Journal Article

Media of The Masses: Cassette Culture in Modern Egypt

Rubin, Jessie

2023

Overview

(Ethno)musicologists will benefit from Simon's treatment of an object as a primary point of departure-in the case of his book, the circulation of cassette players and cassettes themselves, and the state's subsequent efforts to gatekeep cultural production via cassettes. [...]Simon notes how the forging of a so-called \"modern\" home was generated by both companies and individual celebrities around particular commodities (48). The archival material utilized here is a large pool of weekly magazine and newspaper articles who published popular crime reports primarily aimed at publicizing the success of Egypt's security sector; Simon powerfully provides a counter-reading of such narratives, this revealing the \"presence of a thriving black market for cassette technology\" (62). Just pages later Simon builds on his analysis of the Sadat photo with a reading of a photograph found at a paper market in Cairo of family members enjoying their cassette radio at a beach vacation, shedding light on the \"interactions of ordinary Egyptians with audiotapes and the object's relationship to leisure\" (44).

• Publisher: Columbia University, Department of Music
• Subject: Archives & records / Culture / Musical performances / Radios / Sadat, Anwar el- (1918-1981) / Soundscapes / Working class