The recording industry-Popular music in Taiwan

Abstract

Communication theorists historically have found the medium of popular music unprovocative, and researchers grow weary of pursuing elusive data. The proverbial tide is turning of late. The Cambridge University Press` Popular Music Yearbook achieved its fifth anniversary and soon evolves into a quarterly journal. The recent literature annotated below is no longer as mindlessly starstruck as before. James Lull`s prospective book for later this year, Popular Music and Communication: Social and Cultural Perspectives, signals a current interest in serious scholarship.Deanna Campbell Robinson transformed our own good intentions into material reality. Among the several experts who unselfishly advised us this time, Ms. Robinson recommended a stunning crew from across the globe (Taiwan, Hungary, Israel, England, Sweden and the United States) including a classical pianist and composer. On the backs of telex messengers, transatlantic cable operators and express mail carriers we have constructed an overview of current research in popular music. Given the strong reception of our very first Review and Criticism section on archives (1:1), we did not neglect to cover archival holdings once again. Those inspired by the documentation below will come to realize that students of music technology are no longer probing the dark recesses of a remote territory. And CSMC reserves some of the credit for itself, publishing a disproportionate number of articles on popular music in the first ten issues.In Review and Criticism 1:3, the finest recent books on television were critiqued. But the recording industry is the first mass medium to receive systematic treatment in this high-demand space. Primes inter pares.