Exploring U2: Is This Rock 'n' Roll? features new writing in the growing field of U2 studies. Edited by Scott Calhoun, with a foreword by Anthony DeCurtis, Exploring U2 contains selections from the 2009 inaugural gathering of "The Hype and The Feedback: A Conference Exploring The Music, Work and Influence of U2." In keeping with U2's own efforts to remove barriers that have long prevented dialogue for understanding and improving the human experience, this collection of essays examines U2 from perspectives ranging from the personal to the academic and is accessible to curious music fans, students, teachers, and scholars alike. Four sections organize sixteen essays from leading academics, music critics, clergy, and fans. From the academic disciplines of literature, music, philosophy, and theology, essays study U2's evolving use of source material in live performances, the layering of vocal effects in signature songs, the crafting of a spiritual community at live concerts, U2's success as a business brand, Bono's rhetorical presentation of Africa to the Western consumer, and readings of U2's work for irony, personhood, hope, conservatism, and cosmic-time. Official band biographer Neil McCormick considers U2 as a Dublin-shaped band, and Danielle Rheaume tells how discovering and returning Bono's lost briefcase of lyrics for the album October propelled her along her own artistic journey. This thoughtful and timely collection recognizes U2's music both as art and commentary on personal journeys and cultural dialogues about contemporary issues. It offers insights and critical assessments that will appeal not only to scholars and students of popular music and culture studies but to those in the fields of theology, philosophy, the performing arts, literature, and all intellectually curious fans of U2.

This book takes the reader through The Beatles career step by step as it happened. The objective is to comprehensively guide you through the recordings with detailed information about them, and to help those who are not fully au fait with all of The Beatles work to have a better understanding of what happened and when. Laid out in an easy to read format, it's a perfect starter for someone who has dipped in to the catalogue but wants to learn more. Listed chronologically are all the UK and US releases that make up the full body of official recordings. And although it is not an "anorak's paradise" The Beatles... The Easy Way includes sufficient information to also satisfy the more devoted fans.

Turbo-folk music is the most controversial form of popular culture in the new states of former Yugoslavia. Theoretically ambitious and innovative, this book is a new account of popular music that has been at the centre of national, political and cultural debates for over two decades. Beginning with 1970s Socialist Yugoslavia, Uros Cvoro explores the cultural and political paradoxes of turbo-folk: described as 'backward' music, whose misogynist and Serb nationalist iconography represents a threat to cosmopolitanism, turbo-folk's iconography is also perceived as a 'genuinely Balkan' form of resistance to the threat of neo-liberalism. Taking as its starting point turbo-folk's popularity across national borders, Cvoro analyses key songs and performers in Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia. The book also examines the effects of turbo on the broader cultural sphere - including art, film, sculpture and architecture - twenty years after its inception and popularization. What is proposed is a new way of reading the relationship of contemporary popular music to processes of cultural, political and social change - and a new understanding of how fundamental turbo-folk is to the recent history of former Yugoslavia and its successor states.

In 1982, aged twenty-three, Simon Parkes paid GBP1 for a virtually derelict building in Brixton. Over the next fifteen years he turned it into Britain's most iconic music venue. And now he's telling his story: full of fond - and wild - reminiscences of the famous musicians who played at the venue, including Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, Lou Reed, The Ramones, New Order, the Beastie Boys and The Smiths. This is about one man's burning desire for success against the odds, his passion for live music and the excitement of those wilderness years, a far cry from the corporate world that controls the scene today. From rock-star debauchery and mixing it up with Brixton gangsters to putting on the first legal raves in the UK and countless backroom business deals, this is the story of how to succeed in business with no experience and fulfil your teenage fantasies.

