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In 'Intertextuality and hypertextuality in recorded popular music', S. Lacasse (in M. Talbot (ed.) The Musical Work: Reality or Invention?, Liverpool University Press, 2000) proposes a model for understanding intertextuality in recorded popular music. His model provides different ways one text may reference another, while simultaneously transforming the style and/or subject of the original text. Style and subject are two of the integral elements that make up a work, yet what is missing from Lacasse's model is the medium through which these elements are presented. This article addresses that gap by introducing three phonomatic referential practices (retronormativity, vinyl aesthetics and analogue allusion) that transform the medium of a referenced work alongside transformations of style and/or subject. It further expands the model by discussing self-quotation as a referential practice. The applicability of the expanded model is demonstrated using the music of Portishead, one of the bands that pioneered the trip hop genre in the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews studies that examine internationally circulating music which has reached the upper echelon of all-genre single charts in the 21st century. The examinations will be used as examples for the analysis of sonic aesthetics that are embedded in a particular frame of cultural debate, which the article conceptualises as 'mainstream popular music'. The research field is then mapped and discussed with regard to prevailing objectives, methods and findings, including elaborations on how future research might advance understanding of the aesthetics within the discourses of mainstream popular music and, thus, of contemporary culture at large. The literature review focuses on music- and listener-based analytical directions and critically reflects on the frequent absence of theoretically well-founded and empirically underpinned, context-sensitive music examinations, particularly with regard to quantitative and audience research. The concluding section calls for a more integrated perspective on mainstream popular music as a discourse and praxis formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the contested issue of defining the genre of bluegrass music. Interpreting this debate as a subjective negotiation and renegotiation of a category, it focuses on the discursive and musical means through which ontologies of bluegrass are framed. In doing so, the article adds to a growing body of literature that considers genre in popular music as a flexible construct involving both musical performance and cultural formations. The article begins by exploring the idea of bluegrass as constructed by Bill Monroe and a number of early bluegrass scholars, after which it invokes recent work on human cognition and categorisation to analyse the genre debate among bluegrass enthusiasts. The article ultimately proposes that such discourse, notwithstanding its apparent futility, can be regarded as a vital means for a genre's self-perpetuation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The power ballad has become a mainstay of popular music since the 1970s. This article offers a history of the songs and discusses their place in the larger field of popular music genres. The songs are defined by the use of both a musical formula based on constant escalation and an expressive formula that combines the euphoric uplift created by rousing music with sentimental themes and ploys. Contrary to views that power ballads first appeared in 1980s rock and are primarily rock numbers, the songs emerged in the 1970s pop recordings of Barry Manilow and others, and from early on crossed genre lines, including pop, rock and R&B. These crossings result in an exchange between the fervour of the power ballad and the distinct expressive qualities of the other genres. This article also places the power ballad in the larger history of the ballad. The songs are part of a shift toward more effusive and demonstrative styles of ballads underway since the 1960s. In addition, the emotional excesses of the power ballad fit into a larger change in the expressive tone of works across different popular culture media. With those works, emotions are to be large, ecstatic and immediate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents information on the conference of the Latin-American branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, held at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas, Venezuela, on June 1-5, 2010. The conference, titled "¿Popular, pop, populachera? El dilema de las músicas populares en América Latina," focusing on the difficulties in identifying genres within popular music in Latin America.

The study of popular music often loses something in translation. The musical categories used by scholars and musicians in different locations vary widely in meaning, complicating both analysis and disciplinary divisions. Genre classifications also create blind spots which leave styles falling between the cracks out of the picture, impoverishing analysis and even denying musicians certain benefits. This paper examines the use of terms such as folklórico, tradicional, popular and típico by both lay people and scholars in Latin America, then turns to Dominican merengue típico as a case study showing how musical categories are often intensely local. I argue that – because it relies more on notions of place than on the ideas of time, class, race or production that inform other categorisations – the concept of típico is useful in examining transnational ‘roots’ musics which bridge nations, classes and modes of production. In addition, using musicians' and listeners' own categories can help us to question the canons of musical scholarship, musical nationalism and music marketing, thus creating new possibilities for both scholars and musicians. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]