Muse Sick

Ian Brennan, a Grammy-winning music producer, has written his seventh book, a manifesto organized as fifty-nine brief notes. It examines how mass production and commercial interests have damaged the arts. Built around core ideas and suggested steps, this compact, inexpensive volume follows two earlier books by Brennan: How Music Dies (or Lives): Field Recording and the Battle for Democracy in the Arts, and Silenced by The Music Meritocracy Myth.

Popular culture now runs through everyday life, entering homes and lodging in people's minds through images and catchy, repetitive melodies. Many people feel powerless against injustice at most levels of society. Brennan argues that pop music is an area where real change is possible. By deliberately turning away from the cheap, ubiquitous, prepackaged offerings that surround us, listeners can help rebalance the wider world, one attentive listener at a time.

Across its fifty-nine concise points, Brennan explains how corporate media has narrowed local cultures and individual creativity, producing a shortage of genuine variety even within the idea of diversity. The narrative sections draw on Brennan's ongoing field recordings with very different communities, including the Sheltered Workshop Singers. Photographs by Marilena Umuhoza Delli accompany each story and bring its subjects to life.