Music and Society
1 total work
Examines the ways in which 20th-century Britons have tried to find a distinctive musical voice. Musicians, including new populations from the former colonies, have proposed "national" musics for Britain as a whole and its constituent parts. Working in dialogue with European classical or American popular music, the British produced the folk revivals of the 1920s and 1950s, the pastoral symphonies of the 1920s, the pop of the 1960s and Britpop in the 1990s. By surveying the debates surrounding the status of such artists and styles as the Beatles, Birtwistle, Blur and Bhangra, this text emphasizes the importance of music as a generator of value and identity.