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Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam | 
 enlarge | Author: Mark Levine
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 159692
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0307353397
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.48424091767
EAN: 9780307353399
ASIN: 0307353397
Publication Date: July 8, 2008
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Product Description
“We play heavy metal because our lives are heavy metal.”
—Reda Zine, one of the founders of the Moroccan heavy-metal scene
“Music is the weapon of the future.”
—Fela Kuti
An eighteen-year-old Moroccan who loves Black Sabbath. A twenty-two-year-old rapper from the Gaza Strip. A young Lebanese singer who quotes Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” They are as representative of the world of Islam today as the conservatives and extremists we see every night on the news. Heavy metal, punk, hip-hop, and reggae are each the music of protest, and in many cases considered immoral in the Muslim world. This music may also turn out to be the soundtrack of a revolution unfolding across that world.
Why, despite governmental attempts to control and censor them, do these musicians and fans keep playing and listening? Partly, of course, for the joy of self-expression, but also because, in this region, everything is political. In Heavy Metal Islam, Mark LeVine explores the influence of Western music on the Middle East through interviews with musicians and fans, introducing us young Muslims struggling to reconcile their religion with a passion for music and a desire for change. The result is a revealing tour of contemporary Islamic culture through the evolving music scene in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Heavy Metal Islam is a surprising, wildly entertaining foray into a historically authoritarian region where music just might be the true democratizing force.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Interesting insight in a otherwise closed world October 11, 2008
Mark LeVine is researching Islam and Heavy Metal and with his book he is granting an insight to those, that otherwise never would have been able to discover what really is happening in the Islam world of music.
He catches the vibes of the present time, the atmosphere of the people and musicians involved and presents their fear and their anger in an objective and in a subjective way.
I recommend to read this book for everyone who is interested and Islam and the arabian countries.
 Better off watching "Heavy Metal in Baghdad"... September 6, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
While the concept of the book, namely the rarely discussed role of musical counterculture in the middle East, certainly has potential, its execution is a disaster. Mark LeVine's writing has all of the excitement of an academic dissertation, with none of the depth or research behind it. He clearly knows little or nothing about heavy metal, and also clearly did little or no immersion into the music to learn about it. (The editor also did no fact checking--can't "high brow" books about a "low brow" topic at least have someone acquainted with the topic read it at some point prior to publication?)
Just about every mention about the actual music or bands involved is riddled with errors that a simple Google search would have corrected. Just a few: mentioning a Rage Against the Machine song as being called "F*** you, I won't do what you tell me", describing a poster of the "band" "Cowboys From Hell," and worst of all, discussing Iron Maiden's famous mascot, "Freddy". Come on, people--that is just sloppy!
Despite all of that, the biggest problem remains that LeVine is such an undistinguished writer that "Heavy Metal Islam" is a stultifyingly boring read. I couldn't help but imagine what the book would have been like by a compelling author (such as David Hadju, whose recent "Ten Cent Plague" makes the world of 1950's anti-comic book hysteria pop with life) who could have drawn out the passion and frustration in these people's stories. While it suffers from some of the same repetition as this book, the documentary "Heavy Metal in Baghdad" is a much more evocative depiction of the role of heavy metal in the lives of a group of young Iraqis struggling to fulfill their musical ambitions, while trying simply to survive.
 Pretentious, irrelevant August 17, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is apretty good example of what's wrong with academic studies of the Islamic world. LeVine is so impressed with his own theory (which is, in brief, "wouldn't it be, like, totally cool if music, like, liberated the people, man?!?) that he fails to see how utterly irrelevant this music is in the Islamic world. Pretty poorly written too--which is, in any event, standard for these sorts of polemics. A silly book.
Frankfurt School for Dummies August 15, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is a grad student's wet dream--a combination of half-understood Interwar social theory, and "cool" manifestations of counter-culture in the Muslim world. In reality, it all has precious little to do with Islam--it's almost exclusively the work of an educated westernized wealthy elite. LeVine is either dishonest or very very foolish. I'm guessing both.
Rock (and Rap) the Casbah August 13, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
American and Western rockers like to pretend they're revolutionaries who are sticking it to the man and changing the world. But in Muslim nations, metalheads and rappers fight the sting of real political, cultural, religious, and military harassment. LeVine is both a working musician and an academic expert who has travelled extensively through the Middle East and North Africa, and he delivers a fun and readbale odyssey through several poorly understood nations, highlighting groundbreaking artists and the political/cultural developments that inspire, and are inspired by, the metal and rap underground. In addition to showcasing a great many intriguing artists who are using the power of forbidden music to comment on the struggles faced by their peoples, LeVine also illustrates the great diversity of Middle Eastern societies, presenting complex and varied cultures that are a far cry from the simplistic religious militancy displayed in the Western press since 9/11.
Underground musicians of the region really are sticking it to the man (that is, the religious and/or military big brothers of their countries) and have had a real impact on social movements and cultural awakenings. While you'll need some tolerance for LeVine's lapses into turgid professor-ese (like an ongoing anemic application of public sphere theory and occasional lapses into big pseudo-thoughts like "the complex politics of cultural production"), he more than makes up for it with stirring descriptions of the sounds created by esoteric musicians and the worldviews of the region's progressives and nonconformists. LeVine also presents a plausible (though probably monochromatic) young person's view of the state of the Muslim world and its sociological near-futures, mostly dispensing with unrealistic idealism.
In addition to being a plausible political/cultural study and an even better work of globe-trotting musicology, this book ultimately brings well-deserved attention to musicians who have literally risked their lives or livelihoods to be heard. Count on me to pick up the forthcoming CD from LeVine's growing Heavy Metal Islam artist development project. [~doomsdayer520~]
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