Music and Identity in Ireland and Beyond represents the first interdisciplinary volume of chapters on an intricate cultural field that can be experienced and interpreted in manifold ways, whether in Ireland (The Republic of Ireland and/or Northern Ireland), among its diaspora(s), or further afield. While each contributor addresses particular themes viewed from discrete perspectives, collectively the book contemplates whether 'music in Ireland' can be regarded as one interrelated plane of cultural and/or national identity, given the various conceptions and contexts of both Ireland (geographical, political, diasporic, mythical) and Music (including a proliferation of practices and genres) that give rise to multiple sites of identification. Arranged in the relatively distinct yet interweaving parts of 'Historical Perspectives', 'Recent and Contemporary Production' and 'Cultural Explorations', its various chapters act to juxtapose the socio-historical distinctions between the major style categories most typically associated with music in Ireland - traditional, classical and popular - and to explore a range of dialectical relationships between these musical styles in matters pertaining to national and cultural identity. The book includes a number of chapters that examine various movements (and 'moments') of traditional music revival from the late eighteenth century to the present day, as well as chapters that tease out various issues of national identity pertaining to individual composers/performers (art music, popular music) and their audiences. Many chapters in the volume consider mediating influences (infrastructural, technological, political) and/or social categories (class, gender, religion, ethnicity, race, age) in the interpretation of music production and consumption. Performers and composers discussed include U2, Raymond Deane, Afro-Celt Sound System, E.J. Moeran, Seamus Ennis, Kevin O'Connell, Stiff Little Fingers, Frederick May, Arnold

Mute Records is one of the most influential, commercially successful, and long-lasting of the British independent record labels formed in the wake of the late-1970's punk explosion. Yet, in comparison with contemporaries such as Rough Trade or Stiff, its legacy remains under-explored. This edited collection addresses Mute's wide-ranging impact. Drawing from disciplines such as popular music studies, musicology, and fan studies, it takes a distinctive, artist-led approach, outlining the history of the label by focusing each chapter on one of its acts. The book covers key moments in the company's evolution, from the first releases by The Normal and Fad Gadget to recent work by Arca and Dirty Electronics. It shines new light on the most successful Mute artists, including Depeche Mode, Nick Cave, Erasure, Moby, and Goldfrapp, while also exploring the label's avant-garde innovators, such as Throbbing Gristle, Mark Stewart, Labaich, Ut, and Swans. Mute Records examines the business and aesthetics of independence through the lens of the label's artists.

A SUNDAY TIMES, ROUGH TRADE, ROLLING STONE, MOJO AND UNCUT BOOK OF THE YEAR LONGLISTED FOR THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE New York, 2001. 9/11 plunges the US into a state of war and political volatility-and heralds the rebirth of the city's rock scene. As the old-guard music industry crumbles, a group of iconoclastic bands suddenly become the voice of a generation desperately in need of an anthem. In this fascinating and vibrant oral history, acclaimed journalist Lizzy Goodman charts New York's explosive musical transformation in the early 2000s. Drawing on over 200 original interviews, Goodman follows the meteoric rise of the artists that revolutionised the cultural landscape and made Brooklyn the hipster capital of cool-including The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, Interpol, and Vampire Weekend. Joining the ranks of classics like Please Kill Me, Our Band Could Be Your Life, and Can't Stop Won't Stop, Meet Me in the Bathroom is the definitive account of an iconic era in rock-and-roll.

This collection of essays critically engages with factors relating to black urban life and cultural representation in the post-civil rights era, using Ice-T and his myriad roles as musician, actor, writer, celebrity, and industrialist as a vehicle through which to interpret and understand the African American experience. Over the past three decades, African Americans have faced a number of new challenges brought about by changes in the political, economic and social structure of America. Furthermore, this vastly changed social landscape has produced a number of resonant pop-cultural trends that have proved to be both innovative and admired on the one hand, and contentious and divisive on the other. Ice-T's iconic and multifarious career maps these shifts. This is the first book that, taken as a whole, looks at a black cultural icon's manipulation of (or manipulation by?) so many different forms simultaneously. The result is a fascinating series of tensions arising from Ice-T's ability to inhabit conflicting pop-cultural roles including: 'hardcore' gangsta rapper and dedicated philanthropist; author of controversial song Cop Killer and network television cop; self-proclaimed 'pimp' and reality television house husband. As the essays in this collection detail, Ice-T's chameleonic public image consistently tests the accepted parameters of black cultural production, and in doing so illuminates the contradictions of a society erroneously dubbed 'post-racial'.

