The Arnold Shaw Popular Music Research Center at UNLV hosts authors featured in this collection of essays. The book examines how music-making and soundscapes shape our city. Treating topics ranging from Cher to Cirque du Soleil, the contributors delve into how music and musicians factored in the early development of Vegas’s image; the role of local communities of musicians and Strip mainstays in sustaining tensions between belief and disbelief; the ways aging showroom stars provide a sense of timelessness that inoculates visitors against the outside world; the link connecting fantasies of sexual prowess and democracy with the musical values of Liberace and others; and the echoes and energy generated by the idea of Las Vegas as it travels across the country.
