"Queering the Popular Pitch"is a new collection of 19 essays by leading scholars on popular music. Following Routledge's landmark 1994 collection, "Queering the Pitch," these scholars aim to situate queering within the discourse of sex and sexuality in relation to popular music. This investigation addresses the changing debates within gay, lesbian and queer discourse in relation to the dissemination of musical texts--performance, cultural production, sexual meaning--situating music within the broader patterns of culture that it both mirrors and actively reproduces.
The collection is divided into four parts. The first part, "Queering Borders," moves queer theory into some neglected histories of African American and Latino Musics, including jazz, rap, and bolero. Part Two, "Queer Spaces," looks at areas of popular music where queerness has played a role, from cabaret to songs about the AIDS crisis. Part Three, "Hidden Histories," offers three case studies of gender, generation, race, community, and sexuality. Finally, Part Four, "Queer Thoughts, Mixed Media," explores how music/queering is mediated by visual culture and videos.
"Queering the Popular Pitch" will appeal to students of popular music and Gay/Lesbian studies. Like its predecessor and companion, "Queering the Pitch," it promises to establish a new level of discourse in a growing field of musicological research.