'Counterculture' emerged as a term in the late 1960s and has been re-deployed in more recent decades in relation to other forms of cultural and socio-political phenomena. This volume provides an essential new academic scrutiny of the concept of 'counterculture' and a critical examination of the period and its heritage. Recent developments in sociological theory complicate and problematise theories developed in the 1960s, with digital technology, for example, providing an impetus for new understandings of counterculture. Music played a significant part in the way that the counterculture authored space in relation to articulations of community by providing a shared sense of collective identity. Not least, the heady mixture of genres provided a socio-cultural-political backdrop for distinctive musical practices and innovations which, in relation to counterculture ideology, provided a rich experiential setting in which different groups defined their relationship both to the local and international dimensions of the movement, so providing a sense of locality, community and collective identity.

This book reveals how a diverse blend of styles, regions, and cultures swirled into the folk-rock revolution - infusing popular music with a controversial mix of literate lyricism, social consciousness, and rock 'n' roll rebellion. A richly woven narrative of firsthand stories and informed historical analysis, it covers all the key folk-rock innovators: Bob Dylan, the Byrds, Lovin' Spoonful, Buffalo Springfield, Simon & Garfunkel, the Mamas & the Papas, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and dozens more, plus lesser-knowns such as Phil Ochs and Jackie DeShannon. Incorporating insights from musicians, producers, managers, club owners, record label executives and others who drove the movement, Turn! Turn! Turn! focuses on the birth and development of the music, but also shows how folk-rock changed popular music, the music industry, and society forever. Setting the scene with America's traditional folk of the early '60s, the book describes the sea change that began in 1964 when the social consciousness of folk met the energy of rock. It concentrates on 1965-66, when the best, most popular, and most controversial folk-rock was created. The book explores the dizzyingly fast cross-fertilization of such giants as the Beatles, the Byrds, and Dylan; the passionate conflicts between folk devotees and folk-rockers; the sudden frenzy of the media; and the unforgettable music that was born. Turn! Turn! Turn! also examines how folk-rock continued to influence late '60s psychedelic rock, country-rock and the British scene, as well as its gradual, partial transformation into the singer-songwriter movement.

Rock and roll music evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and 1950s, as a combination of African American blues, country, pop, and gospel music produced a new musical genre. Even as it captured the ears of the nation, rock and roll was the subject of controversy and contention. The music intertwined with the social, political, and economic changes reshaping America and contributed to the rise of the youth culture that remains a potent cultural force today. A comprehensive understanding of post-World War II U.S. history would be incomplete without a basic knowledge of this cultural phenomenon and its widespread impact. In this short book, bolstered by primary source documents, Mitchell K. Hall explores the change in musical style represented by rock and roll, changes in technology and business practices, regional and racial implications of this new music, and the global influences of the music. The Emergence of Rock and Roll explains the huge influence that one cultural moment can have in the history of a nation.

Black Music, Black Poetry offers readers a fuller appreciation of the diversity of approaches to reading black American poetry. It does so by linking a diverse body of poetry to musical genres that range from the spirituals to contemporary jazz. The poetry of familiar figures such as Paul Laurence Dunbar and Langston Hughes and less well-known poets like Harryette Mullen or the lyricist to Pharaoh Sanders, Amos Leon Thomas, is scrutinized in relation to a musical tradition contemporaneous with the lifetime of each poet. Black music is considered the strongest representation of black American communal consciousness; and black poetry, by drawing upon such a musical legacy, lays claim to a powerful and enduring black aesthetic. The contributors to this volume take on issues of black cultural authenticity, of musical imitation, and of poetic performance as displayed in the work of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Amiri Baraka, Michael Harper, Nathaniel Mackey, Jayne Cortez, Harryette Mullen, and Amos Leon Thomas. Taken together, these essays offer a rich examination of the breath of black poetry and the ties it has to the rhythms and forms of black music and the influence of black music on black poetic practice.

The late Jan Fairley (1949-2012) was a key figure in making world music a significant topic for popular music studies and an influential contributor to such world music magazines as fRoots and Songlines. This book celebrates her contribution to popular music scholarship by gathering her most important work together in a single place. The result is a richly informed and entertaining volume that will be of interest to all scholars in the field while also serving as an excellent introduction for students interested in popular music as a global phenomenon. Fairley's work was focused on the problems and possibilities of cross-cultural musical influences, fantasies and flows and on the importance of performing circuits and networks. Her interest in the details of music-making and in the lives of music-makers means that this collection is also an original and illuminating study of music and politics. In drawing on Jan Fairley's journalism, this volume also offers students a guide to various genres of world music, from Cuban son to flamenco, as well as an insight into the lives of such world music stars as Mercedes Sosa and Silvio RodrA guez. This is inspiring as well as essential reading.

