Cassette Culture: Popular Music and Technology in North India
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In Cassette Culture, Peter Manuel tells how a new mass medium—the portable cassette player—caused a major upheaval in popular culture in the world's second-largest country. The advent of cassette technology in the 1980s transformed India's popular music industry from the virtual monopoly of a single multinational LP manufacturer to a free-for-all among hundreds of local cassette producers. The result was a revolution in the quantity, quality, and variety of Indian popular music and its patterns of dissemination and consumption.Manuel shows that the cassette revolution, however, has brought new contradictions and problems to Indian culture. While inexpensive cassettes revitalized local subcultures and community values throughout the subcontinent, they were also a vehicle for regional and political factionalism, new forms of commercial vulgarity, and, disturbingly, the most provocative sorts of hate-mongering and religious chauvinism.Cassette Culture is the first scholarly account of Indian popular music and the first case study of a technological revolution now occurring throughout the world. It will be an essential resource for anyone interested in modern India, communications theory, world popular music, or contemporary global culture.
Preface Motivations and Predispositions Scope and Orientation Methodology Transliteration Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: Theoretical Perspectives Cassettes and the New Media Technologies Cassette Technology and the "Democratic-Participant" Media Theoretical Approaches: Ethnomusicology and Media Theory Control of the Media Media Content Reception Theory: Effects and Audience Interpretations of Media Content Base and Superstructure in an Integrated Cultural Materialism Conclusions 2. The Impact of Cassettes on the International Recording Industry Contrasting Patterns of Development The International Impact of Cassette Technology Cassette Piracy The Emergence of Legitimate Cassette Industries 3. The Music Industry and Film Culture up to 1975 The Growth of the Indian Record Industry Radio Film Music and Film Culture Film Music: Context and Content The Impact of Film Music on Folk Music Conclusions 4. The Advent of Cassettes: New Alternatives to His Master's Voice Cassettes come to India Cassette Producers Financial and Technological Aspects of the Cassette Industry Promotion and Publicity Music-Industry Organizations Piracy Compact Discs 5. Cassettes and the Modern Ghazal The Traditional Ghazal The Rise and Fall of the Film Ghazal The Modern Ghazal "Pop" Goes the Ghazal Conclusions 6. Devotional Music Music and Bhakti in Hindu Culture Devotional Music and the Mass Media Ghazal, Cassettes, and the Emergence of the Pop Bhajan The Mainstream Pop Bhajan: Aesthetics, Ethos, and Commercialism "Great" and "Little Traditions" in Commercial Devotional Music Production and Marketing of Devotional Music Muslim Devotional Music Cassettes and Live Performance Conclusions 7. The Politics of Parody: Tune-Borrowing in Popular and Folk Music Parody in Hindustani Music Parody in Folk Music "Versions": Recycling the Classics Copyright Conclusions 8. Regional Musics Social Identity and Regional Syncretic Musics Cassettes and Diversification: Region, Language, and Genre Cassettes and Class Expression Gender The Impact of Commodification Song Texts in Regional Cassette-Based Music Cassettes and Lewd Regional Songs Cassettes and Live Performance Regional Cassette Musics Conclusions 9. Rasiya: A Case Study in Commercialization Braj Culture and Rasiya Song Texts in Secular Folk Rasiya Gender Representation in Rasiya Rasiya and Socioeconomic Modernization Rasiya and Mass Culture Film Parodies and Hathrasi Rasiya The Advent of Cassettes Cassettes and the "Little Tradition" of Rasiya Bhakti Secular Rasiya Cassettes Song Texts in Commercial Rasiya Disparaging Perspectives M. H. Zaidi, Rasiya Producer Singer-Poet Sevaram "Tanatan" Sharma Conclusions 10. Cassettes and Sociopolitical Movements Jagori: Cassettes and Women's Liberation Regional Movements in Eastern Bihar Cassettes and the 1989 Elections Regional and Sectarian Movements Cassettes and the Contemporary Hindu-Muslim Conflict 11. Conclusions: A Micro-Medium in Macro-Perspective Notes Glossary of Indian-Language Terms Bibliography Some Recent Parodies in Film Music Index
