Book review of: China with a Cut: Globalisation, Urban Youth and Popular Music. Jeroen de Kloet. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010. 264 pp.

Abstract

Jeroen de Kloet’s ethnographic monograph, China with a Cut, presents fascinating insights into the complexity and diversity of rock music in China, focusing on the 1990s until around 2008. Through fieldwork, interviews, and historical comparisons, the author takes us on a journey, from dingy Beijing clubs featuring in-your-face punks to the coffee houses of folk-rock balladeers to the stadiums of pop-rock mega stars. We hear the longing in fan letters and complaining of record-company capitalists. Along the way, de Kloet adds his own theoretical and critical perspectives so that we get a unique and nuanced portrait of youth, politics, and globalization in contemporary China. A pleasure to read, this book would be great for undergraduate or graduate students because it is accessible, theoretically rich, and appropriately controversial.