The issue of how music transverses cultural, national and racial boundaries is a source of ongoing fascination for popular music scholars, and new writing on the subject is always welcome. This volume, part of Ashgate's Popular and Folk Music Series, brings together some of Stratton's previously published work in this area.

Chapter 1 focuses on the black British entertainer Kenny Lynch, arguing that the extent of his success was dependent upon the attitude of the British public towards people of colour in the face of changing demographics following the Second World War. The second chapter traces the song ‘My Boy Lollipop’ from New York to Britain by way of Jamaica. Chapters 3 and 5 focus on the development of the characters who are the subject of the songs under discussion, namely ‘Johnny Reggae’ and ‘Brother Louie’ (originally by Jonathan King and Hot Chocolate respectively). An analysis of The Beatles' ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La Da’ is offered in Chapter 4, emphasising the complex mix of diasporic influences – Jamaican, Trinidadian, Nigerian and Irish – at play in McCartney's writing. Chapter 6 examines the ska revival of the late 1970s and early 1980s, comparing its meaning and reception with those of the first wave of ska in Britain during the 1960s. Chapter 7 moves away from Britain to explore the career of Rachid Taha in France, with analyses of three particular songs. The eighth and final chapter returns to a focus on a single song, this time The Equals' ‘Police on My Back’, with analyses of four socially and linguistically diverse cover versions.

According to the publisher's description, ‘Stratton explores the concept of “song careers”, referring to how a song is picked up and then transformed by being revisioned by different artists and in different cultural contexts'. Frustratingly, the concept of the ‘song career’ is not actually introduced in the book, and the focus in some chapters on artists or genres rather than songs further muddies the water. Indeed, broader themes (e.g. the effects of postcolonialism and diaspora on musicians and their work) are more explicitly and consistently woven through the eight essays.

Given that Stratton is not a musicologist, the lack of technical analysis of the music under discussion is understandable. However, even for a reader without a musicological background, pointers to this kind of material would have been a welcome addition to the book. For example, much of the research concerns the movement of music between Britain and the Caribbean and, consequently, the analysis focuses for the most part on certain genres. A brief primer as to the key musical differences between these genres (e.g. ska, rocksteady, reggae, roots and bluebeat) would have been of great help to the uninitiated reader. References to music as having apparent ‘whiteness’ or ‘blackness’ would similarly have benefitted from greater musicological critique. More positively, lyrics are given as much attention as music, reflecting how languages are able to merge and mingle within a song, and the effect this can have on its meaning.

One of the book's main strengths is an impressive level of detail covering everything from artists' biographies to global economics, the latter in particular offering the reader a more thorough contextual understanding of the works under discussion. The rich detail provided about certain songwriters and performers does, however, raise the important question as to why so few female artists are featured. While the discussion of the Spanish singer Amparo Sánchez in the final chapter is very welcome, the overall imbalance in this regard is puzzling. Perhaps the most obvious omission is Pauline Black: biologically of Nigerian and Jewish heritage and adopted by white parents, Black must have a near-unique perspective of the racial faultlines explored in the book, yet (despite her publishing an autobiography in 2012) her voice is absent from Stratton's discussion of the ska revival. Indeed, The Selecter are given little more than a passing mention. Stratton notes (after Simon Reynolds) that the band ‘had the shortest run of any of the well-known ska revival groups’ (p. 143), and that this may have been due in part to the fact that they had more black members than Madness or The Specials; seemingly no consideration is given to the idea that The Selecter, the only band of the three to be fronted by a woman, may have had their career curtailed for other reasons. Another obvious inclusion would have been Sheila Hylton, who – born in London and raised in Kingston – achieved her biggest UK hit with a cover of ‘The Bed's Too Big Without You’ by The Police, a reggae song written and originally performed by a white British band. By way of contrast, the relevance of biographical detail for Paul McCartney stretching back to his maternal grandparents is not entirely clear.

A major frustration with this book is that it suffers from a lack of close editing. Minor typographical errors and inconsistencies aside, there is one serious factual error concerning the ethnicity of The Specials' Terry Hall (p. 145); the duplication of a quotation (p. 4, p. 171); and a quotation left untranslated from Spanish while other non-English quotations are presented in both original and translation (p. 178). Elsewhere, references to Wikipedia entries do leave the reader wondering whether more convincing source material might have been used.

As a volume, When Music Migrates is somewhat strained: the move from one topic to another can be jarring, and the lack of a concluding chapter further exacerbates the sense that the book's richest material has not been exploited as much as it might have been. This is a great shame, as the individual essays are – as is to be expected, based on Stratton's previous work – truly interesting and insightful. Happily, the book has led to rather a lot of new music migrating from its pages to this reader's record collection, which is always a good result.