Music, Style, and Aging: Growing Old Disgracefully?

Description

The image of the aging rock-and-roller is not just Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger on stage in their sixties. In his timely book Music, Style, and Aging, cultural sociologist Andy Bennett explains how people move on from youth and effectively grow older with popular music. For many aging followers of rock, punk, and other contemporary popular genres, music is ingrained in their identities. Its meaning is highly personal and intertwined with the individual's biographical development. Bennett studies these fans and how they have changed over time--through fashions, hairstyles, body modification, career paths, political orientations, and perceptions of and by the next generation. The significance of popular music for these fans is no longer tied exclusively to their youth. Bennett illustrates how the music? that "mattered" to most people in their youth continues to play an important role in their adult lives--a role that goes well beyond nostalgia. Cover Frontmatter Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: A Life-Changing Thing I / Contextualizing Popular Music and Aging 1 / Popular Music and the Aging Audience 2 / Individual and Collective Lifestyles of Aging Popular Music Audiences II / Case Studies 3 / Toning Down the Mohawk: Music, Style, and Aging 4 / Career Opportunities: Work, Leisure, and the Aging Popular Music Fan 5 / “This Is ‘Dad House’”: Continuity and Conflict among Multigenerational Music Audiences 6 / Still “Changing the World”? Music, Aging, and Politics Conclusion: Too Old to Rock and Roll? Appendix: A Note on Methodology Bibliography Index