Publications from MMMSP

   
These books are licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Philip Tagg: Kojak: 50 Seconds of Television Music (2000)

A user-friendly, updated and improved edition of Tagg’s pioneering 1979 classic of popular music semiotics — ‘refreshing’, ‘heroic’, ‘really worthwhile reading’, ‘useful and practical’, ‘a major paradigm shift’, ‘richly suggestive’, ‘original, comprehensive’, ‘abundant source of inspiration’... 424 pages. 7" × 10" (177 × 254 mm). 187 music examples, 92 figures and tables, extensive bibliography and list of musical references. $38. ISBN 0-9701684-0-3. More about this book | Orders

Philip Tagg: Fernando the Flute (2000)

This thought-provoking analysis and contextualisation of the famous but ideologically ambiguous Abba mega-hit from 1975 is already required reading for popular music analysis classes in several universities. Very readable. 144 pages. 7×10" (177×254 mm). Illustrated, numerous music examples. $21. ISBN 0-9701684-1-1. More about this book |Orders

Philip Tagg & Bob Clarida: Ten Little Title Tunes (2003)

A monumental study of everyday musical meanings in the mass media. Includes everything from sighing sixths to cowboy half cadences, from big concerto love themes to urban urgency cues, from the musical mediation of gender to matters of educational democracy, and much more. ‘Truly compelling’, ‘erudite’, ‘shocking, staggering’, ‘impressive’, ‘useful, practical’, ‘it made my Christmas’, ‘essential reading’... xvi+898 pages. 7×10" (177×254 mm). Illustrated, 501 music examples. Extensive appendix and index sections. $71. ISBN 0-9701684-2-X . More about this book | Orders

Yngvar Steinholt: Rock in the Reservation: Songs from the Leningrad Rock Club 1981-1986 (2005)

What, if anything, does rock music in 1980s Leningrad have to do with the demise of the Soviet Union? How could rock music flourish in a system that did not recognise its existence? Using interviews and in-depth musical/lyrical analysis, Steinholt investigates these and other questions to present a convincing multidisiplinary account of important issues in the recent musical, literary, social and political history of Europe‘s largest nation. 254 pages. 7×10" (177×254 mm). Illustrated, music examples. $21.95. ISBN 0-9701684-3-8 . More about this book | Order it   please contact the author

 

Under planning at MMMSP (at least they were!)

• Garry Tamlyn: The Big Beat —
   Origins and development of snare backbeat and other accompanimental
   rhythms in Rock 'n' Roll.

The ultimate study of rhythmic patterns in early rock music. Contains numerous music examples and mini-analyses of over 1000 recordings. Also presents serious musicological evidence questioning conventional wisdom about sensitive issues of race and rock music (c.350 pages).

• Karen Collins: The Future is Happening Already —
    Industrial Music, Dystopia and the Aesthetic of the Machine.

This all-encompassing and truly interdisciplinary study of one of the industrialised world’s most important genres of the late 20th century draws on extensive information provided by musicians, fans, record label personnel, as well as on observations made by everyone from Dante and Milton to Burroughs and the screenwriters of Robocop, to document and explain the ideological significance of an aesthetic trapped in the public conscious somewhere between pop and the avant-garde. A dystopian future may ‘already be happening’ but industrial music’s noble ‘Terminator’ seems to be saying “I’ll be back” more realistically than Schwarzenegger (c. 400 pages; illustrated, numerous music examples and tables).