Language, culture and identity: With (another) look at accents in pop and rock singing

Taking as its principal point of departure the work of Peter Trudgill, this article offers a linguistic analysis of the accents used in pop and rock music. It examines the singing styles of various performers across a number of decades and across a range of musical genres. It also seeks to develop Trudgill's original framework mainly by bringing in additional linguistic research, including some recent work on register analysis, and by drawing on a variety of culturally-situated models from the sociology of pop and rock. Through a largely qualitative analysis, a longitudinal picture is sketched of the way certain styles of singing have shifted over time. Wherever possible, these linguistic changes are charted against the broader cultural, cross-cultural and sociopolitical changes which parallel them and which, arguably, have helped shape them.