Discographies: Dance, Music, Culture and the Politics of Sound

by Jeremy Gilbert, Ewan Pearson

Overview

Experiencing disco, hip hop, house, techno, drum 'n' bass and garage, Discographies plots a course through the transatlantic dance scene of the last last twenty-five years. It discusses the problems posed by contemporary dance culture of both academic and cultural study and finds these origins in the history of opposition to music as a source of sensory pleasure.
Discussing such issues as technology, club space. drugs, the musical body, gender, sexuality and pleasure, Discographies explores the ecstatic experiences at the heart of contemporary dance culture. It suggests why politicians and agencies as diverse as the independent music press and public broadcasting should be so hostile to this cultural phenomenon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415170338
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/29/1999
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jeremy Gilbert is currently teaching in the Media and Cultural Studies at the University of East London. He is contributor to Living Through Pop and The Moderniser's Dilemma. Ewan Pearson has been a visiting lecturer in Cultural Studies at the University of East London. He is now a full-time musician and has recorded for several Uk dance labels including Glasgow's Soma recordings.

Table of Contents

1 The tribal rites of Saturday night: Discos and intellectuals 2 Music, meaning and pleasure: From Plato to disco 3 The metaphysics of music 4 Take your partner by the hand: Dance music, gender and sexuality 5 Metal machine musics: Technology, subjectivity and reception 6 No music, no dancing: Capitalist modernity and the legacy of Puritanism 7 The politics of popular culture

Editorial Reviews

This is a lucid, informative, engagingly written and stimulating work. It admirably covers a variety of different theoretical issues and takes off from dance to raise all sorts of questions about the treatment of music in cultural studies.
— Lingua Franca

Simon Firth

'This is a lucid, informative, engagingly written and stimulating work. It admirably covers a variety of different theoretical issues and takes off from dance to raise all sorts of questions about the treatment of music in cultural studies'. - Simon Frith, University of Stirling

'Discographies is contemporary, committed and compelling. The strengths of the book lie in its ability to combine academic expertise with an obvious immersion in dance music culture.' - Will Straw, McGill University

From the Publisher