Musical Genre: Assemblage, Abstraction and Digital Terms

by Mads Krogh

Overview

From recent decades' digitization have emerged a myriad of techniques for mapping musical life, identifying patterns in sound or musico-cultural practices, and compiling labels, names, tags, and classes on an unprecedented scale.

Proliferating genre catalogs in the context of digital platforms and the conjunction of genre with notions of, for example, mood and activity are among the consequences, which challenge prevailing scene-based and identificational understandings in musical genre studies. This book answers to this challenge. Centering on the concepts of musico-generic assemblage and abstraction, it offers new perspectives on musical genre fit for current times but with the potential for also reconsidering historical cases.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798765100127
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/20/2026
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Mads Krogh is Associate Professor of Popular Music Culture at Aarhus University, Denmark. His research explores issues of genre, mediation, and practice combining inspiration from cultural sociology, assemblage, affect, and actor-network theory. In recent years, he has been particularly concerned with genre formation and classificatory practices in digital contexts of musical life. He is co-editor of six books, including Music Radio: Building Communities, Mediating Genres (Bloomsbury, 2019) and Methodologies of Affective Experimentation (2022).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
1. Introduction
2. Answers to The Question: What Is a Musical Genre?
3. Musico-Generic Assemblage(S)
4. Abstraction and/as Dissemination
5. Analytical Explorations: Lines of Abstraction Between Affect and Algorithms
6. Conclusion
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

Musical Genre: Assemblage, Abstraction, and Digital Terms represents one of the most thorough and sophisticated theorizations of musical genre undertaken to date. The advantage of his theoretical orientation is that it permits a much more dynamic and labile conception of both individual genres and genre as an overarching technology for organizing musical life. His strong case that abstraction is not simply a reductive process, but a productive one is a most important contribution to ongoing debates about genre.” —Eric Drott, Professor, University of Texas at Austin, US

“An impressive feat of navigating a bewildering genre landscape. Krogh's book unlocks the conceptual vocabularies needed to make proper sense of dual processes of genre continuity and rapid deformation in the age of algorithmic profiling and digital streaming. This is scholarship with its tools freshly cut, challenging us to think genre in a new light as emergent and assembled categories.” —Nick Prior, Professor of Cultural Sociology, University of Edinburgh, UK

“As we progress further into an era of digital music platforms and online streaming, questions abound concerning the relevance of genre as a means of understanding music, both as a product and a cultural resource in everyday life. Amidst a flurry of commentary and debate, both on the perceived death of genre and, conversely, its value as a means of continuing to understand musical value as something resistant to the creep of algorithmic logic in determining musical taste, Krogh's book is a very timely and critical intervention. Following a highly comprehensive and meticulously balanced account of various ways in which genre has been defined by music theorists, Krogh brings fresh conceptual lenses to bear in the genre debate and, in so doing, makes a compelling case for the continuing relevance of genre in a post-digital age. Musical Genre is essential reading for all music scholars and others with an interest in music in cognate fields including sociology, media studies, cultural studies and cultural industries.” —Andy Bennett, Professor, Griffith University, Australia

From the Publisher