Shara Rambarran

Musicologist, Writer, Researcher, Editor

United Kingdom

I have written across a range of titles in print and online. I am the author of Virtual Music: Sound, Music, and Image in the Digital Era (Bloomsbury), and co-editor of Music and Virtuality (Oxford University Press), Popular Music Education (Routledge), Diva: Feminism and Fierceness from Pop to Hip-Hop (Bloomsbury), and Popular Music Methodologies (Intellect, forthcoming). I have been an editor of various music journals, including the Journal on the Art of Record Production. I have written for online publications including PopMatters, Korea.net, and Bloomsbury’s Music and Sound (as a music biographer).

Specialising in all areas of music and popular culture, I’m available for features and news writing, research and editing.

Portfolio

Articles (some examples)

PopMatters
The 20 Most Memorable Songs of 1991

So much remarkable music was released in 1991 that it's difficult to choose just 20 memorable songs without a few omissions. This list conveys how rich and diverse 1991 was

Medium
07/06/2022
Alexander Bard: The "King Midas" of Scandipop?

If you're pop lover, it is likely that at least one song in your playlist, has been produced by a Scandinavian hitmaker such as Max Martin. But have you heard of Alexander Bard, a significant music creator to the Scandipop scene?

Books (some examples)

Bloomsbury
08/04/2021
Virtual Music: Sound, Music, and Image in the Digital Era

Virtual Music explores the interactive relationship of sound, music, and image, and its users (creators/musicians/performers/audience/consumers). Areas involving the historical, technological, and creative practices of virtual music are surveyed including its connection with creators, musicians, performers, audience, and consumers.

Oxford University Press
07/01/2020
The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality

The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality addresses eight themes that often overlap and interact with one another. Questions of the role of the audience, artistic agency, individual and communal identity, subjectivity, and spatiality repeatedly arise. Authors specifically explore phenomena including holographic musicians and virtual bands, and the benefits and detriments surrounding the free circulation of music on the internet.

Bloomsbury
10/05/2023
Diva Feminism and Fierceness from Pop to Hip-Hop

The diva – a central figure in the landscape of contemporary popular culture: gossip-generating, scandal-courting, paparazzi-stalked. And yet the diva is at the epicentre of creative endeavours that resonate with contemporary feminist ideas, kick back against diminished social expectations, boldly call-out casual sexism and industry misogyny and, in terms of hip-hop, explores intersectional oppressions and unapologetically celebrates non-white cultural heritages.