Varying Responses
P.C. CHATTERJI
POPULAR MUSIC AND COMMUNI¬CATION by James Lull Sage Publications, 1989, 268 pp., $ 19.95
March-April 1989, volume 13, No 2

The editors and contributors to this volume have attempted to get scholars, who love various forms of popular western music like Pop, Punk and Heavy Metal, to articulate their understanding and appreciation in a serious manner so that it achieves its rightful place in the academic world. The book is divided into two parts. In Part I authors from several academic fields and from industry comment on the fundamental processes of creation, encoding, recording, market¬ing and world wide distribution. In Part II which relates to Music Audience: Cul¬ture and Sub-Culture, the contributors focus their attention on the process of receiving music, such as listening to and interpreting music. There are two assumptions which guide the writers. Firstly, that ‘participants in human com¬munication that involves popular music act willingly and imaginatively in every instance of its occurrence.’

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