Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music summary Essay Example

It can be a strong instrument to our remembrance of things past. Such power of music defines whole generations. Fourth, the fact is that music can be possessed. What Frith realizes is that people feel they own the music and build it into their sense of themselves.

After explaining the sociological functions of music, the author digs into the question of popular music aesthetics. He questions what makes popular music able to satisfy these social functions. To answer this question, Frith gives four points of his answer and tries to give suggestion for future critical work.

His first point is brief. Pop music is complex “intentionally”, defined by Andrew Chester, while as European art music is “extensionally”. Frith thinks that in the 20th century, popular music has absorbed from Afro-American music. In his second point, he states that popular music has a strong vocal strength, and we react to the singer’s voice whether we understand the lyrics or not. It directly communicates to us through narrative structures. According to Frith’s third point, there are two different ways to analyze and classify musical genres in which music uses narrative structures to produce patterns of self-identification and to express different emotions. He suggests classifying popular songs according to their ideological effects. The author’s last point is even serious music cannot escape from being associated to our lives and being under social forces.

In the end, Frith concludes that music has “some sort of collective, disruptive cultural effect”. Understand that popular music has an individualizing effect is key to finding its aesthetic values.