Carys Wyn Jones
The Rock Canon: Canonical Values in the Reception of Rock Albums
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008)
Review by Maria Hanáček

The ongoing debate over the concept of a Western canon keeps various disciplines occupied and popular music studies certainly are no exemption. This academic debate is not the main frame of reference of this book, though. It is concerned with the emergence of canons – seemingly a high art concept – in popular culture and examines the extent to which canonical models from literature and classical music inform the reception of rock albums.

The study focuses on ten albums repeatedly appearing in “greatest albums” lists. The term “rock”, however, is applied very broadly here to “music defined primarily by albums”, thus this top ten includes not only the Beatles and the Rolling Stones but also Marvin Gaye and the Sex Pistols. (This definition appears quite plausible if one considers that “classical” concepts and values are most likely to be found in albums, which come close to the idea of a work of art. It seems a bit problematic, though, when later on an “ideology of rock” with narrower genre connotations is employed). Continue reading →

Olivier Julien (ed.)
Sgt. Pepper and the Beatles: It Was Forty Years Ago Today
(Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2008)
ISBN: 978-0-7546-6708-7 (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-7546-6249-5 (Hardback)
Review by Alison Notkin

The Beatles are a popular band. During their reign as the “Fab Four” in the 1960s they were a popular band, and thirty-eight years after their ten-year career ended, they are still a popular band. More books have been written about the Beatles than any other band, ever. They were the first band to “warrant” serious musicological writing, and in fact, are one of the only popular music groups to grace the pages of such auspicious publications as the Cambridge Music Handbooks (only the Beatles and George Gershwin have had this honour so far). Music-lovers I meet often tell me that the Beatles are by far the best band that ever existed, and certainly, I, who spent hours of my 1970s and 80s childhood, locked in my basement, listening to records and pretending to be John Lennon, cannot contest that statement. Come to think of it, it is because of the effect of this popularity that I am even here, writing this review that I jumped on once hearing what the topic of the book was. Continue reading →