ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the complex negotiations at the heart of the struggle for Asian bands and musicians to be heard on their own terms and to be recognized primarily as artists, rather than as representatives of some exotic and imagined community. It considers the importance of novelty and difference in popular musical reportage and examines attempts by the music press to exploit and promote the manifestation of the 'new' phenomenon of Asian bands. The chapter discusses the various techniques that Asian bands have adopted in order to transgress stereotypical readings of their work to enable themselves to survive and flourish as part of the national music scene. Since the initial emergence of a number of high-profile Asian bands in the UK, there has been a significant amount of national media coverage that has attempted to make sense of the array of contemporary Asian musical expression by constructing the notion of a discrete Asian scene.
