Bring the Noise: Popular Music Studies

As I left the Fair Grounds Race Course after my first day at the 2014 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, I heard the familiar sound of a brass band emanating from the corner of Fortin and Gentilly Street. There, in front of the headquarters of local radio station WBOK 1230 AM, the To Be Continued (TBC) Brass Band was playing for tips.

Latinamericana, from City to Country: La Santa Cecilia with the David Wax Museum, Live at Royce Hall, April 11, 2014

Concert Review by Ben Doleac

Living the Hiplife: Celebrity and Entrepreneurship in Ghanaian Popular Music. By Jesse Weaver Shipley. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. [xiii, 344 p. ISBN 9780822353669. $24.95.] Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.

Reviewed by Jesse D. Ruskin

Unfree Masters: Recording Artists and the Politics of Work. By Matt Stahl. Durham: Duke University Press, 2012. [xi, 312 p. ISBN 9780822353430. $22.46.] Bibliography, Index.

Reviewed by Whitney Slaten

Empire of Song: Europe and Nation in the Eurovision Song Contest. Edited by Dafni Tragaki. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press.[xiv, 321 p. ISBN 9780810888173. $85.] Bibliographical references, index.

Reviewed by Kristina Nielsen

Rhymin’ and Stealin’: Musical Borrowing in Hip-Hop.  By Justin A. Williams.  Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013.  [viii, 256 p. ISBN 978-0-472-11892-2 $65.]

Reviewed by Sarah Lappas

Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation. By David Novak. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2013. [x, 292 p. ISBN 9780822353928. $24.95.] Illustrations, bibliographical references, index, companion web site.

Reviewed By Nana Kaneko

For the past three months, I’ve been in Delhi undertaking a research project on live Indian music. While some research – notably that of Peter Kvetko and Peter Manuel – has discussed the formally distributed Indipop, and other research has occurred on Sufi rock and the music of Bollywood, the live scene has remained relatively academically undisturbed.

To celebrate the release of Volume 18, Ethnomusicology Review is teaming up with the International Association for the Study of Popular Music for a co-edited series on the broad topic of Ethnomusicology and Popular Music.

Oftentimes people ask for change, but then find themselves disgusted when it doesn't come in familiar packaging. This sentiment holds true in regards to how jazz’s traditionalists have chosen to react to Robert Glasper, specifically his newly released project Black Radio 2.