New Books in Music

In the late 1930s, fieldworkers with the Works Progress Administration interviewed about 3,500 formerly enslaved people resulting in approximately 20,000 pages of unedited typescripts. This collection of oral histories is arguably the single greatest body of African American folklore extant, and a significant portion is devoted to folk music and song. John Minton’s Folk Music and Song in the WPA Ex-Slave Narratives (UP of Mississippi, 2024) examines the musical references in these narratives. A combination of reference information and analysis, Minton contextualizes and scrutinizes the vocal and instrumental music the narrators talked about, explains the various musical and cultural influences on Black folk music, and discusses the place of music and dance in the lives of enslaved people. He covers instrumental music and social dancing, spirituals and hymns, singing games and lullabies, ring plays and reels, worksongs, minstrel songs, ballads, war songs, slavery laments, and more. In the course of this exhaustive book, Minton helps his readers understand the lives of the narrators and the conditions in which they lived before and after emancipation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

It’s The Pop Culture Professors, and we review Taylor Swift’s new album “The Life of a Showgirl.” We consider the album’s themes: love, nostalgia, how hard it is to be famous, and how the internet is bad. We set the songs in the context of Taylor’s wider career and public persona. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

In Shouting Out Loud: Lives of The Raincoats (Da Capo Press, 2025) Audrey Golden traces the history of the iconic band The Raincoats staring of the founding by Art students Gina Birch and Ana da Silva in 1977. Since the release of their seminal early records, the band has been revered by punk, queer, feminist, and indie pop artists alike.The Raincoats reimagined the nature of experimental music and DIY design, and went on to inspire Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and an entire generation of Riot Grrrl and queercore musicians. Shouting Out Loud: Lives of the Raincoats tells this story, which resonates at the heart of late twentieth century radical art, in three distinct lives of the band. In The Raincoats' first life, they recorded three full-length albums now regarded as classics and were the first punk band to play behind the Iron Curtain in Warsaw. Nearly a decade later in 1992, the band's second life took off when Kurt Cobain's love of the band catalyzed their renaissance, and The Raincoats became renowned as 'godmothers of grunge and Riot Grrrl' only to go on hiatus again in 1996. In 2001, The Raincoats reemerged in a third and ongoing iteration marked by performances in art museums such as New York's MoMA, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and London's National Portrait Gallery. The Raincoats have and continue to be a singular phenomenon and influence for so many. Featuring exclusive interviews and never-before-seen images from The Raincoats' archive, Shouting Out Loud is the first biography of this pioneering group of women who paved the way for hundreds of artists who have followed in their footsteps and the must-have account of a legendary band that holds a vital place in twentieth and twenty-first century sonic history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

A fascinating story of how three musicians, who escaped the Nazis, inspired Iceland's modern classical music. In Iceland in the 1930s, classical music was only beginning to be seriously practiced, at the same time when musicians of Jewish heritage were fleeing Nazi Germany and Austria. Despite the country's strict immigration policy, three outstanding young musicians were allowed to settle there: Robert Abraham, Heinz Edelstein, and Victor Urbancic. Their influence on Iceland's music scene as conductors, instrumentalists, teachers, and scholars proved invaluable. In Music at World's End: Three Exiled Musicians from Nazi Germany and Austria and Their Contribution to Music in Iceland (SUNY Press, 2025) the first in-depth study of the lives and careers of these three musicians, musicologist Árni Ingólfsson examines their formative years in Germany and Austria, their dramatic escapes from the Nazi regime, and their triumphs and frustrating setbacks in their new homeland, a country in which Jews were virtually unknown. This fascinating case study is a valuable addition to studies of musical exile during World War II and beyond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

In this episode, host Andrea Talabér (CEU Press) sat down with Emília Barna to discuss her new book, Working in Music on the Semiperiphery: Local Cultural Production and Global Capitalism (CEU Press, 2025). We talked about the changes and continuities that the Hungarian music industry underwent from the communist to the post-communist era, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Barna’s research, and the gendered aspects of the music industry. Working in Music on the Semiperiphery is available in Open Access, through CEU Press’ Opening the Future initiative. You can download the book free here. You can find out more about Opening the Future here. You can purchase a physical copy here. The CEU Press Podcast delves into various aspects of the publishing process: from crafting a book proposal, finding a publisher, responding to peer review feedback on the manuscript, to the subsequent distribution, promotion and marketing of academic books. We also talk to series editors and authors, who will share their experiences of getting published and discuss their series or books. Stay tuned for future episodes and subscribe to our podcast to be the first to be notified. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

