A chapter on “Histories” in an edited collection on key terms in popular music studies. I make an argument for the need to always historicize the study of popular music, with 4 major points of emphasis:
1. Doing history is about interpreting facts, not just reporting them.
2. Historical contexts are things that we have to construct in our storytelling.
3. People make history, but never in conditions of their own making.
4. Historical events only appear to be inevitable after they’ve happened.