Music at the Margins

Is there a growing homogenization of the world's popular music? Or, conversely, is there a continuing and perhaps ever increasing diversity of song styles and forms? With a focus is on how the process of popular music production is perceived by local musicians, this book addresses this issue, testing the more conventional `cultural imperialism' hypothesis by comparison with empirical findings from a study by the International Communication and Youth Culture Consortium.

This is a welcome addition to recently published work on the popular musics which have emerged in many countries as a response to and as a result of the encounter of local musical traditions with Anglo-American pop/rock. . . . The empirical components make this an impressive book. . . . It is also quite unique. . . . The data collected is presented in a successful combination of quantitative information and ¿windows¿ of text telling the story of different individual musicians, and tracing the influence on them of economics and politics, of local and foreign musicians. --Cambridge Journals "The book is a magnificent achievement and stands on par with the work by Wallis & Malm with which it inevitably must be compared. One looks forward to the companion volumes of the project. Of particular note is the research style that drew on 40 indigenous researchers from over 20 countries. This is a highly ambitious project in intercultural studies and stands as a landmark in intercultural cooperation." --Canadian Journal of Communication "Music at the Margins is the utopian experiment par excellence. . . . We are treated to an intriguing print montage of the current ¿world music¿ landscape; this book¿s multicultural scholarship is a tour de force in cross-cultural dialogics. . . . The results of the studies help to set the agenda for further research in the field. . . . The book is an extremely ambitious project. . . . Music at the Margins . . . is a groundbreaking study of popular music in its international contexts. The book is a must for anyone interested in the subject." --Journal of Communication "Music at the Margins: Popular Music and Global Cultural Diversity fills an important scholarly gap by investigating the nature of the international recording industry and production of music by local performers working at the margins of that industry in a variety of national contexts. The authors report on cross-cultural research done by a large international team that "tests the cultural imperialism hypothesis" that a largely one-way flow of cultural texts is leading to worldwide cultural homogenization." --International Journal of Intercultural Relations "A very interesting, highly readable book about the global pop-music world, reflecting its complexity and its artistic, economic, cultural-social, and political involvement and influence. . . .Music at the Margins is a special book and will be relished by music fans, general readers, and students in music, sociology, economics and other courses." --Academic Library Book Review "One of the better books in the trend toward establishing legitimacy of popular culture studies through pseudoacademic trappings, this is a responsible attempt to collate and make sense of information and perceptions gleaned by researchers in more than 15 First-, Second-, and Third-World countries." --Choice "It inspires great respect for its authors. For someone who writes about popular music for a daily newspaper and magazines as well as academic settings, it has a lot of value and interest. The broad conceptual framework alone helps me think about what¿s happening with all aspects of pop culture, not just music. . . . Most important for me is the evidence the book provides of how the process of cultural production actually works at both individual and national levels." --Lynn Darroch, Mt. Hood Community College "An exhaustive academic account of the forces governing the international music industry. . . . Music at the Margins is an ambitious project encompassing many complex issues. . . . For anyone interested in the past, present and future of international popular music, it is an impressive and rewarding volume." --Tracking "An amazingly rich tour-de-force of contested territory: how meanings are negotiated between domination and diversity, cultural erosion and enrichment. Indispensable for students of mass media and popular culture, as well as of music." --George Gerbner, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania Popular music is a form of communication easily recognized and understood around the world. But as it spreads from culture to culture, is it becoming more homogenized? Or, conversely, is there a continuing and perhaps ever-increasing diversity of song styles and forms? Music at the Margins explores the debate surrounding popular music¿s spread, testing the more conventional "cultural imperialism" hypothesis as based on empirical findings from a study by the International Communication and Youth Culture Consortium. The primary focus is on how the process of popular music production is perceived by local musicians--people who are immersed in overlapping international, national, and local contexts of production. Discussions on theory, local case studies, and interview data are provided and integrated to show how societal influences are tempered by and interpreted through cultural and semiotic codes--as well as individual musicians¿ experiences and creative talents. Specific topics addressed include the rise of the international recording industry, music production in socialist or formerly socialist countries, censorship, and sociopolitical influences, to name but a few. Music at the Margins will appeal to a wide range of scholars and students in the fields of communication, popular culture, and sociology.