Music

Music

episodes

Interviews with musicians and scholars of music about their new books.

Micajah Henley, "The Clash's Sandinista!" (Bloombury, 2024)

March 14, 2024

The Clash's Sandinista!

Micajah Henley
Hosted by Bradley Morgan

Following the success of their instantly iconic double LP, London Calling, The Clash set out to do something "triply outrageous." Named after the Nica…

Gavin Butt, "No Machos Or Pop Stars: When the Leeds Art Experiment Went Punk" (Duke UP, 2022)

March 13, 2024

No Machos Or Pop Stars

Gavin Butt
Hosted by Dave O'Brien

How do art schools influence music? In No Machos or Pop Stars: When the Leeds Art Experiment Went Punk (Duke UP, 2022), Gavin Butt, a Professor of Fin…

Judith Tick, "Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song" (Norton, 2023)

March 12, 2024

Becoming Ella Fitzgerald

Judith Tick
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Ella Fitzgerald (1917–1996) was one of America’s greatest musicians. In this major biography, Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer who Transforme…

Reading Taylor Swift as a Cultural and Political Text

March 11, 2024

Reading Taylor Swift as a Cultural and Political Text

Hosted by UConn PopCast

It’s the UConn Popcast, and Taylor Swift is by some measures the most popular person on the planet. Her periodic reinventions set the mass cultural te…

David Savran, "Tell It to the World: The Broadway Musical Abroad" (Oxford UP, 2024)

March 11, 2024

Tell It to the World

David Savran
Hosted by Pete Kunze

Tell It to the World: The Broadway Musical Abroad (Oxford UP, 2024) offers a look at how the Broadway musical travels the world, influencing and even …

Amy Coddington, "How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop: Radio, Rap, and Race" (U California Press, 2023)

March 6, 2024

How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop

Amy Coddington
Hosted by Katrina Anderson

How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop: Radio, Rap, and Race (U California Press, 2023) examines the programming practices at commercial radio stations in the 198…

Priyanka Basu, "The Poet’s Song: ‘Folk’ and its Cultural Politics in South Asia" (Routledge, 2023)

March 6, 2024

The Poet’s Song

Priyanka Basu
Hosted by Dave O'Brien

How can culture be authentic in the modern world? In The Poet's Song: Folk and its Cultural Politics in South Asia (Rouitledge, 2023), Dr Priyanka Bas…

Roseen Giles, "Monteverdi and the Marvellous: Poetry, Sound, and Representation" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

March 4, 2024

Monteverdi and the Marvellous

Roseen Giles
Hosted by Kate Driscoll

The marvellous, a key concept in literary debates at the turn of the seventeenth century, involved sensory and perspectival transformation, a rhetoric…

Joseph Cone, "Seeing Opera Anew: A Cultural and Biological Perspective" (Routledge, 2023)

March 3, 2024

Seeing Opera Anew

Joseph Cone
Hosted by James Kates

What people ultimately want from music-drama, audience research suggests, is to be absorbed in a story that engages their feelings, even moves them de…

Steve Ferzacca, "Sonic City: Making Rock Music and Urban Life in Singapore" (NUS Press, 2021)

February 29, 2024

Sonic City

Steve Ferzacca
Hosted by Khadeeja Amenda

The basement of a veteran shopping mall located in the central business district of Singapore affords opportunities to a group of amateur and semi-pro…

Horace J. Maxile, Jr. and Kristen M. Turner, "Race and Gender in the Western Music History Survey: A Teacher's Guide" (Routledge, 2022)

February 27, 2024

Race and Gender in the Western Music History Survey

Horace J. Maxile, Jr. and Kristen M. Turner
Hosted by Emily Ruth Allen

Race and Gender in the Western Music History Survey: A Teacher’s Guide provides concrete information and approaches that will help instructors include…

Kunal Purohit, "H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars" (HarperCollins, 2023)

February 20, 2024

H-Pop

Kunal Purohit
Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu

Can a song trigger a murder? Can a poem spark a riot? Can a book divide a people? Away from the gaze of mainstream urban media, across India's dusty, …

John Howland, "Hearing Luxe Pop: Glorification, Glamour, and the Middlebrow in American Popular Music" (U California Press, 2021)

February 18, 2024

Hearing Luxe Pop

John Howland
Hosted by Nathan Smith

Hearing Luxe Pop: Glorification, Glamour, and the Middlebrow in American Popular Music (U California Press, 2021) explores a deluxe-production aesthet…

Richard T. Rodríguez, "A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad" (Duke UP, 2022)

February 9, 2024

A Kiss Across the Ocean

Richard T. Rodríguez
Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan

In A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad (Duke UP, 2022), Richard T. Rodríguez examines the relation…

Bryce Henson, "Emergent Quilombos: Black Life and Hip-Hop in Brazil" (U Texas Press, 2024)

February 7, 2024

Emergent Quilombos

Bryce Henson
Hosted by Reighan Gillam

Known as Black Rome, Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, is a predominantly Black city. The local art, food, and dance are closely linked to the population's A…

Mark Guarino, "Country and Midwestern: Chicago in the History of Country Music and the Folk Revival" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

February 5, 2024

Country and Midwestern

Mark Guarino
Hosted by Bradley Morgan

The untold story of Chicago's pivotal role as a country and folk music capital. Chicago is revered as a musical breeding ground, having launched majo…

Murray Forman and Mark V. Campbell, "Hip Hop Archives: The Politics and Poetics of Knowledge Production" (Intellect, 2023)

February 4, 2024

Hip Hop Archives

Murray Forman and Mark V. Campbell
Hosted by Hallel Yadin

Despite the vast popularity and cultural influence of hip-hop, efforts to archive its history are still in fairly early stages. Hip-Hop Archives: The …

Michael O'Malley, "The Beat Cop: Chicago's Chief O'Neill and the Creation of Irish Music" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

February 3, 2024

The Beat Cop

Michael O'Malley
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Francis O’Neill (1848–1936) was a Chicago police officer and a folk music collector. Michael O’Malley connects these two seemingly unrelated activitie…

Aaron Carnes, "In Defense of Ska: The Ska Now More Than Ever Edition" (Clash Books, 2023)

January 21, 2024

In Defense of Ska

Aaron Carnes
Hosted by Gregory Soden

The era of ska shame is officially over, and ska fans no longer need to hide in the basement, skanking alone. The creator of the popular podcast In …

Jessica Goethals, "Margherita Costa, Diva of the Baroque Court" (U Toronto Press, 2023)

January 20, 2024

Margherita Costa, Diva of the Baroque Court

Jessica Goethals
Hosted by Kate Driscoll

The Roman singer, courtesan, and writer Margherita Costa won prominence and fame across the courts of Italy and France during the mid-seventeenth cent…