The Sociology of Music:

Since the days when Verdi′s "Va Pensiero" became the national hymn of liberation for the 1848 Italian Revolution, Music has had a significant political and socio-cultural impact. The current influence of Music in today′s culture is explored in the July 2005 issue of American Behavioral Scientist. Based on a 2003 conference sponsored by the American Sociological Association′s Sociology of Culture Section and funded by Emory University, the nine...
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Since the days when Verdi′s "Va Pensiero" became the national hymn of liberation for the 1848 Italian Revolution, Music has had a significant political and socio-cultural impact. The current influence of Music in today′s culture is explored in the July 2005 issue of American Behavioral Scientist. Based on a 2003 conference sponsored by the American Sociological Association′s Sociology of Culture Section and funded by Emory University, the nine articles in the lively issue sum up the major themes in the mushrooming discipline of music sociology and expound on variations such as music and class, race, gender, and self-identity; innovative studies of the consumption of music; distinctive insights into changes in musical production; the role of music in social movements; and analysis of content issues. This issue covers a full range of modern musical styles from ballet to jazz to rock ′n roll to hip-hop to digital music.

The Sociology of Music: Sounds, Songs, and Societyoffers both theoretical and methodological diversity. Among the topics highlighted in the issue are:

• How popular, professional, and critical recognition of a popular music album affects inclusion in "retrospective cultural canons" such as Rolling Stone′s Greatest Albums of All Time(Schmutz)
• The discursive framing of jazz and its impact on the listener and musician (Appelrouth)
• Rock ′n roll as a key feature of adult culture and a primary source of self-identity (Kotarba)
• Whether musical cohesion is a function of structure, interactive achievement, both, or something else (Winther)
• How digital technologies are transforming the lived experience of music and the relationships between creators, mediators, and publics (Marontate)
• How Taylor′s principles of scientific management reconfigured the organization of modern ballet away from the ballerina and on to the "creative" choreographer and composer (specifically George Balanchine and Igor Stravinsky) (Van Delinder)
• How historical analysis of record availability and the analysis of song lyrics suggest that Blues Queens such as Bessie Smith were influential beyond the blues and jazz genres (Danaher)
• The distinct symbolic order and moral boundaries that shaped the "story of jazz" and its impacts on class, race and urban America (Lopes)
• How hip-hop--with its grim portrayals of urban reality and youth manifestos--can be both the mirror or engine of a social movement (Trapp)