Sound fabrics

From a number of different perspectives, the contributions to this collection of essays set out to explore the media-specific aesthetics and the institutional 'framedness' of contemporary popular music and, in one way or the other, revolve around (but do not exclusively focus on) intermediality and institutionality as two main axes relevant to its analysis. Among other things, they examine the incorporation and/or remediation of popular music in other media, investigate into the ways in which various media appropriate forms and themes of popular music and/or adapt its specific musical poetics, assess the relevance of the music industry in the shaping of pop sounds, artists and fan communities and - against this backdrop - raise questions about the social and cultural significance of the sung word. By 'thick descriptions' of popular musical phenomena from diverse cultural contexts and decades, they contribute to a more thorough understanding of the social, political and economic embeddedness of popular music and help explain why it has so successfully pervaded our everyday lives and why it has become such an essential ingredient in the formation and expression of both individual and collective identities.