World Music: The Basics (review)

Abstract

World Music: The Basics. By Richard Nidel. (The Basics Series.) New York: Routledge, 2005. [xvi, 404 p. ISBN 0415-96800-3. $75.00 (hbk.); 0-41596801-1. $16.95 (pbk.).] Bibliography, discographies, index, glossary. Richard Nidel's book, part of Routledge's The Basics series, offers whirlwind tour of world's popular music, with selected descriptions of folk and classical traditions. After brief threepage introduction, work is divided into major categories for Africa, Europe, Middle East, Asia, North and Central America and Caribbean, South America, and Australia and South Pacific. These large categories are in turn divided into subcategories, which are further divided by country in alphabetical order. The most extensive coverage is of Africa (78 pages) and Europe (99 pages), and least coverage is of Middle-East (19 pages) and Australia and South Pacific (9 pages). Paragraph-length profiles of selected artists, some of which might be rarely discussed elsewhere, are inserted throughout work. The book's strength is in its compactness, its broad coverage, and its attention to current popular performers often overlooked in world textbooks and reference works. It has number of limitations, however, and falls short of being, in words from its own description, a complete introduction to world (cover). The book is not written with academic rigor. The author is lawyer who also books musical acts in his New York club and writes about and wine. He makes no mention of field of ethnomusicology, in which serious study of world's traditional and popular musical styles has been undertaken for fifty years. Writing in an informal style without footnotes, he often includes impressionistic and subjective statements about history and of countries and regions. Because we have few means to judge sources or reliability of information, authority of author, or balance of coverage, many readers will ultimately feel uneasy with work. It straddles fence between being reference work and favorite musicians and compact discs document. It does include much general historical and contextual information, but because it straddles fence it defaults in my mind largely to latter. Reminiscent of casual accounts one finds in magazine articles and on informal websites, book will generally not be good source for research papers on world topics. The author would probably acknowledge less rigorous qualities of his book, and would likely point out work is not intended for university students or scholars. He emphasizes in his introduction that his definitions match those of the (p. 3, presumably trade of marketing, booking, and recording commercial music), and he implies that his focus is on industry when he explains he is highlighting countries, artists, and genres that have made most significant contributions to world music (p. 2, by which he means commercial and popular side of world music). In making these statements, he leads us to believe he is not exploring terminology and models found in academic studies of world music. The non-academic nature of book might not be so noteworthy if Routledge did not state on its website that all books in The Basics series provide perfect starting point for undergraduate students to develop full and rounded knowledge of their chosen subject. In truth, Nidel's book will only marginally be useful in college classes in ethnomusicology. Although Nidel does often point out some of longstanding cultural traditions of region, his book focuses on commerciallysuccessful artists, and for that reason its value to college students is limited. The book would be best categorized as trade paperback targeting general audience, especially popular enthusiasts. Nidel wanted, it would appear, to write compact book that was highly readable, fun to browse, and filled with brief and generalized information about world's popular for non-academic readers, and he largely succeeded in that goal. …