Beautiful Monsters explores the ways in which "classical" music made its way into late twentieth-century American mainstream culturemdash;in pop songs; movie scores; and print media. Beginning in the 1960s; Michael Longs entertaining and illuminating book surveys a complex cultural field and draws connections between "classical music" (as the phrase is understood in the United States) and selected "monster hits" of popular music. Addressing such wide-ranging subjects as surf music; Yiddish theater; Hollywood film scores; Freddie Mercury; Alfred Hitchcock; psychedelia; rap; disco; and video games; Long proposes a holistic musicology in which disparate musical elements might be brought together in dynamic and humane conversation. Beautiful Monsters brilliantly considers the ways in which critical commonplaces like nostalgia; sentiment; triviality; and excess might be applied with greater nuance to musical media and media reception. It takes into account twentieth-century medias capacity to suggest visual and acoustical depth and the redemptive possibilities that lie beyond the surface elements of filmic narrative or musical style; showing us what a truly global view of late twentieth-century music in its manifold cultural and social contexts might be like.
#91643 in eBooks 2008-10-09 2008-10-09File Name: B0030HKYTM
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