We have been told this story over and over again for decades. The music is real. The music is powerful. The music is defiant...

Traditionally, popular music has been viewed as inherently challenging, resisting, and defying authority. This new book questions that long-held belief, suggesting that popular music often reinforces, rather than opposes, the very power structures it claims to resist-namely, neoliberal capitalism.

This misunderstanding of popular music gained prominence in the mid-1980s and continues today, even as most people face increasing disempowerment, poverty, and marginalization in their personal, professional, and political lives. The book explores why such a deeply ingrained and widespread perception of popular music has persisted, despite considerable evidence to the contrary.