Music and Youth Culture

Music and Youth Culture

by Dan Laughey (Author)

Synopsis

Music and Youth Culture offers a groundbreaking account of how music interacts with young people's everyday lives. Drawing on interviews with and observations of youth groups together with archival research, it explores young people's enactment of music tastes and performances, and how these are articulated through narratives and literacies. An extensive review of the field reveals an unhealthy emphasis on committed, fanatical, spectacular youth music cultures such as rock or punk. On the contrary, this book argues that ideas about youth subcultures and club cultures no longer apply to today's young generation. Rather, archival findings show that the music and dance cultures of youth in 1930s and 1940s Britain share more in common with youth today than the countercultures and subcultures of the 1960s and 1970s. By focusing on the relationship between music and social interactions, the book addresses questions that are scarcely considered by studies stuck in the youth cultural worlds of subcultures, club cultures and post-subcultures: What are the main influences on young people's music tastes? How do young people use music to express identities and emotions? To what extent can today's youth and their music seem radical and progressive? And how is the 'special relationship' between music and youth culture played out in everyday leisure, education and work places? Features * The first comprehensive study of popular music and youth cultural studies * Includes rare historical work on pre-1950s youth cultures * Contains original photographs and diagrammatic illustrations.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: 06 Jan 2006

ISBN 10: 0748623817
ISBN 13: 9780748623815

Media Reviews
Music and Youth Culture is a highly ambittious and innovative book that deserves to be read and discussed by anyone involved in research on youth and music. Sociology Laughey has done us all a favour by challenging, maybe dispelling, the sacred place of music in youth cultural theory. He does so in a meticulous style. Young People Now A fine primer for any college-level student of either music or youth sociology. California Bookwatch Music and Youth Culture will prove an invaluable book for researchers and students alike, not least the critical appraisal of approaches to subcultural theory, the previously under-researched Mass Observation archives, and astute analysis of music in young people's everyday lives. Laughey takes an interactionist approach, exploring the intergenerational contexts of uses and influences - in bars and clubs, at home and work, in school and college - thoughtfully contextualised by an exploration of dance hall practices prior to the post-war phenomena of subcultures. -- Professor Sheila Whiteley, University of Salford ... a stimulating and original account of the ways in which music interacts with young people's everyday lives. -- Martin Robb Youth and Policy A very welcome addition to the sociological literature on music and culture... This text will deserve serious treatment by scholars workingin the area of sociology of music. -- Will Gibson, University of London British Journal of Music Education If you're a budding sociologist or extra keen on secretly observing and recording your fellow humans, Music & Youth Culture makes for good homework. -- Andy Hudson Discorder Laughey's major contribution to the study of youth subcultures is his analysis of pre-war subcultures... his book contributes many new significant additions to the genre Popular Music and Society Music and Youth Culture is a highly ambittious and innovative book that deserves to be read and discussed by anyone involved in research on youth and music. Laughey has done us all a favour by challenging, maybe dispelling, the sacred place of music in youth cultural theory. He does so in a meticulous style. A fine primer for any college-level student of either music or youth sociology. Music and Youth Culture will prove an invaluable book for researchers and students alike, not least the critical appraisal of approaches to subcultural theory, the previously under-researched Mass Observation archives, and astute analysis of music in young people's everyday lives. Laughey takes an interactionist approach, exploring the intergenerational contexts of uses and influences - in bars and clubs, at home and work, in school and college - thoughtfully contextualised by an exploration of dance hall practices prior to the post-war phenomena of subcultures. ... a stimulating and original account of the ways in which music interacts with young people's everyday lives. A very welcome addition to the sociological literature on music and culture... This text will deserve serious treatment by scholars workingin the area of sociology of music. If you're a budding sociologist or extra keen on secretly observing and recording your fellow humans, Music & Youth Culture makes for good homework. Laughey's major contribution to the study of youth subcultures is his analysis of pre-war subcultures... his book contributes many new significant additions to the genre
Author Bio
Daniel Laughey is Senior Lecturer in Media and Popular Culture at Leeds Metropolitan University.