ABSTRACT
In February 1979 revolution, Iranian television used its new freedom to broadcast previously banned revolutionary songs and, on high rotation, Farhad's politically significant song Vahdat. Just as the revolution in Iran inverted the social positions of many citizens and their work, so too migration to Los Angeles shifted the social status of many Iranian Americans, including some popular musicians and their audiences. After the revolution, new paradoxes and ruptures came to dominate life in Iran and to affect the cultural practices of those who emigrated. The foreign and Iranian pop music recorded in Los Angeles were sold by some people in the street secretly and most of the people had a double deck at home in order to copy the illegal songs. In Iran, motrebi music had been characterized by the humour of the powerless, as representatives of the lower social classes mocked the powerful, wealthy and "beautiful".
