Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song

Abstract

First paragraph: Allan Moore opens Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song by asking “what meanings can experiencing a song have and how does it create those meanings?” (1). Answering these questions is at the heart of Moore’s text, through a discourse on how we can analyze and subjectively create meaningful relationships with popular music songs. Moore treats analysis and meaning as dichotomous discussions. Throughout Song Means, the role of the listener is acknowledged in the construction of meaning, which is guided by subjective experiences. The role of analysis is approached from a more formalist methodology, in an effort to survey the relationship between instruments, chord progressions, timbres, genre expectations and lyrics. Overall, Song Means provides what will, no doubt, become a seminal text within popular music studies. Moore has taken on the huge task of synthesizing, not only twenty years of his own academic writings, but also that of key figures within the field, including Richard Middleton (1990; 2000) Simon Frith (1983; 1998), and Philip Tagg (2000). While popular music studies can seem quite diffuse from a layman’s perspective, Song Means is an attempt to bridge that gap and bring a much needed cohesive factor to the field.