What is the relationship between music and radical social change? This book explores their confounding and exciting interrelations in original and engaging ways. Beginning with how capitalism and empire have progressively twisted and atomized our aurally aesthetic experiences over the past century, Alexander Billet examines how social struggles and mass protests challenge the isolation and commodification of music, a challenge which can, in turn, suggest visions of a life lived collectively and on our own terms.Part manifesto, part theoretical exegesis, part love letter to human creativity, Shake the City is a rigorous and poetic plea for our world to be as musical as we deserve it to be.

What is the relationship between music and radical social change? This book explores their confounding and exciting interrelations in original and engaging ways. Beginning with how capitalism and empire have progressively twisted and atomized our aurally aesthetic experiences over the past century, Alexander Billet examines how social struggles and mass protests challenge the isolation and commodification of music, a challenge which can, in turn, suggest visions of a life lived collectively and on our own terms.Part manifesto, part theoretical exegesis, part love letter to human creativity, Shake the City is a rigorous and poetic plea for our world to be as musical as we deserve it to be.