Guide to Research on Rock & Pop Music

Introduction | Overviews | Scholarly Secondary Literature | Popular Press Articles| Popular Web Links

Introduction
Writings about popular music appear in extremely diverse publications, making it essential to search widely for facts and opinions about the topic you may wish to investigate. This means becoming aware of both popular and scholarly perspectives. The research strategy suggested here urges a continual narrowing of focus, starting from a generalized overview of a topic and leading toward a close examination of a specific aspect of that broader topic. While online resources serve as the primary tools recommended here for collecting information on musicals, do not be lulled into thinking that the Internet is the primary source for information on pop music. The tools emphasized here have been carefully assembled by scholars and information specialists and are not freely available on the Internet. Material that is freely available on the Internet should be considered cautiously for its accuracy and validity. The World Wide Web should be used primarily as a starting point, which can assist in formulating possible avenues of inquiry.

Overviews (i.e. Encyclopedias)
For an introduction to a topic on the macro scale, good encyclopedias will offer you a concise summary of important aspects of a persons life and work, of an historical period, or of a particular idea or concept. Encyclopedias will also offer you leads as you continue to narrow your topic. Below are some of the resources that might offer you insight in to popular music:

Broad Overviews
New Grove Dictionary of Music Online Ed. L. Macy, 2001- (updated quarterly)
The "Grove" is the most comprehensive and authoritative source on music in English (the print edition consists of 29 volumes). This is a good source for relatively concise biographies (e.g. Dylan, Bob) and definitions (e.g. Rock). Of particular importance for your research are the thorough bibliographies provided with each entry, which lead you to additional resources on a particular topic (e.g. Pop: BIBLIOGRAPHY: Europe).

The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. 3rd ed. Ed. by Colin Larkin. London: Muze UK Ltd, 1998. 8 vols. ML102.P66 G84 1998 (Mendel Reference)

New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. 2nd ed. Ed. by Barry Kernfeld. London: Macmillan, 2002. 3 vols. ML102.J3 N48 2002 (Mendel Reference)

The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll. Rev. ed. Ed. by Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski. New York: Fireside, 2001. ML102.R6 R64 2001 (Mendel Reference)

Joel Whitburn. The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits. 7th ed. New York: Billboard Books, 2000. ML156.4 .P6W44 2000 (Mendel Reference)

Stambler, Irwin and Grelun Landon. Country Music: the Encyclopedia. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997. ML102 .C7S7 1997 (Mendel Reference)

Carlin, Richard. Country Music: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Routledge, 2003. ML102 .C7C28 2002 (Mendel Reference)
A one-volume dictionary of primarily biographical essays individuals and groups, though there are some articles on instruments and terminology. Sample article: Johnny Cash

International Encyclopedia of Dance. Ed. Selma Jeanne Cohen et al. 5 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. GV1585 .I586 1998 (Mendel Reference)
Includes entries on all aspects of dance (individuals, works, styles, etc.) with short bibliographies. Sample article: Robbins, Jerome.

Scholarly Secondary Literature
It is generally useful to become acquainted with critical considerations of specific topics in popular music. Criticism on pop music comes from various sources and is referenced in a variety of places, but rarely is any one research tool complete. You will need to consult literary and musical scholarship and perhaps sociological and economic scholarship. Likewise, scholary literature is found in both journal articles, chapters in books, and in entire monographs.

Article Indexes
The indexes below provide citations to scholary critical articles. These citations generally refer to articles in journals, chapters in collections of scholarly essays, or to monographs. After locating in these indexes citations to articles of interest, the item in which the article included must be search in the library's online catalog to determine if Princeton owns the title and where in the libraries it is located.

RILM Abstracts of Musical Literature
RILM is the main index for scholarly literature on music, comparable to the MLA Bibliography.

Modern Languages Association International Bibliography
The MLA International Bibliography indexes scholarship on literature and culture, including a large number of music journals.

Internation Index to Music Periodicals
Draws its current content from more than 370 international music periodicals from over 20 countries with over 60 Full Text titles. IIMP Full Text also includes retrospective coverage from over 185 periodicals dating back as far as 1874. 

America: History and Life
This database indexes scholarship on all aspects American culture and history.

Humanities Index
The Humanities Index lists scholarship across the humanities, providing access to scholarly considerations of musicals from outside of the disciplines of music and literature.

Arts and Humanities Citation Index

Library Catalogs
Searching the Library's online catalog will tell you whether a book or journal is owned by Princeton, in which library it is located, and if it is available. 

Princeton University Library Online Catalog
A database of the holdings of the libraries at Princeton University. For example, by performing an author search, you can find out what material the University Library owns written by a particular artist or performer. Or by performing a "journal title" search in the catalog you can find out if the University Library subscribes to Rolling Stone or Playbill. Tips on searching the online catalog.

Borrow Direct
A database of the holdings of the Ivy League libraries (except Harvard), which allows Princeton users to borrow materials that are unavailable at Princeton. It takes no more than four business days for requested materials to arrive at Princeton.

Popular Press Articles
Places to find popular opinion and critical reception of popular music. 

Music Index
This index provides citations to a broad range of material, including scholarly literature, but also provides good coverage of popular magazines such as Billboard and Rolling Stone. 

New York Times Fulltext (1851-1999)
Access to all of the New York Times up to three years ago. 

Lexis-Nexis News Index
Provides indexing of the New York Times and numerous other major newspapers, providing access to the latest coverage of music life. 

ProQuest
Indexes most major news and literary magazines, such as Newsweek and Atlantic Monthly. 

Popular World Wide Web Articles
While much of the popular music writing to be found on the World Wide Web comes from potentially unreliable sources, here are a few sites which are generally known to be reputable and may open new avenues of investigation.

All Music Guide 
Provides biographical information and capsule reviews of thousands of albums, in a variety of styles. 

Rolling Stone 
Official site for the legendary rock magazine. Includes a searchable archive of full-text reviews dating back to the magazine's initial publication (the archives are also accessible in print form at the library, or in the Popular Press section of this research guide). 

Rockcritics.com 
Links to a wide range of popular music criticism and interviews with prominent critics (Greil Marcus, Chuck Eddy, Lester Bangs).