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This paper aims to present an examination of the characterisation of accounting and accountants in popular music. Some authors have considered the place of accounting in popular culture and the social perceptions of accounting and accountants. This research aims to advance this work by suggesting that music both offers a powerful insight into social perceptions of accounting, and serves both to reflect and reinforce these perceptions.

Songs featuring accountants were identified, which was verified by a search of song lyric databases using the search terms “accountant/s”, “accounting” and “accounts” and accounting terms. The lyrics were analysed on the basis of how the accountants or accounting activity were presented, and a taxonomy was established.

Some songs reflect the image of the accountant as both the facilitator and accoutrement of positions of wealth and privilege. The dark side of the image is the assertion that the accountant will abuse their position of trust. The final, and perhaps most sinister image, is that of accountants as the perpetrators of fraud and deception. It is concluded that these images of accountants and accounting illustrate that the accounting profession is facing a significant challenge in terms of its image and relationship to the public.

This study is the first to consider the characterisation of accountants/accounting in popular music. Recent representations have tended to characterise accounting and accountants in a particularly negative light. Accountants are presented as agents in the destruction of the environment, exploiters of the poor, accessories and agents of the wealthy and constructors of a “truth” that benefits the rich. Overall, the representation of accounting in music tends to fit the position adopted by many of the most critical accounting authors. A particular aspect of the oppressive role exercised by accountants and accounting in society is as the embodiment of, and advocate for, or even a metaphor for, a particular form of economic reason that progressively suppresses and destroys relationships, the environment and artistic creativity in the interest of financial gain.

Since the arrival of mass production, commodification has been plaguing markets – none more so than that for music. By separating production and consumption in space and time, commodification challenges the very conditions underlying economic exchange. This chapter explores authenticity as the institutional response to the commodification of music, rekindling the relationship between isolated market participants in the increasingly digitized world of music. Building upon the “Production of Culture” perspective, we unpack the commodification of music across five different institutional realms – (1) production, (2) consumption, (3) selection, (4) appropriation, and (5) classification – and provide a thoroughly relational account of authenticity as an institutional practice.

Campaign songs have been staples of U.S. presidential elections for more than 200 years, but have undergone important changes in not only structure over time, but who uses them and why. Following a discussion of the concentration of the American popular music industry and the shift from party-based to ideology-driven electoral politics, a two-dimension typology and hypotheses are formulated to help discern the distinct roles of these institutions in the transformation of the U.S. presidential campaign song. Data was systematically collected on the most prominent songs associated with each presidential campaign from 1788 to the present. In order to provide greater context for the use of songs in presidential campaigns over time, additional newspaper articles were collected for four elections. Results suggest that changes in the structure of the American music industry and the organization of presidential campaigns significantly affect the form of U.S. presidential campaign songs.

This research aims to exhibit the impacts of vocal music vs instrumental music on ad-recall from the perspectives of attention and elaboration.

A 2 music-product congruence (congruence vs incongruence) × 2 music lyrics (lyrics vs no lyrics) between-subject measures design is used. 180 management students participated in the study. A 2 × 2 between-subjects ANOVA is used to test the hypotheses.

Results showed that the instrumental rendition of an ad-song prompted higher ad-recall over the vocal variant. The instrumental rendition provoked the subjects to create the verses or lyrics in their minds, prompting superior recall. Further, it was found that a music-product congruent ad resulted into higher ad-recall than an incongruent ad. Moreover, for a congruent ad condition, the instrumental version of ad-song resulted into higher ad-recall than the vocal version of ad-song. On the other hand, for an incongruent ad condition, the instrumental version as well as the vocal version of ad-song resulted into same level of ad-recall.

The study offers important implications for marketers and advertisers in terms of effective ad-designing and execution considering lyrics and music-product congruence as important factors in the context of radio advertising.

Since very little research has been done focusing on the combined effect of music lyrics and music-product congruence relationship on ad-recall from attention and elaboration perspectives, this paper scores as a pioneering study of its kind in India.

This article is an account of Huniberside Leisure Services' computerised approach to the problem of locating songs in score collections.

In this paper, I use 33 interviews with songwriters to explore the relationship between songwriting and emotion, particularly as it relates to the lived and embodied aspects of emotional experience. I contend that songwriting can be understood as a form of sensual reflection and inquiry, one that synthesizes the emotional and evocative properties of both music and language. For songwriters, the creative process of songwriting serves as an embodied vehicle through which to assign meaning to lived emotional experience and the self. Resultant performances represent an expressive forum in which to communicate the outcomes of this process. For sociologists of emotion, examining the neglected process of songwriting represents an opportunity to extend the study of emotion beyond discursive and dramaturgical approaches, lending fresh insight into the lived, embodied character of emotion.

