Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture / Edition 1

by Tricia Rose, Andrew Ross

Overview

Microphone Fiends, a collection of original essays and interviews, brings together some of the best known scholars, critics, journalists and performers to focus on the contemporary scene. It includes theoretical discussions of musical history along with social commentaries about genres like disco, metal and rap music, and case histories of specific movements like the Riot Grrls, funk clubbing in Rio de Janeiro, and the British rave scene.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415909082
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	04/14/1994
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	286
Product dimensions:	7.38(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Tricia Rose is Assistant Professor of History and Africana Studies at New York University. Andrew Ross is Director of the American Studies Program and Professor of Comparative Literature at New York University.

Table of Contents

Introduction, Andrew Ross; Part 1 Histories & Futures; Chapter 1 We Know What Time It Is, George Lipsitz; Chapter 2 Same As It Ever Was, Susan McClary; Chapter 3 Is Anybody Listening? Does Anybody Care?, Lawrence Grossberg; Chapter 4 Excerpt from Altered Spade: Readings in Race-Mutation Theory, Greg Tate; Part 2 Locating Hip Hop; Chapter 5 A Style Nobody Can Deal With, Tricia Rose; Chapter 6 Puerto Rican And Proud, Boyee!, Juan Flores; Chapter 7 The State of Rap, Jeffrey Louis Decker; Chapter 8 Contracting Rap, Tricia Rose; Part 3 The Dance Continuum; Chapter 9 In the Empire of the Beat, Walter Hughes; Chapter 10 Hello, Lady Kier Kirby; Chapter 11 Not a Mutant Turtle, Willi Ninja; Chapter 12 Nobody Wants a Part -Time Mother, Tricia Rose; Chapter 13 Moral Panic, the Media and British Rave Culture, Sarah Thornton; Chapter 14 The Funkification of Rio, George Yúdice, Hermano ViannaJr.; Part 4 Rock, Rituals & Rights; Chapter 15 Rah, Rah, Sis-Boom-Bah, Robert Christgau; Chapter 16 Border Crossing in the U.S.A., Donna Gaines; Chapter 17 Highbrow, Lowbrow, Voodoo Aesthetics, Robert Walser; Chapter 18 Smells Like Teen Spirit, Joanne Gottlieb, Gayle Wald;

Editorial Reviews

"...[This book] is the screaming child demanding attention not only from scholars but from mainstream music journalists as well. The strength of this collection, which is primarily cultural criticism, lies in its various and often conflicting approaches and perspectives." — American Music, Fall 1996
"...everyone who contributes is bright, excited, and big with fruitful thoughts." — Puncture
"A huge, multilayered cacphonus conversation, involving styles of popular music ranging from hardcore rap to college rock to rave to Brazilian funk, represented by participants from all avenues of musical culture. The radical decision to include artists and members of the popular press alongside academics means that the voices included within Microphone Fiends don't conform to one language, they argue with each other and with themselves, unafraid of the rebel stance that has characterized youth culture from its rowdy, world-changing birth. Listening to each other, artists, culture workers, and scholars can uncover insights about the pop-cult ground they cultuivate that otherwise would have eluded them." — Ann Powers, The Village Voice
"Expression is what youth music and youth culture are all about, a mode of expression that has been lacking in a social perspective. The diversity of the book reflects the "multiculturalism" within, giving a precise sub-cultural analysis. The book's dedication to youth musical culture only makes Microphone Fiends better. Fortunately, it has matured to a point where it can report on itself competently. Microphone Fiends definitely represents the music behind its cultures."
"I bet Microphone Fiends becomes required reading in musical history classes everywhere. This exhaustive dissertation of popular (and not so popular) music forms is basically a collection of articles, commentaries and discussions on everything from raves to riot grrls." — Thrust,#23
". . .strike[s] a welcome balance between self-aware and self-concious pronouncements on the next generation." — Publisher's Weekly
"...[This book] is the screaming child demanding attention not only from scholars but from mainstream music journalists as well. The strength of this collection, which is primarily cultural criticism, lies in its various and often conflicting approaches and perspectives." — American Music, Fall 1996

From the Publisher

The topics included in this collection of essays springing from a Princeton University conference range from black nationalism in the hip-hop community to the disco scene's vision of gay identity to hard-core rock and its evolving relationship to feminism. Among the many perceptive arguments advanced is Sarah Thornton's contention that youth subcultures enjoy negative media attention and provoke public ``moral panic'' as a marketing strategy. In assessing the role of culture in catalyzing social change, most of these writers see styles and rituals as means by which economically and socially marginalized youths claim public territory for themselves. Some suggest that the revolutionary rock of the '60s was more fantasy than reality; Robert Christgau notes the political ambivalence behind anthems such as the Beatles' ``Revolution'' and Buffalo Springfield's ``For What It's Worth.'' With its inclusion of club priestess Lady Kier Kirby's incantatory appreciation of the disc jockey, and co-editor Tricia Rose's probing interviews with vogue artist Willi Ninja and rap music industry executive Carmen Ashhurst-Watson, Microphone Fiends extends its appeal well beyond the academic. Moreover, the scholarly contributors, ``some of them stretching into middle age'' (as Andrew Ross notes in his introduction), strike a welcome balance between self-aware and self-conscious pronouncements on the next generation. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly