An intimate exploration of New York City through the music that defines it.
From Broadway to the Bronx tells the history of New York City in song across a variety of different genres that the city has been home to and instrumental in developing, covering everything from early twentieth-century sheet music to Broadway’s musical theater, hip-hop, disco, punk, dancehall, but also contemporary metal, rock, and pop. It features an analysis of the work of artists with intimate connections to the city like Billy Joel, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Debbie Harry, Shinehead, and the Wu-Tang Clan, as well as an exclusive interview with RENT original cast member, Anthony Rapp. The collection includes essays from authors across the disciplines of cultural studies, media studies, cultural history, and musicology, resulting in a far-ranging treatment of the interconnection of the city space and its musical history.
From Broadway to the Bronx tells the history of New York City in song across a variety of different genres that the city has been home to and instrumental in developing, covering everything from early twentieth-century sheet music to Broadway’s musical theater, hip-hop, disco, punk, dancehall, but also contemporary metal, rock, and pop. It features an analysis of the work of artists with intimate connections to the city like Billy Joel, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Debbie Harry, Shinehead, and the Wu-Tang Clan, as well as an exclusive interview with RENT original cast member, Anthony Rapp. The collection includes essays from authors across the disciplines of cultural studies, media studies, cultural history, and musicology, resulting in a far-ranging treatment of the interconnection of the city space and its musical history.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Veronika Keller and Sabrina Mittermeier
1. New York’s Tin Pan Alley in Two and a Half Songs: Immigrants and the New York Music Industry between the 1890s and 1910s
Veronika Keller
2. ‘The Milkman’s on His Way’: ‘Lullaby of Broadway’ and the Illusion of New York
Chris Flinterman
3. Sweet Charity, Musical Cosmopolitanism, and New York City
Nick Braae
4. Of Promises and Prisons: Ambivalent Visions of the Big Apple in The Last Poets’ ‘On the Subway’ and ‘New York, New York’
Martin Butler and Marek Jezinski
5. ‘I, Too, Sing New York’: Gil Scott-Heron from ‘New York City’ to ‘New York is Is Killing Me’
Justin Patch
6. ‘An Atmosphere Where Anything Is Allowed’: Patti Smith’s Horses and 1970s New York Punk
Ryan Donovan Purcell
7. No Place Like New York: Diana Ross’s ‘Home’ (1978) from The Wiz
Jaap Kooijman
8. The Vibe, Vocality and Vitality of Billy Joel’s ‘New York State Of Mind’
Diane Hughes
9. The Lights Are Out on the Mean Streets: Lou Reed’s ‘Dirty Blvd.’ and Inequality in New York City
Stephen Petrus
10. Anthrax and Public Enemy ‘Bring the Noise’: The Musical Collaboration Tthat Helped Define aA New New York Sound
Ben Quail
11. Forgotten No Longer: Staten Island, ‘C.R.E.A.M.’ and the Emergence of the Wu-Tang Clan
Brianna Quade
12. Shinehead’s ‘Jamaican in New York’: The Circularity of Jamaican and African American Cultural Practice and Reggae’s Resonance in Hip Hop from The Bronx to Brooklyn, and Beyond
James Barber
13. ‘A Different Kind of Apple Now’: David Rudder’s ‘The Immigrants’ and ‘Forty- One Bullets’
Alison Mc Letchie
14. ‘It Tells the Truth, and Things That Tell the Truth Tend to Last’: Anthony Rapp on Jonathan Larson’s RENT
Sabrina Mittermeier and Anthony Rapp
15. ‘Life’s Ill, Sometimes Life Might Kill’: Cannibal Ox’s The Cold Vein
Alex de Lacey
16. ‘North of 96th Street’: Latinx Class Mobility and In the Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes
Elena Machado Sáez
17. ‘Lighters Up’: Lil’ Kim’s Ode to Brooklyn: ‘In the Concrete 181 Jungle, the Strong Stand and Rumble’
Emma Horrex
18. Citing the Past as a Political Resource against Donald Trump: Performing Punk and Queer Feminism in Blondie’s Music Video Doom or Destiny
Lene Annette Karpp
Notes on Contributors
Index
Veronika Keller and Sabrina Mittermeier
1. New York’s Tin Pan Alley in Two and a Half Songs: Immigrants and the New York Music Industry between the 1890s and 1910s
Veronika Keller
2. ‘The Milkman’s on His Way’: ‘Lullaby of Broadway’ and the Illusion of New York
Chris Flinterman
3. Sweet Charity, Musical Cosmopolitanism, and New York City
Nick Braae
4. Of Promises and Prisons: Ambivalent Visions of the Big Apple in The Last Poets’ ‘On the Subway’ and ‘New York, New York’
Martin Butler and Marek Jezinski
5. ‘I, Too, Sing New York’: Gil Scott-Heron from ‘New York City’ to ‘New York is Is Killing Me’
Justin Patch
6. ‘An Atmosphere Where Anything Is Allowed’: Patti Smith’s Horses and 1970s New York Punk
Ryan Donovan Purcell
7. No Place Like New York: Diana Ross’s ‘Home’ (1978) from The Wiz
Jaap Kooijman
8. The Vibe, Vocality and Vitality of Billy Joel’s ‘New York State Of Mind’
Diane Hughes
9. The Lights Are Out on the Mean Streets: Lou Reed’s ‘Dirty Blvd.’ and Inequality in New York City
Stephen Petrus
10. Anthrax and Public Enemy ‘Bring the Noise’: The Musical Collaboration Tthat Helped Define aA New New York Sound
Ben Quail
11. Forgotten No Longer: Staten Island, ‘C.R.E.A.M.’ and the Emergence of the Wu-Tang Clan
Brianna Quade
12. Shinehead’s ‘Jamaican in New York’: The Circularity of Jamaican and African American Cultural Practice and Reggae’s Resonance in Hip Hop from The Bronx to Brooklyn, and Beyond
James Barber
13. ‘A Different Kind of Apple Now’: David Rudder’s ‘The Immigrants’ and ‘Forty- One Bullets’
Alison Mc Letchie
14. ‘It Tells the Truth, and Things That Tell the Truth Tend to Last’: Anthony Rapp on Jonathan Larson’s RENT
Sabrina Mittermeier and Anthony Rapp
15. ‘Life’s Ill, Sometimes Life Might Kill’: Cannibal Ox’s The Cold Vein
Alex de Lacey
16. ‘North of 96th Street’: Latinx Class Mobility and In the Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes
Elena Machado Sáez
17. ‘Lighters Up’: Lil’ Kim’s Ode to Brooklyn: ‘In the Concrete 181 Jungle, the Strong Stand and Rumble’
Emma Horrex
18. Citing the Past as a Political Resource against Donald Trump: Performing Punk and Queer Feminism in Blondie’s Music Video Doom or Destiny
Lene Annette Karpp
Notes on Contributors
Index