Artikel,
Tracking Changes and Changing Tracks: Looking Backward and Forward at a Journal’s Founding
Journal of Popular Music Studies, 33 (3): 5-7 (September 2021)
DOI: 10.1525/jpms.2021.33.3.5
Zusammenfassung
The call for papers for the 33.3 issue caused me to think back on the founding of this journal, originally called Tracking: Popular Music Studies, in 1987.1 To delve into its history would take this short essay well beyond a reasonable word count (though it could provide a valuable lesson: Be careful what you say “Yes” to while still a graduate student, although, that said, I have the complete opposite of regrets and what I learned launching it served me well when launching two other journals). But it is worth reflecting on the impetus for the journal, because the reasons for bringing it into being remain relevant. There is still a need for spaces in which to publish smart, critical writing about popular music; there is even more need for that writing to be valued, to be counted, as legitimate scholarship, whether it hews to traditional scholarly forms (e.g., journal articles) or not.
