Popular music as a mode of communication, 1955–1982

Abstract

Employing a dramatistic system based upon the critical frameworks of Kenneth Burke and Northrop Frye, a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the fifteen most popular recorded single records each year between 1955 and 1982 is presented. Popular music is conceptually defined as a nondiscursive epideictic mode of communication and operationally defined as Billboard's top fifteen “hit” single records each year between 1955 and 1982. A total of 392 songs are classified as either ironic, mimetic, leader‐centered, romantic, or mythical and then examined by thematic content, decade, musical era, and with some attention to these patterns as long‐term musical trends. It is concluded that popular music is a reflection of younger American's changing attitudes which have displayed an increasingly ironic perspective of human relationships.