Just as official cultural productions like The Calendar of History bear the imprint of Western rock music, homegrown Iranian rock and metal works contain subtle and not-so-subtle traces of Islamic and Persianate traditions that make their identification as simply вЂњWesternвЂќ problematic. What I have found is a complex landscape of experimentation and exchange that complicates dominant accounts of opposition between official вЂњIslamicвЂќ culture and underground вЂњWesternвЂќ music. I have joined metalhead groups on Instagram, Telegram, and Clubhouse, listened to hours of rock and metal music in every genre popular in Iran, and conducted in-depth interviews with musicians and fans (including members of over a dozen bands). Over the past two years, I have been researching the Iranian rock and heavy metal scene as part of a larger project on post-revolution cultural politics. So pervasive is the reach of Western rock that it would be impossible to understand post-revolution Iranian music without careful attention to its modes of circulation and appropriation. These sounds are lifted from songs by European and American bands, but also from Hollywood film scores and, more recently, video games. Uncredited snippets of rock and heavy metal have appeared in everything from political programming to sports, comedy shows, and reality contests. The Calendar of History is only one among numerous Iranian state radio and television programs to have incorporated Western rock music over the past four decades. Most listened to it hundreds if not thousands of times, but few knew its origin or had heard of Pink Floyd. Every Iranian with a radio within earshot heard the song at some point over breakfast or on their way to work.

I didnвЂ™t know it at the time, but this was the opening to Pink FloydвЂ™s song вЂњTimeвЂќ from their hit 1973 album, The Dark Side of the Moon.

For me, the showвЂ™s most appealing aspect was its opening instrumental sequence: a cacophony of ringing alarms and chiming clocks, followed by a rapid, continuous tick-tock, the beating of tom-tom drums, and the deep strums of an electric guitar. It was one of the most popular radio programs of the 80s and 90s and continues to this day. Growing up in 1980s Iran, I used to prepare for school every morning as state radio played The Calendar of History ( Taqvim-e Tarikh), a show chronicling important events from Iranian, Islamic, and global history.

In the flesh soundtrack