• Preface PART ONE • GROUNDWORKS Listening to Popular Music ; The Dialogue of Courtship in Popular Song; The Young Audience; PART TWO • FROM SUBCULTURAL TO CULTURAL STUDIES The Golden Age; Style as Homology and Signifying Practice ; Settling Accounts with Subcultures: A Feminist Critique ; Defending Ski-Jumpers: A Critique of Theories of Youth Subcultures ; Characterizing Rock Music Culture: The Case of Heavy Metal; Is There Rock After Punk? PART THREE • THE ORGANIZATION OF THE MUSIC BUSINESS Processing Fads and Fashions: An Organization-Set Analysis of Cultural Industry Systems; Cycles in Symbol Production: The Case of Popular Music; Patterns of Change PART FOUR • THE CREATIVE PROCESS The Production of Success: An Antimusicology of the Pop Song; From Craft to Art: The Case of Sound Mixers and Popular Music; The Realities of Practice ; How Women Become Musicians; Sample and Hold: Pop Music in the Digital Age of Reproduction PART FIVE • MUSICOLOGY AND SEMIOTICS Start Making Sense! Musicology Wrestles with Rock; The Grain of the Voice; On Popular Music; Second Thoughts on a Rock Aesthetic: The Band; Jingle: Pepsi-Cola Hits the Spot; Listen to Me; Do-Talk and Don’t-Talk: The Division of the Subject in Girl-Group Music PART SIX • MUSIC AND SEXUALITY Rock and Sexuality; Sexing Elvis; Teenage Dreams; In Defense of Disco ; Afterthoughts PART SEVEN • READING THE STARS Rock Music, the Star System, and the Rise of Consumerism; Rocket to Russia; In Praise of Kate Bush ; New Pop and Its Aftermath; Corrupting the Absolute PART EIGHT • LAST WORDS: THE FANS SPEAK Starlust

`... the collection as a whole recognises the pleasures of pop and helps us to understand them.' - Q Magazine