Cassette Culture

Popular Music and Technology in North India

Bibliographic Data

ID5087460
AuthorsRahul Peter Das (0000-0001-5148-1180), Peter Manuel
Year1995
Volume115
Issue2
Pages357
Publication date1995-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeREVIEW
Review ofCassette culture: Popular music and technology in north India, Peter Lamarche Manuel, 1993
VenueJournal of the American Oriental Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0279 • E-ISSN: 2169-2289
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/604723
OpenAlexW2042775232
LanguageEN

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

Asian Culture and Media Studies · History · Music History and Culture · South Asian Cinema and Culture

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