| Understanding rock: Essays in musical analysis B Covach Oxford University Press, USA, 1997 | 177 | 1997 |
| What's that sound?: an introduction to rock and its history JR Covach, A Flory WW Norton & Company, 2006 | 157 | 2006 |
| Form in rock music J Covach Engaging music: Essays in music analysis, 65-76, 2005 | 149 | 2005 |
| Progressive Rock,‘Close to the Edge,’and the Boundaries of Style J Covach Understanding rock: Essays in musical analysis, 3-31, 1997 | 131 | 1997 |
| Popular music, unpopular musicology J Covach Rethinking music, 452-70, 1999 | 80 | 1999 |
| We won’t get fooled again: Rock music and musical analysis J Covach Keeping Score: Music, Disciplinarity, Culture, 75-89, 1997 | 47 | 1997 |
| The Sources of Schoenberg's" Aesthetic Theology" J Covach Nineteenth-Century Music, 252-262, 1996 | 44 | 1996 |
| From ‘craft’to ‘art’: Formal structure in the music of the Beatles J Covach Reading the Beatles: Cultural Studies, Literary Criticism, and the Fab Four …, 2006 | 42 | 2006 |
| Pangs of history in late 1970s new-wave rock J Covach Analyzing popular music, 173-95, 2003 | 40 | 2003 |
| Twelve-tone theory J Covach The Cambridge history of Western music theory, 603-627, 2002 | 40 | 2002 |
| Schoenberg and the Occult: Some Reflections on the Musical Idea JR Covach Theory and Practice 17, 103-118, 1992 | 37 | 1992 |
| The Rutles and the Use of Specific Models in Musical Satire JR Covach Indiana Theory Review 11, 119-144, 1990 | 33 | 1990 |
| Vocal Authority and Listener Engagement: Musical and Narrative Expressive Strategies in the Songs of Female Pop-Rock Artists, 1993–95 L Burns, M Spicer, J Covach Sounding Out Pop: Analytical Essays in Popular Music, 154-92, 2010 | 31 | 2010 |
| The hippie aesthetic: cultural positioning and musical ambition in early progressive rock J Covach, M Spicer Rock Music, 65-75, 2011 | 30 | 2011 |
| Stylistic Competencies, Musical Humor, and ‘This Is Spinal Tap.’ J Covach Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz since 1945: Essays and Analytical Studies, 402-424, 1995 | 30 | 1995 |
| 'Reggatta de Blanc': Analyzing Style in the Music of the Police. M Spicer Sounding Out Pop: Analytical Essays in Popular Music, 124-153, 2010 | 28 | 2010 |
| Sounding out pop: analytical essays in popular music MS Spicer, JR Covach University of Michigan Press, 2010 | 25 | 2010 |
| Schoenberg’s ‘Poetics of Music,’the Twelve-Tone Method, and the Musical Idea J Covach Schoenberg and Words: The Modernist Years, 309-46, 2000 | 24 | 2000 |
| Jazz-rock? Rock-jazz? Stylistic crossover in late-1970s American progressive rock J Covach Expression in pop-rock music: A collection of critical and analytical essays …, 2000 | 21 | 2000 |
| Echolyn and American progressive rock J Covach Contemporary Music Review 18 (4), 13-61, 2000 | 21 | 2000 |
