Nostalgia, Song and the Quest for Home: Production, Text, Reception

(Hardback)

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What does it mean to evoke a sense of home through song, or intentionally utilize nostalgia in songwriting

This book explores a neglected aspect of scholarship surrounding the study of songits relationship with nostalgia and notions of home,' in the broadest sense. Each essay in this collection studies these factors from the perspective of production, text and reception,' either individually or in combination. Making use of frameworks such as Marxism, critical theory and hauntology, this is a propulsive study of the global cultural phenomena of nostalgia music.

From the perspective of 'production,' authors explore nostalgia as technique and the commercialization of nostalgia. The section focused on 'text' features case studies of nostalgic songs or albums about home and musicological analyses of the nostalgic trends of songwriters, songs, albums. Finally, the 'reception' essays facilitate examination of nostalgic narratives from the subjective and varying perspectives of audiences or listeners.

Whether identifying with Bruce Springsteen or ABBA, or hailing from Ukraine or New Zealand, the featured music speaks to a listener's sense of home and self. From music of the Serbian diaspora and Country 'n' Irish music, which speak of a nostalgia for a homeland (or time) to which one cannot return, to a song performed in the Wuhan dialect for listeners who could not leave their homes during COVID containment, these collected essays feature the music of artists whose audiences have found and clung to a version of themselves.

Author Bio

Paul Carr is Professor Emeritus in Popular Music Analysis at the University of South Wales, UK. His research interests focus on musicology, the music industry and pedagogical frameworks for music related education. His most recent publications include co-editing The Bloomsbury Handbook of Rock Music Research (2020), an economic assessment of the Welsh Music Industry (2022) and editorship of a special double edition of the Journal of World Popular Music on the impacts of Covid-19 (2022). He is also an experienced performing musician, having toured and recorded with artists as diverse as The James Taylor Quartet and ex-Miles Davis saxophonist Bob Berg.