Here's a little taste...
Long before I ever became an academician I loved rock n’ roll-from the crunch and sizzle of Jimmy Page guitar riff to the soul-soothing wail of Aretha Franklin. But most of all, I loved the songs themselves, from love ballads to R&B grooves to punk rock political anthems. And I’ve spent decades building my music catalogue, both to enjoy the music and to get a better grasp on the evolution of this art form.
It wasn’t long ago that to call rock music an “art form” was a howler. And it has only been very recently that study of the popular arts generally has become a legitimate field of scholarly inquiry. Happily, today there are several academic journals devoted entirely to the subject, and even the most prestigious aesthetics journals routinely feature treatments of rock music. Finally scholars have realized what should have been obvious all along. The study of popular culture is important because it provides us with insights in a wide range of subjects: art, anthropology, psychology, sociology, cultural studies, and philosophy, to name a few. And study of the history of popular culture is significant for the same reason that any historical inquiry is significant. It provides us with a better understanding of human nature and society.
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