It's long been assumed that people who prefer Led Zeppelin to Mozart live aesthetically impoverished lives. But why? In ""Listening to Popular Music"", award-winning popular music scholar Theodore Gracyk argues that aesthetic value is just as important in popular listening as it is with ""serious"" music. And we don't have to treat popular music as art in order to recognize its worth. Aesthetic values are realized differently in different musical styles, and each requires listening skills that people must learn. ""Listening to Popular Music"" thus offers a new, general framework for understanding what it means to appreciate music, showing that an informed preference for popular music is a response to real values of the music, including aesthetic values. Boldly merging insights from popular music studies, aesthetic theory, cognitive science, psychology, identity theory, and cultural studies, Gracyk crafts an innovative study that will be essential reading for scholars, students, and general readers concerned with the role of popular music in everyday life.