This text on Mute Records offers some interesting, and sometimes provocative, comments on a surprisingly wide array of topics ranging from gender identity, sexuality and sexual expression to race and minstrelsy as well as more ‘traditional’ musicological analysis.

Whilst the Mute label might be unfamiliar to some – this writer certainly identified some gaps of knowledge when reading the book – most will be a little more familiar with some of its roster, which include Goldfrapp, Moby, Depeche Mode and, of course, the Normal, founder Daniel Miller's pseudonym and where it all began. The book offers various perspectives on these acts, but also the more obscure ones, such as Arca, allowing the reader to gain familiarity with a cross section of Mute's output. It also manages to highlight the importance of independent labels within the music (and cultural) industries.

Particular highlights include Richard Osborne's chapter on Moby's Play album from 1999 that considers sampling as a form of minstrelsy (‘Moby, Minstrelsy and Melville’, pp. 169–82). Sampling continues to be a source of academic debate and thought, especially from an industry and copyright perspective. Osborne includes a brief discussion on copyright issues as well, as it pertains to the main point in his chapter, insomuch as to acknowledge that African-American blues performers were initially not properly credited for their work on the samples used by Moby for the album. He notes ‘Play also features a variety of black voices. […] Despite the prominent use of these samples, Moby's is the only name featured on the sleeve of Play. […] Moreover, when he performs these songs live, he half-mimes and half-sings along with the sampled vocals. The inference is that this is work’ (pp. 174–5; the sleeve of Play was later corrected to include credits for samples). From here, Osborne strategically posits that Moby's action are equivalent to modern minstrelsy: ‘Moby puts on these black voices in a manner that has correspondences with the minstrel performers’ adoption of blackface’ (p. 175). This notion appears quite unique, but Osborne provides a very robust and convincing argument that, should one accept it (which this reviewer does), changes the discourse surrounding ownership and sampling considerably, and would warrant further work.

Another highlight is Andy Pope's chapter ‘Fans of Faith and Devotion: Obsession, Nostalgia and Depeche Mode’ (pp. 59–70) that considers the Depeche Mode fanbase, rather than the band itself. In it, Pope discusses ideas linked to nostalgia and cultural capital, but also considers cultural, and shared cultural, memory. It serves as an interesting addition to the discourses surrounding fandom studies, and provides an accessible analysis, and thus methodology, of documentary film. Pope manages to negotiate several complex areas of fandom skilfully. He even considers collecting cultures, albeit briefly, which is an often stigmatised area, but is here contextualised appropriately within cultural capital: ‘The collecting of memorabilia connected to the object of fandom is a behaviour often associated with obsessive fans, whether it is all the mixes of a particular song or album or, as with Kedrick, a collection of 500-plus T-shirts. […] Kedrick's enthusiasm to forge a more extreme link to the object of his fandom is, I suggest, an attempt to elicit cultural capital out of the relationship’ (pp. 64–5).

Overall, this edited book provides an interesting exploration into different genres, and our understanding of them. However, it is structured ‘in a chronological manner, sequenced according to the date at which the artist first released music with the company’ (p. 7). Given that the text was compiled during Mute's 40th anniversary in 2018 (p. 1) this might seem natural, but because of the complex and transferable nature of the themes explored, this reviewer would have preferred a thematic structure instead. A thematic structure might also have allowed the editors to preface each theme or section with a short introduction that could have eliminated the need for certain repetition throughout the different chapters, which at times was somewhat frustrating. Similarly, signposting these themes very clearly would likely attract readers to the book who might be less familiar with the label itself, but engaged with the topics included within the discussions. Nevertheless, the issues and artists considered, and the approaches used should provide an interesting insight to those who read it.