Really Popular? – Criteria of the Popularity of Music

Yearbook “Lied und Populäre Kultur / Song and Popular Culture” of the Center for Popular Culture and Music, Vol. 67 (2022), ed. by Knut Holtsträter

When is music truly popular? Which criteria apply to different subject areas like classic pop, popular song or popular music? When is popular music not popular (any more)? Which historical, social, economic, and aesthetic conditions must be fulfilled for music to be considered popular? How can popularity be measured? The term “popular” is always associated with a quantitative and qualitative evaluation. This yearbook seeks to question the “popular” in music resp. the popularity of music as a claim to reality, though the discussion is not limited to so-called pop music alone but comprises all kinds of popular music, entertainment music, film and video game music and music on the (theatre) stage, as well as any kind of music that is not covered by the genre discourse of popular music, such as (Western) art music or concert music, folk music and folk song, and others – for these, too, raise the question of the “right” popularity.

We promote a diversity of methods and equally encourage empirical research, historical considerations, philosophical debates, and economic analyses. The subjects and questions can derive from Song Research, Popular Music Studies, Literary Studies, Art History, Musicology, Music Economics, Media Studies, Theatre Studies, Music Theatre Studies, Sociology, Cultural Anthropology, Gender Studies, Studies of Minority Groups, and other disciplines.

For more information see: https://www.zpkm.uni-freiburg.de/publikation/jahrbuch/cfa-reallypopular2022

Potential contributors are asked to send abstracts of not more than 2,000 characters (including spaces) as well as a short academic CV by 1 October 2021.  We will notify contributors by the end of November. The length of contributions should be between 35,000 and 50,000 characters (including spaces) and should be submitted by 1 May 2022. Please send any inquiries or abstracts to Dr. Knut Holtsträter ([email protected]). We accept contributions in German or English.