Local Music Scenes and Globalization: Transnational Platforms in Beirut

This book offers the first in'¬depth study of the popular and experimental music scenes in Beirut, looking at musicians working towards a new understanding of musical creativity and music culture in a country that is dominated by mass'¬mediated pop music, propaganda, and programmed music. Burkhalter studies the generation of musicians born at the beginning of the Civil War in the Lebanese capital, an urban and cosmopolitan center through which to look at emerging musical phenomena building on a long tradition of cultural activities and exchanges with the Arab world, Europe, the US, and the former Soviet Union. These Lebanese rappers, rockers, death'¬metal, jazz, and electro'¬acoustic musicians; free improvisers; Arabic singers; and oud, qanoun, and riqq players choose local and global forms to express their connection to the broader musical, cultural, social, and political environment. Burkhalter explores how these musicians organize their own small concerts for '¬Üinsider'¬" audiences, set up small music labels and Internet platforms, and are in close contact with like'¬minded musicians in Europe, the US, and the Arab world, studying how the accelerated processes of globalization, digitization, and urbanization have led to new musical phenomena and aesthetics around the globe. Several key pieces are analyzed with methods from ethnomusicology, popular music studies, and musicology, and contextualized through interviews with the musicians/composers, contributing to the study of localization and globalization processes in music in an increasingly digitalized and transnational world.