Music of the heart

Love, desire, infatuation, lust, jealousy, passion, heartbreak. Writing songs about all this is clichéd and lowbrow. But what if lovesongs—if we listen to them more closely—are the best way to understand our emotions and how they've changed throughout the twentieth century? Can the pop charts reflect people's attitudes towards love and romance?

Karel Veselý traces the history of pop from the rock'n'roll generation of the 50s, through the “love revolution” of the sixties, presenting a picture of romantic relationships in rock, disco or rave culture, and mapping the emotional crisis of the new millennium. The story of pop ends with contemporary musicians defining radical forms of queer love. Across twelve chapters, the author draws on song lyrics, but also uses philosophical and sociological theories of the time. The pages of this book thus bring together Michel Foucault and bell hooks, Erich Fromm with the Beach Boys, Frank Ocean or Britney Spears.