As recommended by USA Today and excerpted on Rolling Stone.com! More than forty years after breaking up, The Beatles remain the biggest-selling and most influential group in the history of popular music. Fans endlessly replay their songs, craving more, while thousands of cover versions of their songs have been recorded and performed. Band biographies, pop music histories, song books, and academic titles on the Fab Four clutter shelves. But never has there been a definitive guide to the finest songs of The Beatles after they called it quits. Still the Greatest is a love song to the songwriting and recording achievements of Paul, John, George, and Ringo after each struck out on his own. In this creative history, Jackson selects the best songs in each solo career and organizes them into fantasy albums they might have formed had the legendary group stayed together. This romp through the post-Beatles history of each artist delves into the circumstances behind the composition, recording, and reception of each work, offering a refreshing take on how spectacular much of The Beatles' second act truly is. Jackson assesses the more than seventy albums and nine hundred songs the four collectively released, selecting the creme de la creme of their output. Still the Greatest brims with facts (release dates, writing and performing credits, and information about production techniques) and insightful analyses of the music and lyrics. In telling the stories behind the songs, Jackson recounts the remarkable influence the Post Fab Four continued to have long after the big split. Both a handy reference and an engrossing cover-to-cover read, Still the Greatest is an invaluable companion for those who thought it all ended with the 1970 album Let It Be.

Quincy Jones: A Research and Information Guide is an annotated bibliography and discography on one of the most prolific composers, arrangers, and conductors in American music. This reference work will appeal to wide range of musicologists, ethnomusicologists and cultural studies scholars.

'Genuinely funny; indeed, the story will keep you entertained for a very long time' Sunday Times Joy Division changed the face of music. Godfathers of the enduring alternative scene, they reinvented rock in the post-punk era, creating a sound - dark, hypnotic, intense - that would influence U2, Morrissey, R.E.M., Radiohead and many others. This is the rollercoaster story of Joy Division - the friendships, fights, fall-outs; the rehearsals and recording sessions; the larger than life characters - told by the band's legendary bassist, Peter Hook. 'Hook has restored a flesh-and-blood rawness to what was becoming a standard tale. Few pop music books manage that' Guardian 'An honest, enthusiastic account . . . it's a window like no other into the reality of life in this most aloof of bands' Metro 'An immense account of Joy Division's rise . . . having read Hook's book, you'll feel like you were the fifth member of the band' GQ 'A bittersweet, profanity-filled recollection . . . if you like Joy Division, you really have to read it' Q Magazine 'Hook lifts the lid on the real Ian Curtis' NME 'He's frank, incredibly funny, and it isn't shy' Artrocker

Death metal is one of popular music's most extreme variants, and is typically viewed as almost monolithically nihilistic, misogynistic, and reactionary. Michelle Phillipov's Death Metal and Music Criticism: Analysis at the Limits offers an account of listening pleasure on its own terms. Through an analysis of death metal's sonic and lyrical extremity, Phillipov shows how violence and aggression can be configured as sites for pleasure and play in death metal music, with little relation to the "real" lives of listeners. In some cases, gruesome lyrical themes and fractured song forms invite listeners to imagine new experiences of the body and of the self. In others, the speed and complexity of the music foster a "technical" or distanced appreciation akin to the viewing experiences of graphic horror film fans. These aspects of death metal listening are often neglected by scholarly accounts concerned with evaluating music as either 'progressive' or "reactionary." By contextualizing the discussion of death metal via substantial overviews of popular music studies as a field, Phillipov's Death Metal and Music Criticism highlights how the premium placed on political engagement in popular music studies not only circumscribes our understanding of the complexity and specificity of death metal, but of other musical styles as well. Exploring death metal at the limits of conventional music criticism helps not only to develop a more nuanced account of death metal listening it also offers some important starting points for rethinking popular music scholarship as a whole."

