Research Catalog

Title

Songscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican reggae / Michael E. Veal.

Author

Veal, Michael E., 1963-

Publication

Middletown, CT : Wesleyan University Press, c2007.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 338 p. : ill.; 23 cm.

Summary

When Jamaican recording engineers Osbourne "King Tubby" Ruddock, Errol Thompson, and Lee "Scratch" Perry began crafting "dub" music in the early 1970s, they were initiating a musical revolution that continues to have worldwide influence. Dub is a sub-genre of Jamaican reggae that flourished during reggae's "golden age" of the late 1960s through the early 1980s. Dub involves remixing existing recordings--electronically improvising sound effects and altering vocal tracks--to create its unique sound. Just as hip-hop turned phonograph turntables into musical instruments, dub turned the mixing and sound processing technologies of the recording studio into instruments of composition and real-time improvisation. In addition to chronicling dub's development and offering the first thorough analysis of the music itself, the author examines dub's social significance in Jamaican culture. He further explores the "dub revolution" that has crossed musical and cultural boundaries for over thirty years, influencing a wide variety of musical genres around the globe.

Series Statement

Music/culture

Uniform Title

Music/culture

Subject

• Geschichte 1970-1999
• Dub (Music) > Jamaica > History and criticism

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. ), discography (p. ), and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Electronic music in Jamaica : dub in the continuum of Jamaican music -- "Every spoil is a style" : the evolution of dub music in the 1970s -- The "backbone" of Studio One -- "Jus' like a volcano in yuh head!" -- Tracking the "living African heartbeat" -- "Java" to "Africa" -- "City too hot" : the end of the roots era and the significance of dub to the digital era of Jamaican music -- Starship Africa : the acoustics of diaspora and of the postcolony -- Coda. Electronica, remix culture, and Jamaica as a source of transformative strategies in global popular music.

ISBN

• 9780819565716 (cloth : alk. paper)
• 0819565717 (cloth : alk. paper)
• 9780819565723 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 0819565725 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2006037669

OCLC

• 76786630
• SCSB-9933260

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library