The published version of my invited response to the special session on “(Per)Form in(g) in Rock” from SMT Indianapolis.

This article explores the sometimes tricky question of tonality in pop and rock songs by positing three tonal scenarios: 1) songs with a fragile tonic, in which the tonic chord is present but its hierarchical status is weakened, either by relegating the tonic to a more unstable chord in first or second inversion or by positioning the tonic…[Read more]

The introductory essay to my edited volume *Rock Music*, from the Ashgate Library of Essays in Popular Music series (2011).

This chapter focuses on the work of the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), a group that emerged in the immediate wake of the Beatles and whose anxiety of influence towards the Beatles is especially apparent. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, for example, was paralyzed by his anxiety of influence, but Jeff Lynne, ELO’s leader and main composer, saw t…[Read more]

In a seminal 1985 article, Robert Hatten outlines a theory of musical intertextuality with the potential for a broad range of application. He suggests that intertextuality in music operates on two essential levels: stylistic and strategic. Stylistic intertextuality occurs when a composer adopts distinctive features of an earlier style without…[Read more]

In *Sounding Out Pop: Analytical Essays in Popular Music*, ed. Mark Spicer and John Covach (University of Michigan Press, 2010).

In *Expression in Pop-Rock Music: Critical and Analytical Essays*, 2nd ed., ed. Walter Everett (Routledge, 2008).

This article examines a variety of compositional procedures that give rise to what the author defines as “accumulative” and “cumulative” forms in pop-rock music, formal processes which are directly linked to the rapid advances in recording technology that occurred mainly from the late 1960s to the 1980s. The article includes detailed…[Read more]

This paper surveys theories of rhythm and meter that have been developed for Western art music and applied to pop-rock music, as well as more recent theories developed specifically for popular music. I also consider several broader temporal issues as they relate to popular music: the relationship between rhythm and meter in music with an explicit…[Read more]

A survey of tonal and harmonic systems in late 20th-century pop/rock that revises the model in Walter Everett, “Making Sense of Rock’s Tonal Systems,” _Music Theory Online_ 10.4 (2004)

The first part of this chapter surveys existing models of texture in popular music, identifies the rhythmic characteristics of the different layers, and offers sample analyses drawn from Anglophone popular music from the mid- to late twentieth century that demonstrate various rhythmic functions. The second part describes typical textural and…[Read more]

Brad Osborn. 2010. “Beyond Verse and Chorus: Experimental Song Forms in Post-Millennial Rock Music.” PhD Dissertation, University of Washington.