Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 469-484) and discography (leaves 485-487).

In 2007, Radiohead released a downloadable album, In Rainbows, allowing consumers to pay what they thought the album was worth. The band responded to a moment of change in the music industry. Since then, other bands, like Nine Inch Nails and Coldplay, have made similar moves. Radiohead's capability to release an album and let the fans decide its worth relied on the image they built, which foregrounded their commodification. The historic move redefined the boundaries between art and commodity, a well know tension in popular music studies. The thesis focuses on popular music as communication in the changing industry. Using Radiohead’s album as a case study, it looks at the changing boundaries in the tension between art and commodity. The thesis examines Radiohead's performance, its mediation by the press, and what the album’s distribution method meant to the fans.

Through the mid-twentieth century, a significant pattern of migration occurred between Appalachia and the Pacific Northwest, with Washington’s thriving timber industry offering compelling economic opportunities. Many workers and families from western North Carolina settled in the small mountain town of Darrington, Washington, frequently accompanied by their banjos and guitars. As a group of young bluegrass enthusiasts from Seattle established relationships with Darrington’s “Tar Heel” musicians, a collaborative music community formed, laying the foundation for the region’s contemporary bluegrass scene. Drawn from a series of ethnographic interviews, this project illuminates the development of a bluegrass community in western Washington, while identifying several of its key contributors. The resultant narrative explores the musical legacy of Appalachian migration to the Pacific Northwest, culminating in its convergence with the urban folk music revival of the 1960s. This work contributes to a growing body of scholarship that challenges the traditional geo-cultural assumptions encompassing bluegrass music.