Rock and Popular Music examines the relations between the policies and institutions which regulate contemporary popular music and the political debates, contradictions and struggles in which those musics are involved. International in its scope and conception, this innovative collection brings together some of the most authoritative writers on rock and popular music in North America, Europe and Australia. The essays explore and develop three main areas of debate. First, comparative examinations of the role played by governments in either supporting or inhibiting the development of popular music industries reveals a significant diversity of relations between the state and the musical sphere. A second theme demonstrates the important role of broadcasting policies in organising the audio-spaces’ within which particular musical communities can be formed and seek expression, and finally the book reconsiders some of the classical political issues of rock and popular music theory and debate in the context of their specific policy and institutional settings.