The explosive development of a jazz-band tradition in South African cities from the 1920s – closely allied to the equally rapid maturation of a vaudeville tradition which has been in existence at least since the First World War – is one of the most astonishing features of urban-black culture in that country in the first half of the century. Surrounded by myriad other musics – styles forged by migrant workers; traditional styles transplanted from the countryside to the mines; petty bourgeois choral song; music of the church and of western-classical provenance – jazz and vaudeville quickly established themselves as the music which represented and articulated the hopes and aspirations of the most deeply urbanised sectors of the African working class.

It is a common argument by now that the modern mass media and the music they disseminate have been ‘used by economically and politically powerful interests within the state to support the capitalist relations of production and to legitimise the social, economic and political organisation of society’ (Tomaselli et al. 1986, p. 19). Criticism directed more specifically at radio has focused chiefly on capitalist societies in which there are multiple channels of entertainment and information. A recent issue of the present journal devoted to radio, for instance, was concerned only with the UK, Canada, and the USA (Popular Music, 9/2, 1990). Little critical attention has been focused on the use of radio to ‘legitimise the social, economic and political organisation of society’ in countries in which the state assumes full control over programming and transmission.

It is frequently claimed that cultural processes in South Asia are best understood as being informed by an ethos of ‘Unity in Diversity’. The same cannot be said for culture as it has been, and still is, experienced by Indian South Africans. Far from being the homogeneous group to which apartheid South Africa relegated Indian South Africans in 1948 for the purposes of political control, the ‘Community’, as it is euphemistically called by politicians of all kinds, is plagued by sectarianism and conflict. This contest engages individuals and genuine communities who are seeking to establish a freely chosen identity, economic stability and political status.

Since the early 1970s the advent of cassette technology has had a profound effect on music industries worldwide. This influence has been particularly marked in the developing world, where cassettes have largely replaced vinyl records and have extended their impact into regions, classes and genres previously uninfluenced by the mass media. Cassettes have served to decentralise and democratise both production and consumption, thereby counterbalancing the previous tendency toward oligopolisation of international commercial recording industries.

One of the formations which helps to shape the meaning of modern pop music is the charts. In theory, the charts define the most popular of popular musics, the goal, the pinnacle of success. Both professionals and audience dedicate large amounts of time and money to producing and consuming this series of comparative market histories produced at rapid and regular intervals. Technology is bent to the service of the research in order that the figures be produced more quickly and with the appearance of accuracy. But why should we be interested in the Top 40 itself rather than its music? Writers on pop have provided us with some detailed descriptions of the charts (Frith 1978; Harker 1980; Wallis and Malm 1984; Street 1986), but few have noted that this level of consumer obsession with sales figures is almost unique to the record industry. Consumers of other commodities do not usually consult a specialist book or magazine in order to discover the past sales history of their favourite brand, nor do they listen to particular radio stations in order to ascertain the best selling product of the week. Why then should the sales results of EMI, Polygram, WEA and others be of interest to their consumers when the same data about multi-national corporations in other market sectors are primarily of interest to market insiders and analysts? An important caveat needs to be added in that popular music is now not the only type of cultural production that foregrounds sales figures. More recently popular literature (the ‘Bestsellers List’), video and films have all begun to use this format but in none of these cases is the chart as central as it is with pop music.