Punk Rock Warlord explores the relevance of Joe Strummer within the continuing legacies of both punk rock and progressive politics. It is aimed at scholars and general readers interested in The Clash, punk culture, and the intersections between pop music and politics, on both sides of the Atlantic. Contributors to the collection represent a wide range of disciplines, including history, sociology, musicology, and literature; their work examines all phases of Strummer's career, from his early days as 'Woody' the busker to the whirlwind years as front man for The Clash, to the 'wilderness years' and Strummer's final days with the Mescaleros. Punk Rock Warlord offers an engaging survey of its subject, while at the same time challenging some of the historical narratives that have been constructed around Strummer the Punk Icon. The essays in Punk Rock Warlord address issues including John Graham Mellor's self-fashioning as 'Joe Strummer, rock revolutionary'; critical and media constructions of punk; and the singer's complicated and changing relationship to feminism and anti-racist politics. These diverse essays nevertheless cohere around the claim that Strummer's look, style, and musical repertoire are so rooted in both English and American cultures that he cannot finally be extricated from either.

Punk culture is currently having a revival worldwide and is poised to extend and mutate even more as youth unemployment and youth alienation increase in many countries of the world. In Russia, its power to have an impact and to shock is well illustrated by the state response to activist collective and punk band Pussy Riot. This book, based on extensive original research, examines the nature of punk culture in contemporary Russia. Drawing on interviews and observation, it explores the vibrant punk music scenes and the social relations underpinning them in three contrasting Russian cities. It relates punk to wider contemporary culture and uses the Russian example to discuss more generally what constitutes 'punk' today.

Moby Grape are a genuine cult phenomenon. Their story, a mixture of myth and truth, is a cautionary tale, a triumph, and a tragedy all at once. Though they are seen as a symbol of 1960s San Francisco, Moby Grape were never actually a part of the city s counterculture movement. Yet they were immersed in it, sharing stages with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and many more. Moby Grape s five members came together from very different backgrounds, bursting onto the San Francisco scene in the fall of 1966. With their diverse pedigree, they were nothing less than musical alchemists, yet they were also rebels. Their blending of genres within a tight songwriting framework contrasted sharply with that of many of their SF peers. Following the release of the band s debut album in 1967, you could see everyone from Ringo Starr to Jimi Hendrix sporting a `Moby Grape Now! button. But in the months that followed, they were dogged by mismanagement, bad marketing, a scandalous drug bust, and general rock n roll mayhem. It seemed like it was all over in 1969, but in 1971 Moby Grape staged rock s first full-on reunion. Since then, they have fought to retain ownership of their own name, while two members of the band struggled with homelessness and mental illness. Despite all of this, they produced one of the best albums of the era, and today they are heralded by countless luminaries of rock music and rock criticism, from Robert Plant to Robert Christgau, Tom Waits to Greil Marcus. Drawing on extensive interviews with the surviving members of the band, What s Big and Purple and Lives in the Ocean? finally tells the full story of one of the great cult bands of the 60s.

Peter Guralnick's writings on music an musicians are unique in the literature of American popular culture. His first three books, Feel Like Going Home, Lost Highway, and Sweet Soul Music-which together form a sort of trilogy that has achieved classic status-trace twentieth-century American popular music to its roots by bringing to life the people, the songs, and the performances that forever changed not only the American music scene but America itself.

This stirring tribute to American roots music-country, rockabilly, and the blues-spotlights artists both celebrated and obscure, including Hank Snow, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Scotty Moore, Elvis Presley, Mickey Gilley, and Merle Haggard. Guralnick conveys the passion that drove these men to music-making and that kept them, determinedly and sometimes despairingly, on the road.

Cover songs operate as a form of cultural discourse across various musical genres and different societal, historical and political conditions. Employing both textual and contextual analysis, cases studies include a comparative analysis of Jimi Hendrix's and Whitney Houston's versions of ""The Star-Spangled Banner"" as well as mapping the trajectory of ""(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"" from the original version by the Rolling Stones through cover versions by Otis Redding, Devo and Britney Spears. The radical deconstruction of pop and rock songs by the Residents and Laibach is also examined, with additional case studies of cover songs ranging from Van Halen, Kim Wilde, Rufus Harley, the Four Tops, Pat Boone and Johnny Cash. Rather than questions of quality and how a given cover song measures up as ""better or worse"" than other versions, this book focuses on the ideological implications and social stakes of the ""same old songs"" as they are reconfigured in numerous ways to consider, comment on and confront political issues of gender, sexuality, race, the nation-state and the generation gap.

