Dance of life

After a cursory glance at the Notes and Bibliography of Craig A. Lockard's Dance of Life, the immediate temptation is to hail it a meticulous work of scholarship. As it turns out, it is something less than that, but it is still very good. Lockard has obviously devoted enormous time and energy in compiling the book and draws upon sufficient intellectual resources in various disciplines, ranging from sociocultural and political history to ethnomusicology and cultural studies. The book is dense; it is filled withfacts, names, and events. In it, you will find the big names in popular music in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, the major record companies, other interesting statistics such as radio and television ownership, and the songs which tread the lines of protest and rebellion (political or otherwise). Further, the book covers the role of popular music in articulating issues of identity, nationalism, independence, and autonomy, and the synthesis of Western popular music and indigenous popular musical traditions. The material is handled with considerable skill even though it could have been written in a more engaging style. Nevertheless, Dance of Life is a vibrant and enthusiastic book offering an informative guided tour of popular music in parts of Southeast Asia and provides, as the author writes in the introduction 'a preliminary examination of the relationship between various popular musics and political change in several nations' (p. xvii)

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Art · Art history · Dance · Electronic dance music · Literature · Political science · Politics · Popular music · Southeast asia · Visual arts · Asian Culture and Media Studies · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies