The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music Volume 8 is one of six volumes within the 'Genre' strand of the series. This volume discusses the genres of North America in relation to their cultural, historical and geographic origins; technical musical characteristics; instrumentation and use of voice; lyrics and language; typical features of performance and presentation; historical development and paths and modes of dissemination; influence of technology, the music industry and political and economic circumstances; changing stylistic features; notable and influential performers; and relationships to other genres and sub-genres. This volume features over 100 in-depth essays on genres ranging from Adult Contemporary to Alternative Rock, from Barbershop to Bebop, and from Disco to Emo.

This and all other volumes of the Encyclopedia are now available through an online version of the Encyclopedia: https://www.bloomsburypopularmusic.com/encyclopedia-work?docid=BPM_reference_EPMOW. A general search function for the whole Encyclopedia is also available on this site. A subscription is required to access individual entries. Please see: https://www.bloomsburypopularmusic.com/for-librarians.

John Shepherd is Chancellor's Professor of music and sociology, and Dean, Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research at Carleton University, ON. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
David Horn was a founding editor of the journal Popular Music (Cambridge University Press, 1981+), and a founding member of IASPM (The International Association for the Study of Popular Music). He was Director of the Institute of Popular Music at the University of Liverpool from 1988 until his retirement in 2002. Together with the blues scholar Paul Oliver he first proposed the idea of EPMOW in the 1980s, and has worked on the project since that time. Other recent publications include two edited volumes: The Cambridge Companion to Jazz (with Mervyn Cooke, 2002),and a special issue of Popular Music in honour of Paul Oliver (2006).