ASIAN MUSIC SPECIAL ISSUE ON INDONESIAN POP MUSIC

Globalization, post-colonial identities, and Islam inform and complicate pop music in Indonesia, a Southeast Asian nation increasingly important on the global scene. The current issue of Asian Music—“Constructing Genre in Indonesian Popular Music: From Colonized Archipelago to Contemporary World Stage” 44(2) available in July 2013—examines commercial music from this island nation.

The set of seven studies considers how current directions reflect and inform cultural flows that are both regional and global, referencing colonial and post-colonial historical events. Topics include kroncong, dangdut, campur sari, fusion musics, and indie bands in Bali and Java. One study concerns the global reach of the fusion band Krakatau. The authors are known area specialists, including David Harnish, Brent Luvaas, Rebekah Moore, R. Anderson Sutton, Andrew Weintraub, and Philip Yampolsky. The issue is co-edited by Jeremy Wallach and Esther Clinton.

By focusing upon the single nation of Indonesia and the single medium of pop music, this issue of Asian Music provides a cogent frame with cohesive content useful for any study of an area-defined pop culture and its dynamics of commercialization, domestication, hybridization, mediatization, decolonization, and regionalism.

The single issue 44(2) can be ordered at a cost of US$23 within the US, US$31 in Canada, and US$36 international. Annual subscription for Volume 44 (2013) includes two issues. For information on ordering see http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/journals/asian-music.

The Society for Asian Music is an ethnomusicology organization devoted to the appreciation, study, and research of the diverse musics of Asia. Asian Music is its journal. The Society provides small grants for student researchers. For more information about the Society see http://asianmusic.skidmore.edu/.

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