"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 four-thousand-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 reading for anyone interested in the meaning of music, from Sappho to the Sex Pistols to Spotify.
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