The Political Force of Musical Beauty

In The Political Force of Musical Beauty, Barry Shank shows how musical acts and performances generate their own aesthetic and political force, creating, however fleetingly, a shared sense of the world among otherwise diverse listeners. Rather than focusing on the ways in which music enables the circulation of political messages, he argues that communities grounded in the act and experience of listening can give rise to new political ideas and expression. Analyzing a wide range of "beautiful music" within popular and avant-garde genres-including the Japanese traditions in the music of Takemitsu Toru and Yoko Ono, the drone of the Velvet Underground, and the insistence of hardcore punk and Riot grrrl post-punk-Shank finds that when it fulfills the promise of combining sonic and lyrical differences into a cohesive whole, musical beauty has the power to reorganize the basis of social relations and produce communities that recognize meaningful difference.

Author: Barry Shank
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 04/11/2014
Pages: 344
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.89lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.20w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780822356462

Review Citation(s):
Choice 04/01/2015 pg. 1324

About the Author

Barry Shank is Professor of Comparative Studies at Ohio State University. He is the author of Dissonant Identities: The Rock 'n' Roll Scene in Austin, Texas, and A Token of My Affection: Greeting Cards and American Business Culture, and a coeditor of American Studies: An Anthology and The Popular Music Studies Reader.