As a sociologist Simon Frith takes the starting point that music is the result of the play of social forces, whether as an idea, an experience or an activity. The essays in this important collection address these forces, recognising that music is an effect of a continuous process of negotiation, dispute, and agreement between the individual actors who make up a music world. The collection includes nineteen essays, some of which have had a major impact on the field, along with an autobiographical introduction.

Índice: Introduction; Bibliography; Youth and music; 'The magic that can set you free': the ideology of folk and the myth of the rock community; Rock and sexuality (with Angela McRobbie); Afterthoughts; Formalism, realism and leisure: the case of the punk; Art vs. technology: the strange case of popular music; The industrialisation of popular music; Playing with real feeling: making sense of jazz in Britain; The suburban sensibility in British rock and pop; The discourse of world music; Pop music; Look! hear! the uneasy relationship of music and television; Music and everyday life; Why do songs have words?; Hearin... Etc.