Cruisicology is a welcome addition to the growing literature on popular musicians’ working lives. Drawing on work which Cashman undertook for his PhD and on his own experience of working as a musician on cruise ships, this small book has four chapters dealing with the history of music and cruising, contexts and locations, musicians’ experiences and developments in the 21st century. The evidence on display here is from the pre-Covid world and another reminder of what has been missing from most of our lives at the time of writing (June 2021). The book was in production pre-Covid and so that theme is not addressed.

In the Introduction readers are told that the emphasis is on the context (p. xiii, emphasis in original) as cruise musicians’ working lives are determined by the corporate policy of their employers and the image they wish to convey to passengers, the vast majority of whom will be middle-aged and older. The role of music here is to enhance the passengers’ experiences and indeed it is the experience economy which cruising is part of. This is not an arena in which musicians can partake in artistic freedom, but one in which they have to knuckle down to corporate demands. It is also one of hierarchies and of a lifestyle that can have a deleterious effect on musicians’ lives post-cruising. The authors are clear that they want to contribute to Popular Music Studies beyond what they see as a customary concentration on ‘the supposedly “authentic” core of popular music’ (p. xvii). So this is not about stardom, but about the unknowns and their working lives. While this is welcome, it runs the danger of focusing too much on industrial practices at the expense of musical ones. The fact that the former largely determines the latter does not detract from the fact that the book would have been embellished by hearing more from the cruise musicians themselves.

The first chapter outlines the history of musicians’ employment on sailing ships, tracing its development to the late 1700s when members of sailing crew with musical abilities might be pressed into action by captains who were keen to entertain passengers. By the late 19th century, musicians were being specifically used to entertain passengers. As the cruisers themselves became grander, so the possibilities for musical entertainment grew, accompanied by more regular employment opportunities for musicians. By the 1910s that employment was widespread enough for an agency, Black Brothers of Liverpool, to be formed specifically to recruit musicians for the major shipping lines. The first ballroom on a ship came in the same decade and by the 1920s jazz orchestras were being employed during ‘the golden age of transatlantic shipping’ (p. 8).

After some downturn, cruising revived in the 1960s and, as of 2019, there were 1,361 cruise ships in operation across the globe (p. 11). A breakdown of the industry and different types of cruising is given before music's role is examined. Here: ‘Mass production principles are … applied … Musicians are managed to provide as much as they can at least expense to the company’ (p. 15). Wages are kept low and some sense of the shipping lines’ priorities can be gleaned from the fact that while companies might spend US$12 a day on passengers’ food, musicians’ wages account for around $0.85 per day (ibid.). The working environment is ‘closely managed (within) … a quasi-military environment’ (p. 16). The hierarchies involved cover almost every aspect of life on board including salary, accommodation, rights to mingle with passengers and whether or not workers are entitled to eat in the staff restaurant and drink in the crew bar. Increasingly the employers demand more bang for their buck so that ‘Musician salaries have remained stable for many years while many cruise lines have reduced musician privileges and increased musician duties’ (p. 19).

Chapter 2, which examines Musical Contexts and Locations, begins by explaining the highly regimented ways in which cruise ships operate. Musicians who join this world have to adapt quickly to its prevailing working norms. The authors suggest that there are seven categories of musical employment here: showband musicians, ensemble musicians, soloists, production singers, guest entertainers, DJs and managers (p. 24). There can be sub-categories and crossovers, meaning that the overall picture is complex. Versatility can be vital, as ‘One night a singer might be the guests’ entertainer, the next, a juggler, and the next, a production shows’ (p. 37). Needless to say, the general category to which a musician is assigned will determine what on-board privileges they will enjoy and thus how (un)comfortable their lives on board will be. Drawing on Howard Becker, the authors suggest that these roles are effectively part of the ship's overall ‘art world’ which is ‘enabled and orientated around alcohol sales’ (p. 48). Some may quibble with the use of Becker here, but it is clear that his sense of art as a joint venture is in practice on the ships. The authors then go on to examine the timings and locations of various on-board performances, along with the technology which facilitates this. Importantly, live music is performed within a somewhat captive market, very different to that onshore, and with almost no scope to perform original material.

Chapter 3 deals with the experiences of the musicians themselves. This experience again differs from that of the on-shore working world as it offers much less opportunity to escape from work, but plenty of opportunity to escape from things such as shopping, cooking and domestic and family duties. What emerges is a mixture of discipline and hedonism. This is an overwhelmingly male world of ‘paid tourism’, opportunities to perform music – and to misbehave. The chapter draws on Cashman's own experience and interviews with musicians from lines considered to be among the best to work in. The themes which emerge here may not be that surprising – loneliness and depression, substance abuse, sex (including a discussion of sexual abuse) and the problems of adapting to life after cruising. I would have welcomed more here and especially more of a location of this work within broader themes of musical work and some discussion of how musicians cope with the limitations of the repertoires they are required to perform.

The last chapter looks at how cruising has adapted to the modern world. There have been a number of developments here which directly affect musicians. One is the transference of high-production stage musicals to the ships. Another is using musical experiences such as the Postmodern Jukebox on the Holland America Line in order to ‘brand’ the cruise. A third important development is having cruises dedicated to genres such as metal or dance music. The emergence of karaoke is also shown in this chapter, followed by a discussion of future possibilities. Here again it would have been good to draw more upon musicians’ experiences as the book veers more towards the industry than it does the artists. In this it perhaps overplays its contextual hand.

The Conclusion notes that music on cruises is about predictability, but notes that this is often also true of shows by major artists on shore. It laments ‘The lack of sustained analysis of cruise ship music’ (p. 91), although it is not clear that much musical analysis has taken place within these pages. Rather bizarrely, the notion of scene is then introduced and there is talk of ‘the cruise ship scene’ (p. 93). However, it seems to me that, at least in their formative periods, scenes tend to eschew commercialism, even if only rhetorically. In contradistinction, as this book shows, cruising is above all about making money. This is less scene and more mean.

The book ends with a joke:

However, what has actually been shown within these pages is that the type of gig which musicians get matters. In other words, for most working musicians it is the working conditions which matter at least as much – and probably more than – the musical works they have to perform. There are good cruise gigs and there are bad ones – and for the musicians here the value judgements of which is which are based much more on how they are treated as workers than on the music itself. It is what is paid, not what is played, that counts. Here at least, on-board life may have something in common with life on shore.