Groove: An Aesthetic Of Measured Time : Historical Materialism, Volume 73

In Groove: An Aesthetic of Measured Time, Mark Abel explains the rise to prominence in Western music of a new way of organising rhythm: groove. He provides a historical account of its emergence around the turn of the 20th century and analyses the musical components which make it work. Tracing the influence of key philosophical arguments about the nature of time on musical aesthetics, Mark Abel draws on materialist interpretations of art and culture to challenge those who, like Adorno, criticise popular music's metrical regularity.