Bøker av Theodore Gracyk

Winner, ASA (American Society for Aesthetics) 2023 Outstanding Monograph PrizeFor Theodore Gracyk meaning in popular music depends as much on the context of reception and performer's intentions as on established musical and semantic practices. Songs are structures that serve as the scaffolding for meaning production, influenced by the performance decisions of the performer and their intentions. Arguing against prevailing theories of meaning that ignore the power of the performance, Gracyk champions the contextual relevance of the performer as well as novel messaging through creative repurposing of recordings. Extending the philosophical insight that meaning is a function of use, Gracyk explains how both the performance persona and the personal life of a song's performer can contribute to (or undercut) ethical and political aspects of a performance or recording. Using Carly Simon's "You're So Vain", Pink Floyd, the emergence of the musical genre of post-punk and the practice of "cover" versions, Gracyk explores the multiple, sometimes contradictory, notions of authenticity applied to popular music and the conditions for meaningful communication. He places popular music within larger cultural contexts and examines how assigning a performance or recording to one music genre rather than another has implications for what it communicates. Informed by a mix of philosophy of art and philosophy of language, Gracyk's entertaining study of popular music constructs a theoretical basis for a philosophy of meaning for songs.

It's long been assumed that people who prefer Led Zeppelin to Mozart live aesthetically impoverished lives. But why? Written by an award-winning popular music scholar, this book argues that aesthetic value is just as important in popular listening as it is with ""serious"" music.

Grapples with the ways that rock shapes - limits and expands - our notions of who we can be in the world. Going to the heart of this relationship between the music's role in its performers' and fans' self-construction, this title probes questions of gender and appropriation.