On July 12, 1979, Chicago’s Comiskey Park erupted into chaos during what was supposed to be a quirky baseball promotion. Shock radio jock Steve Dahl’s “Disco Demolition Night” incentivized listeners to bring disco records to a White Socks doubleheader, where, between games Dahl promised to blow them up in center field. Instead, the event descended into a riot, forcing the team to forfeit. On the surface, the incendiary event looked like a wild publicity stunt gone wrong — but in hindsight, it was tantamount to a book burning. In retrospect, the destruction of thousands of disco records was a symbolic rejection of the social meanings the sounds held, particularly for queer communities of color. The night marked not just the literal destruction of vinyl but a cultural turning point when disco’s dazzling reign collapsed under backlash. Or did it? In this episode, we explore how a stadium stunt revealed the deeper racial, sexual, and generational tensions shaping American music at the dawn of the 1980s. In episode seven, host Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares talk with Gillian Frank is a historian of gender, sexuality, religion, and politics in the twentieth-century United States at Trinity College, Dublin. He is a managing editor of NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality and co-host of the podcast Sexing History, which explores how the past shapes contemporary debates about sex. Frank’s scholarship has appeared in leading academic journals and edited volumes, and he has held research fellowships at Princeton and other institutions. His current book project examines the history of child adoption and foster care in the U.S., tracing how religion, race, and politics shaped family formation in modern America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

In Jón Leifs and the Musical Invention of Iceland (Indiana University Press, 2019), Árni Heimir Ingólfsson provides a striking account of the dramatic career of Iceland's iconic composer. Leifs (1899–1968) was the first Icelander to devote himself fully to composition at a time when a local music scene was only beginning to take form. He was a fervent nationalist in his art, fashioning an idiosyncratic and uncompromising 'Icelandic' sound from traditions of vernacular music with the aim to legitimize Iceland as an independent, culturally empowered nation. In addition to exploring Leifs's career, Ingólfsson provides detailed descriptions of Leifs's major works and their cultural contexts. Leifs's music was inspired by the Icelandic landscape and includes auditory depictions of volcanos, geysers, and waterfalls. The raw quality of his orchestral music is frequently enhanced by an expansive percussion section, including anvils, stones, sirens, bells, ships' chains, shotguns, and cannons. Largely neglected in his own lifetime, Leifs's music has been rediscovered in recent years and hailed as a singular and deeply original contribution to twentieth-century music. Jón Leifs and the Musical Invention of Iceland enriches our understanding and appreciation of Leifs and his music by exploring the political, literary and environmental contexts that influenced his work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

Only 35 years old, Taylor Swift has already had a long career and is a pop culture icon. Her music and career are reported on by the world’s press, and her most devoted fans dissect her every move looking for hidden meanings and clues about her next album and her life. Taylor Swift: The Star, The Songs, The Fans (Routledge, 2025) edited by Christa Anne Bentley, Kate Galloway, and Paula Clare Harper positions Swift as a prismatic figure for the musical world of the 21st century. Necessarily a first look at Swift’s career and songs since she presumably has many more years to make music, the authors in this collection analyze Swift’s songs and vocal choices, how she negotiates the fraught politics around her identity, and how fans and others understand her and her music. Including contributions by scholars, practitioners, and journalists, this book offers a serious consideration of one of today’s most popular music stars that shows why and how she matters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

In Don't Say Please: The Oral History of Die Kreuzen (Feral House, 2025), Sahan Jayasuriya brings readers into the world of 1980s hardcore in the Midwest. Amidst this explosion of American punk and experimental music, a band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, emerged with a groundbreaking sound. Die Kreuzen, a group that defied genre boundaries, fused punk and metal influences to create something entirely new. Were they punk? Were they metal? Die Kreuzen recorded what fans and critics hail as a defining album of hardcore punk, only to reinvent their sound with each subsequent release. They toured the world, made little money, and eventually broke up. Yet, this seemingly brief stint in music history has rendered Die Kreuzen legendary. But why? For the first time, band members Keith Brammer, Brian Egeness, Dan Kubinski, and Eric Tunison--alongside their friends, collaborators, and famous fans--reveal the inside story of Die Kreuzen. This book features rare images and artwork, with contributions from music icons like Thurston Moore, Steve Albini, Neko Case, Lou Barlow, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

The #metoo movement has forced many fans to consider what they should do when they learn that a beloved artist has acted immorally. One natural thought is that fans ought to give up the artworks of immoral artists, but according to Mary Beth Willard, it’s hard to find good reasons to do so. In Why It's OK to Enjoy the Work of Immoral Artists (Routledge, 2021), she contends that because most boycotts of artists won’t succeed, there’s no ethical reason to do so most of the time. She then argues that canceling artists is ethically risky because it encourages moral grandstanding.In this interview, Allison Leigh talks to Mary Beth Willard about the differences between enjoyment and engagement when it comes to immoral artists, as well as whether we should enjoy artworks that have immoral outlooks and behaviors embedded in them. Their conversation ranges from the problems associated with collective versus individual actions, the positive effects that giving up the work of immoral artists may have for shifting cultural norms, and the distinction between public and private enjoyment.Allison Leigh is Associate Professor of Art History and the SLEMCO/LEQSF Regents Endowed Professor in Art & Architecture at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her research explores masculinity in European and Russian art of the eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music