aesthetic Experience? 1335.4 Talk About Music, What It Tells Us, and What ItDoesn't 1365.5 Music, Politics, and Publicness 1425.6 Communities of Shared Taste? Subcultures, Scenes, and Fans1475.7 Nations, Ethnicity, Cosmopolitanism 1515.8 Rock as Cosmopolitanism? 1525.9 Complexities of Music and Nation 1555.10 Strange Journeys: Working-Class and Ethnic Musics BecomeNational Musics 1575.11 Sentimental Citizenship 1625.12 Music, the Nation, and the Popular 1645.13 Music of the African Diaspora: Life-Affirming Collectivityin Decline? 1655.14 A Critical Defense of Music 170Acknowledgments 172References 174Index 187