New Books In Music

Academics don’t pay enough attention to class. And when we do, too often we only magnify the tendency for working class subjects to be defined according to middle class norms; and according to those norms, they, not surprisingly, fail in one way or another, justifying their position beneath the middle class. There are many unfortunate consequences of this dynamic. Among them, we seldom see what’s really happening in, say, the performance of a country song. Nadine Hubbs, Professor of Music Theory and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan, is an exception to this rule. In Rednecks, Queers, and Country Music (University of California Press, 2014), she discusses subjects that range from a Foo Fighters tour-promotion video, the role of taste in class distinction, and the blinders that members of the middle class seem to wear when they notice working-class culture. Then she removes the blinders and takes a look at some country, noticing an artistic richness and political agenda that academ