Review Essay:Popular Music and Everyday Life: Three Styles of Scholarly Appreciation
Abstract
JOURN K AL OF CONTEMPORAR otarba / REVIEW ESSAY Y ETHNOGRAPHY / JUNE 2003 10.1177/0891241603252141 REVIEW REVIEW ESSAY Popular Music and Everyday Life: Three Styles of Scholarly Appreciation JOSEPH A. KOTARBA University of Houston JOSEPH A. KOTARBA is a professor of sociology at the University of Houston. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on culture, health care, quali- tative methods, and social theory. His most recent book is Postmodern Existential Sociology, coedited with John M. Johnson (Alta Mira, 2002). Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 32 No. 3, June 2003 360-368 2003 Sage Publications Kotarba / REVIEW ESSAY 361 I WANNA BE ME: ROCK MUSIC AND THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY, Theodore Gracyk, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001, $69.50 (cloth), $22.95 (paper). KARAOKE NIGHTS: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC RHAPSODY, Rob Drew, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2001, $59.00 (cloth), $21.95 (paper). SOUND ALLIANCES: INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, CUL- TURAL POLITICS AND POPULAR MUSIC IN THE PACIFIC, Philip Hayward (Ed.), London: Cassell, 1998, $75.00 (cloth), $21.95 (paper). T hescholarlyanalysisofpopularmusichasevolvedconsider- ably over the years. From the beginning, popular music had only been occasionally studied in its own right. Scholarly writers have generally used the popular music genre as a case study to illustrate more general ideas and