Full Description
Since the turn of the twentieth century the dramatic rise of mass media has profoundly transformed music practices in the Arab world. Music has adapted to successive forms of media dissemination—from phonograph cylinders to MP3s—each subjected to the political and economic forces of its particular era and region. Carried by mass media, the broader culture of Arab music has been thoroughly transformed as well. Simultaneously, mass mediated music has become a powerful social force. While parallel processes have unfolded worldwide, their implications in the Arabic-speaking world have thus far received little scholarly attention.
This provocative volume features sixteen new essays examining these issues, especially televised music and the controversial new genre of the music video. Perceptive voices—both emerging and established—represent a wide variety of academic disciplines. Incisive essays by Egyptian critics display the textures of public Arabic discourse to an English readership. Authors address the key issues of contemporary Arab society—gender and sexuality, Islam, class, economy, power, and nation—as refracted through the culture of mediated music.
Interconnected by a web of recurrent concepts, this collection transcends music to become an important resource for the study of contemporary Arab society and culture.
Contributors: Wael Abdel Fattah, Yasser Abdel-Latif, Moataz Abdel Aziz, Tamim Al-Barghouti, Mounir Al Wassimi, Walter Armbrust, Elisabeth Cestor, Hani Darwish, Walid El Khachab, Abdel-Wahab Elmessiri, James Grippo, Patricia Kubala, Katherine Meizel, Zein Nassar, Ibrahim Saleh, Laith Ulaby.
Contents
Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Music and Media in the Arab World and Music and Media in the Arab World as Music and Media in the Arab World: A Metadiscourse
Michael Frishkopf
Historical Reflection
1. A History of Music and Singing on Egyptian Radio and Television
Zein Nassar
2. Arabic Music Videos and Their Implications for Arab Music and Media
Moataz Abdel Aziz
3. Arab Music and Changes in the Arab Media
Mounir Al Wassimi
4. Music and Television in Lebanon
Elisabeth Cestor
5. Mass Media and Music in the Arab Persian Gulf
Laith Ulaby
Cultural Critique, Cultural Analysis
6. Critique: Music of the Streets: The Story of a Television Program
Yasser Abdel-Latif
7. Analysis: What's Not on Egyptian Television and Radio! Locating the 'Popular' in Egyptian Sha'bi
James R. Grippo
8. Critique: Ruby and the Checkered Heart
Abdel-Wahab Elmessiri
9. Analysis: The Controversy over Satellite
Music Television in Contemporary Egypt
Patricia Kubala
10. Critique: Caliphs and Clips
Tamim Al-Barghouti
11. Analysis: What Would Sayyid Qutb Say?
Some Reflections on Video Clips
Walter Armbrust
12. Critique: Images of Women in Advertisements and Video Clips: A Case Study of Sherif Sabri
Hany Darwish
13. Analysis: Arab Video Music: Imagined Territories and the Liberation of Desire (or: Sex Lies in Video (Clip))
Walid El Khachab
14. Critique: The Biographies of Starlets Today: Revolutions in Sound and Image
Wael Abdel Fattah
15. Analysis: Real-politics: Televised Talent Competitions and Democracy Promotion in the Middle East
Katherine Meizel