The birth of folk rock comes to life in Wounds to Bind: A Memoir of the Folk Rock Revolution, Jerry Burgan s unforgettable memoir of the pre-psychedelic 1960s. As a naive folksinger from Pomona, California, Burgan would find himself thrust in his teenage years to the forefront of the counterculture and its aftermath. The Rolling Stones, The Byrds, Bo Diddley, Otis Redding, The Righteous Brothers, The Ohio Players, Paul Revere & The Raiders, Herman s Hermits, Judy Henske, Barry McGuire, and the Kingston Trio all make appearances in this tale told by the cofounder of We Five, the San Francisco electro-folk ensemble that soared to the top of the charts with its recording of the million-selling "You Were On My Mind." In the vanguard of what came to be known as folk rock, Burgan and his lifelong friend Mike Stewart embarked on a road they thought well paved by the latter s older brother and Kingston Trio member, John Stewart. Little did Burgan realize that they would join the rest of their generation in an ecstatic, sometimes tortured journey of invention and disillusion. With a foreword by Canadian folk legend Sylvia Tyson, 24 pages of period photos, and index. Wounds to Bind will reward not only folk revival fans and aficionados of the counterculture music scene, but anyone who came of age musically between 1950 and 1975. Burgan s story bears witness to an eclectic and hopeful convergence in American history that missing link between the folk and rock eras when Bob Dylan and Sammy Davis, Jr., were played on the same radio station in the same hour. Chronicling the human realignments, triumphs and tragedies that followed, Burgan tracks down the demons that drove the genius of We Five cofounder Mike Stewart and sheds light on the forty-year enigma of what became of We Five's reclusive lead singer, Beverly Bivens, who anticipated Grace Slick, Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Nicks."

At a time when Acid Rock and Heavy Metal dominated popular music, The Band rebelled against the rebellion with a masterful mix of tight ensemble arrangements, great vocals, highly literate lyricism, and a respect for the musical traditions of the American South. Comprising Canadians Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson, and Arkansas-born Levon Helm, The Band sparked a new appreciation for America's musical roots, fusing R&B, jump blues, country, folk, boogie-woogie, swing, Cajun, New Orleans-style jazz, and rock, and setting the foundations for the Americana craze that would take hold 30 years later. The Band: Pioneers of Americana Music explores the diverse influences on the quintet's music, and the impact that their music had in turn on contemporary music and American society. Through previously unpublished interviews with Robbie Robertson, Eric Andersen, Pete Seeger, and the late Rick Danko, as well as numerous other sources, Craig Harris surveys The Band's musical journey from sidemen for, among others, Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan, to rock legends in their own right. The book touches on the evolution of rock and roll, the electrifying of folk music, unionism, and Civil Rights Movement, the growth of America's musical roots, changes in radio formatting, changing perceptions of the American south, and the commercializing of the counter-culture, as well as drug dependency, alcoholism, suicide, greed, and the struggle against cancer. Harris takes readers through The Band's albums, from Music from Big Pink and The Band to their final releases and solo recordings, as well as their historic appearances at Woodstock, Isle of Wight (with Dylan), Watkins Glen (with the Allman Brothers Band and the Grateful Dead), and the Last Waltz (with an all-star cast) and participation in the Festival Express. This biography is a must-have publication, not only for fans, but also for anyone interested in music history. Craig Harris sets the record straight as he shares the story of this incredibly influential rock act.

The musical genre of taarab is played for entertainment at weddings and other festive occasions all along the Swahili Coast in East Africa. Taarab contains all the features of a typical 'Indian Ocean' music, combining influences from Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, India and the West with local musical practices. In Taarab, Music in Zanzibar, Janet Topp Fargion traces the development of the genre in Zanzibar, from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth. Of special interest is the role of women. Although men play the main role in the composition and performance of the genre, Topp Fargion argues that the modernization of the genre owes a debt to the participation of women - as audiences and primary consumers, but also as poets and innovators of musical concepts. The book weaves together the historical, social, economic, religious and political dynamics involved in the development of the genre, and investigates how these are played out in the performance of taarab music on Zanzibar.