Cassette Culture: Popular Music and Technology in North India (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology)

In Cassette Culture, Peter Manuel tells how a new mass mediumthe portable cassette playercaused 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. 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 -- 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 Peter Manuel. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.