Value of Popular Music

Alison Stone is Professor of European Philosophy at Lancaster University, UK. She is the author of books on Hegel’s philosophy of nature, Luce Irigaray, feminist philosophy, and motherhood, and numerous articles on topics in continental philosophy. She edited the Edinburgh Critical History of Nineteenth Century Philosophy and is co-editing the Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy.

• Introduction: In Defence of Popular Music.- 1. Evaluation, Aesthetics, and the Unity of Popular Music.- 2. Tracking Popular Music History with an Aesthetic Map.- 3. Adorno and Popular Music.- 4. Matter and Form in Popular Music.- 5. Rhythm, Energy, and the Body.- 6. Meaning and Affect in Popular Music.- 7. Meaning in Sounds and Words.- Conclusion: Popular Music, Aesthetic Value, and Materiality.- Discography.

“Alison Stone has written an engaging and well-informed book about the artistic value of contemporary popular music. It is a thoughtful and useful addition to the small handful of philosophical monographs about that topic. … Stone’s book is an admirable engagement with the topic of popular music.” (Theodore Gracyk, The British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 59 (4), October, 2019)“This book outlines a persuasive esthetic of popular music rooted in the post-Kantian tradition, re-tools Adorno in order to allow his critique of popular music to be understood in relation to his wider authorship, and, most importantly, from the point of view of popular music scholarship, grounds that esthetic in an understanding of popular music … .” (Stan Erraught, Popular Music and Society, Vol. 42 (4), 2019)“This book stands as a powerful, and articulate, rejoinder to any lingering suspicion among philosophers that popular music lacks sophistication, beauty, or expressive power.” (Michael Gallope, Popular Music, Vol. 38 (3) October, 2019)