Noise Uprising: The Audiopolitics of a World Musical Revolution

Marc Notes: In a handful of years between the development of electrical recording in 1925 and the outset of the Great Depression in the early 1930s, the soundscape of modern music unfolded in a series of relatively unnoticed recording sessions around the world. These included the recording of tango in Buenos Aires, son in Havana, and samba in Rio;of hula in Honolulu, shidaiqu in Shanghai, and kroncong in Jakarta, and;of taraab in East Africa and marabi in Johannesburg. In this ground-breaking study, Michael Denning draws a global map of a musical revolution that had more profound consequences than the 'modern' musics of the European avant-garde. Biographical Note: Michael Denning is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of American Studies at Yale University, and the co-director of Yale s Initiative on Labor and Culture. He is the author of "Culture in the Age of Three Worlds"; "The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century"; "Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and Working-Class Culture in America;and Cover Stories: Narrative and Ideology in the British Spy Thriller." He coordinates the Working Group on Globalization and Culture, whose collective work includes Going into Debt, published online in Social Text s "Periscope," and Spaces and Times of Occupation, published in "Transforming Anthropology." In 2014, he received the Bode-Pearson lifetime achievement award from the American Studies Association."Review Quotes: Praise for "The Cultural Front" "A truly wonderful piece of history." --"The Progressive" "As fresh a synthesis of the distinctive culture of the 1930s and 1940s as you are likely to find anywhere." --"Times Literary Supplement" "An immense achievement ... the most important book yet written on American culture in the age of the CIO." --"Journal of American History" Praise for "Mechanic Accents" "One of the most illuminating, theoretically informed accounts of popular fiction now available." --Terry Eagleton "A fresh and methodologically pathbreaking look at popular or mass-cultural narrative and its ideological function in a specific formative period of North American modernity." --Fredric Jameson "Abounds with new ways to think about America's ubiquitous popular culture ... [Denning has] a first-rate intelligence and the generous sensibilities of a cultural modernist and democrat." --Christine Stansell, "Voice Literary Supplement" "An impressive and excellent book ... removes dime novels from the clutches of nostalgia buffs, returns mass fiction to the workers who read it, and convincingly outlines a fresh paradigm for the study of mass culture." --"Labor History"Review Quotes: Praise for "The Cultural Front" "A truly wonderful piece of history." --"The Progressive" "As fresh a synthesis of the distinctive culture of the 1930s and 1940s as you are likely to find anywhere." --"Times Literary Supplement" "An immense achievement ... the most important book yet written on American culture in the age of the CIO." --"Journal of American History"Praise for "Mechanic Accents" "One of the most illuminating, theoretically informed accounts of popular fiction now available." --Terry Eagleton "A fresh and methodologically pathbreaking look at popular or mass-cultural narrative and its ideological function in a specific formative period of North American modernity." --Fredric Jameson "Abounds with new ways to think about America's ubiquitous popular culture ... [Denning has] a first-rate intelligence and the generous sensibilities of a cultural modernist and democrat." --Christine Stansell, "Voice Literary Supplement" "An impressive and excellent book ... removes dime novels from the clutches of nostalgia buffs, returns mass fiction to the workers who read it, and convincingly outlines a fresh paradigm for the study of mass culture." --"Labor History"Review Quotes: Praise for "The Cultural Front" A truly wonderful piece of history. "The Progressive" As fresh a synthesis of the distinctive culture of the 1930s and 1940s as you are likely to find anywhere. "Times Literary Supplement" An immense achievement ... the most important book yet written on American culture in the age of the CIO. "Journal of American History" Praise for "Mechanic Accents" One of the most illuminating, theoretically informed accounts of popular fiction now available. Terry Eagleton A fresh and methodologically pathbreaking look at popular or mass-cultural narrative and its ideological function in a specific formative period of North American modernity. Fredric Jameson Abounds with new ways to think about America s ubiquitous popular culture ... [Denning has] a first-rate intelligence and the generous sensibilities of a cultural modernist and democrat. Christine Stansell, "Voice Literary Supplement" An impressive and excellent book ... removes dime novels from the clutches of nostalgia buffs, returns mass fiction to the workers who read it, and convincingly outlines a fresh paradigm for the study of mass culture. "Labor History""Review Quotes: An instant classic. It utterly revises the history and geography of modern music. Vijay Prashad I suspect it will be the most important book released on music this year. Jonathon Kyle Sturgeon, "Flavorwire" An ambitious record of a revolution in sound in the late 1920s that erupted in port towns everywhere, from Cape Town to Shanghai local guilds operating autonomously but in global unison like a cosmic fugue. Timothy Brennan, author of "Secular Devotion: Afro-Latin Music and Imperial Jazz" Which of the senses was decolonized first? In making a case for the ear, Denning has given us a brilliant, audacious guidebook to the sly but unruly insurgencies of sound that coursed through the port cities of the Black Atlantic, the Polynesian Pacific, and the Gypsy Mediterranean. Andrew Ross A monumental rewriting of the global history of recorded music. Every future attempt to analyze the sounds and politics of the international music industry will need to reckon with this powerful book. Josh Kun, University of Southern California"

Contributor Bio:  Denning, Michael Michael Denning teaches American Studies at Yale University. He is the author of Mechanic Accents, Cover Stories, Culture in the Age of Three Worlds, and The Cultural Front.