Volume! The French Journal of Popular Music Studies (subtitled in French: La revue des musiques populaires) is a biannual (May and November) peer-reviewed academic journal "dedicated to the study of contemporary popular music". It is published by the Éditions Mélanie Seteun, a publishing association specialized since 1998 in the cultural sociology of popular music.
History
Volume! was established in 2002 under the title Copyright Volume! by Gérôme Guibert, Marie-Pierre Bonniol, and Samuel Étienne, and obtained its current name in 2009. Étienne (Université de la Polynésie Française) was its first editor-in-chief (2002–2008), before Stéphane Dorin (2009), Gérôme Guibert (2010-2017) and Emmanuel Parent (2017-2022) took over.
Special issues
The journal publishes special issues on various topics in popular music studies, new musicology, ethnomusicology,<ref>: "There are various other international journals that mix PMS and ethnomusicological approaches, often based within, and reaching out from, a particular region. These include journals such as Latin American Music Review, South African Music Studies, Brazilian Journal of Song Studies, and Volume! The French Journal of Popular Music Studies."</ref> sociology, geography, cultural history, cultural studies, aesthetics, etc.
Recent topics include music videos (2018, n° 14–2), Jamaican Music (2017, n° 13–2), French punk scenes (2016, N° 13–1), The Beatles (2016, n° 12–2), French chanson and immigration (2015, n°12-1),The selected proceedings of the conference held at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. "nostalgia" (2015, n°11-1), music and dance (2014, n°10-2), "listening" (2013, n°10-1), Black music (2011, n°8-1) gender and race issues in hip hop (2011, n°8-2), "metal studies", "countercultures" (2012, n°9-1 & 9–2), and cover versions (2010, n°7-1 & 7–2),Volume! publishes a "varia" section for articles not related to the main topic, plus editorials, letters, and book reviews.
Distribution
Online access
Since November 2011, Volume ! is included in the French academic journals portal and since December 2011 in the Belgian portal, Cairn.info. All issues are available online on Openedition.org (formerly Revues.org); the six latest ones are on Cairn.info with the last four under restricted access. Since June 2016, it is also on RILM Abstracts with Full Text (RAFT).
Abstracting and indexing
The journal is abstracted and indexed in the International Index to Music Periodicals, the Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale, the Music Index and Music & Performing Arts Online. The articles dealing with jazz are indexed on the Jazz Institut Darmstadt bibliography and the ones dealing with heavy metal/hard rock on the University of Central Missouri/ISMMS's metal studies bibliography. Volume ! is registered by the AERES in the 18th section ("Arts").
Sponsors
The journal is classified by the AERES (18th section of the CNU, May 2012). It is published with the support of the French National Book Center (Centre national du livre) and the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
Events and partnerships
Vibrations. Musiques, médias, société
Volume and the Éditions Mélanie Seteun have directed the electronic publication of the first French popular music studies journal Vibrations. Musiques, médias, société, created by Antoine Hennion, Jean-Rémy Julien and Jean-Claude Klein in the mid-1980s, on the French academic portal Persée.
IASPM
The journal is a frequent partner of the French-speaking branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM): it publishes the winner of the association's "young researcher" annual award.
Ashgate
It also published a special international, English edition of its "countercultures" issues with Ashgate Publishing, a partnership with the Éditions Mélanie Seteun that had already taken place for the publication of the book Stereo: Comparative Perspectives on the Sociological Study of Popular Music in France and Britain.