This chapter investigates Yiddish-language heavy metal music as a manifestation of postvernacularity. Yiddish, the traditional language of Ashkenazic Jews, is now endangered with a geographically dispersed speaker base and a low rate of transmission to younger generations outside of strictly Orthodox communities. However, as the heritage language of most Ashkenazic Jews, Yiddish continues to play an important symbolic role in contemporary Jewish life even among those who do not speak or understand it. This phenomenon has been termed ‘postvernacularity’ (Shandler, 2006).

Yiddish is associated with a rich tradition of folk songs, popular songs, and ballads. Recent decades have seen a growing interest among younger generations in Yiddish language and culture, including its musical tradition. In addition to musicians specialising in traditional Yiddish song, there are also currently two bands worldwide who have produced a metal album in Yiddish: Gevolt (Israel) and Dibbukim (Sweden). The repertoire of both bands is comprised largely of classic Yiddish songs interpreted in a metal style but retaining the traditional lyrics and melodies.

The fact that these metal bands often choose to reinterpret traditional staples rather than composing original Yiddish songs can be seen as a reflection of the predominantly postvernacular status of Yiddish. The language plays an iconic role for band members and audiences. Concurrently, the fusion of familiar Yiddish songs with metal style makes a language often associated with traditional Ashkenazic society relevant to the twenty-first century.

This chapter contains a case study analysis on a song by the Spanish heavy metal group Desafío or ‘Challenge’. The lyrics of the song are treated as a poem, and I will thus progress toward a linguistic and poetic analysis (Leech, 2013). Songs include many poetic devices, such as personification, metonymy, paradox, tautology, antithesis, and hyperbole (cf. Hewitt, 2000, p. 189). During the aforementioned linguistic and poetical analysis, it will be seen that the song Muerte en Mostar ‘Death in Mostar’ abounds with poetic features. The song begins with personification, for example: ‘The moon reflects in her face the shadows of evil’. Liturgical lexis and bellicose vocabulary also proliferate. Especially active in the song is the notion of an almost religious crusade. For example, one liturgical aspect found in the chorus is where an unnamed protagonist is described within the context of an almost holy war: ‘To his squadron's flag he promised his loyalty / His heart of love would be called by God’. The song goes on to recount the subsequent events and, therefore, this song in fact seems to be a mini-narrative. Finally, I will show how so much literary allusion reveals, in the end, that the song is not about Spain at all but about events that took place during the war of Bosnia–Herzegovina.

Covid-19 pandemic, war, climate emergency and other recent challenges are inflicting tremendous stress to youth. However, death and tragedy are nowadays considered taboo, as there is generally no standardized nor naturalized discussion on the subject, especially with young people. The current multi-crisis scenario is intensifying the need to incorporate an education on tragedy and resilience in our learning systems. In this context, it is necessary to find suitable teaching resources for this educational challenge that are attractive, entertaining and suitable for children and youth. A resource that meets all these requirements are children’s folk songs (CFSs). Apart from the intrinsic educational potential of music, folk songs have a simplicity and musicality that make them an ideal teaching resource. Considering their oral historical transmission, their survival confirms the attraction that this type of composition causes on children. However, to consider CFSs as an adequate resource to carry out an education for death and tragedy, it is necessary to study whether they present a non-negligible proportion of tragic passages and with enough variety of themes. This paper aims to address the study of the presence of explicit tragic content in Spanish CFSs and thus could be considered a cultural resource with transformative educational potential to develop resilience capabilities on the face of tragedy.

An analysis of lyrics of 2,558 Spanish CFSs is presented, using a manual content analysis as well as a computerized content analysis with the aim of identifying the tragic component of these songs and, thereby, assessing their pedagogical potential as a transformative educational resource.

The results obtained show a considerable presence of death and tragedy (19.78%) and a variety of tragedy dimensions. CFSs have been transmitted orally not only as a ludic resource, but also to prepare children for life (and death). The results show the complementarity of both analyses to avoid subjectivity while considering the underlying meanings of the songs.

This task had previously not been approached in an automated manner in the literature, nor there had been a similar study with a sample of this magnitude. The outcomes obtained show the considerable presence of tragedy in Spanish CFSs and emphasize the interest of this currently undervalued didactic resource.