Born in 1951 in Zwickau, he was Professor of the Theory and History of Popular Music and Director of the Research Centre for Popular Music at the Humboldt University in Berlin until his retirement in 2016. His teaching focus and research interests included rock music and youth culture, the history of popular music and the music industry. He studied musicology in Berlin until 1974, receiving his doctorate in 1980 with a thesis on the aesthetics of popular music. In 1981, he founded and directed the Research Centre for Popular Music at the Humboldt University. In 1986, he was habilitated (Dr. sc. phil.) with a thesis on the culture and sociology of rock music. 1974 to 1992: Assistant and Senior Assistant at the Institute of Musicology at the Humboldt University; 1988: Appointed as Adjunct Research Professor at the Department of Music at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada; 1992: Appointment as University Professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin; 2003-2023: Guest Lecturer at the Popakademie Mannheim. Founding Member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music and its Secretary General from 1987 to 1993; 1986-1992 European Director of the UNESCO International Consortium for Communication and Youth Culture; Editor-in-Chief of the online journal PopScriptum; member of the editorial boards of the journals Popular Music (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York) and Popular Music History (Equinox Publishing, Hastings); member of the international advisory boards of the Journal of the Royal Musical Association (Taylor & Francis, London) and the Norwegian Journal of Musicology Online (University of Agder, Kristiansand); member of the editorial board of Cultural Studies (Routledge, London/New York) from 1991 to 1996; member of the advisory board of the International Institute for Popular Culture, University of Turku, Finland; 1993-1997 member of the board of the Cultural Political Society of Germany; since 1998 member of the German Music Council.