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Music
- A Subversive History
- Narrated by: Jamie Renell
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
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Music
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Summary
"A dauntingly ambitious, obsessively researched" (Los Angeles Times) global history of music that reveals how songs have shifted societies and sparked revolutions
Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who created musical revolutions and instead celebrate the mainstream assimilators who borrowed innovations, diluted their impact, and disguised their sources. In Music: A Subversive History, Ted Gioia reclaims the story of music for the riffraff, insurgents, and provocateurs.
Gioia tells a 4,000-year history of music as a global source of power, change, and upheaval. He shows how outcasts, immigrants, slaves, and others at the margins of society have repeatedly served as trailblazers of musical expression, reinventing our most cherished songs from ancient times all the way to the jazz, reggae, and hip-hop sounds of the current day.
Music: A Subversive History is essential for anyone interested in the meaning of music, from Sappho to the Sex Pistols to Spotify.
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Critic reviews
"A dauntingly ambitious, obsessively researched labor of cultural provocation."—Robert Christgau, Los Angeles Times
"[A] sweeping study...The author aims to subvert our ideas about music history—essentially, Western classical tradition and its contemporary and popular offshoots—in part by removing its pedestals...Gioia challenges notions of progress based solely on aesthetic or stylistic innovation...characteriz[ing] music history as a cyclical power struggle with shifting battle lines."—Larry Blumenfeld, Wall Street Journal
"Music: A Subversive History is by some distance the most wide-ranging and provocative thing he's [Gioia's] come up with... In terms of scope, well, put it this way: it starts out talking about a bear's thighbone that Neanderthal hunters apparently turned into a primitive flute somewhere between 43,000 and 82,000 years ago and ends up, 450 pages later, discussing K-pop and EDM."—Guardian
What listeners say about Music
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Alistair Mcerlaine
- 24-01-23
Fantastic
One of the most interesting and inspiring books about music I have read.
Love this audio version , Ted does a great job of narrating it. I’ve listened to all of his books and as a pro musician myself , I have a new deeper understanding of what it all means. Highly recommended
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Chris E
- 26-08-20
Fascinating
Fascinating explanation of music history from an unusual standpoint, from prehistory to the modern day. Well narrated.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Ruta Kasinskaite
- 16-04-20
informative
I loved everything about this book, the breath of information, analysis of overall cultural, political impact of music.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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- CCF
- 20-09-20
Essential to all musicologists
This timely new history should be read by all who teach/research music at any level and I hope its reverberations will be heard throughout musicology.
(Narrator a bit slow for me but can be sped up.)
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Mr. J. Gray
- 23-09-21
A history that should be taught!
Addictive book, linking points in history, showing how forces of power keep trying to control music and absorb it into their narrative. worrying end with questions about how AI will affect the future. Not bored once during the whole book, even on second listen. Wish this was how history of music was taught at school. Inspiring.
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-02-23
Brilliant book
Absolutely magnificent, entertaining, accessible history of music as a subversive force. Top notch narration too.
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