For Those About To Rock: Aesthetics and Rhetoric in 20th-Century American Popular Music

Popular music has been slowly growing in popularity among professional and academic musicians, but popular music lacks much of the aesthetic writings that classical music has. The purpose of this presentation is to show that popular music, from 1890’s blues and ragtime to present day rap and pop, has a place in many areas of today’s academic world by discussing classical aesthetic philosophies and rhetoric shown in popular music. By utilizing classical rhetoric and classical aesthetic theories, popular music can be shown to have great artistic and literary value. In discussing the lyrics and musicality of popular music, we can display the aesthetic philosophies of philosophers like Kant, Schopenhauer, Baumgartner, and others to great effect. This presentation will draw from specific songs to fully illustrate the qualities and values presented