E-Book Overview
Soundtracks traces the relationships between music, space and identity-from inner city 'scenes' to the music of nations-to give a wide-ranging perspective on popular music. It examines the influence of cultures, economics, politics and technology on the changing structure and geographies of music at local and global levels. Taking music from its role as an expression of local culture in indigenous societies to its gradual evolution towards a global music industry, this work pays particular attention to the complex spread of world music from reggae to zouk and beyond. Containing an impressive and comprehensive range of global case studies Soundtracks takes an innovative approach to the complex and changing relationships between music and space to provide a genuine global assessment of the power and pleasure of popular music in its many forms.
E-Book Content
SOUND TRACKS Sound Tracks is the first comprehensive book on the new geography of popular music, examining the complex links between places, music and cultural identities. It provides an interdisciplinary perspective on local, national and global scenes, from the ‘Mersey’ and ‘Icelandic’ sounds to ‘world music’, and explores the diverse meanings of music in a range of regional contexts. Sound Tracks traces the ways in which music has informed complex globalisations, the role of companies and technology in diffusion, innovation and commercialism and the wider significance of cultural industries. It links migration and mobility to new musical practices, whether in ‘developing’ countries or metropolitan centres, and traces the recent rise of ‘music tourism’. It examines issues of authenticity and credibility, and the quest for roots within different musical genres, from buskers to brass bands, and from rap to rai. Sound Tracks emphasises music’s contributions to the contradictions, illusions and celebrations of con