The Introduction sets forth the reasons that the editors originally embarked on the current book project on manele (sg. manea). These include the significant role that manele have occupied in contemporary Romania—first as an underground genre and after 1989 as a popular form that expressed dissent in response to the officially-controlled Romanian “national” music-making that had dominated the communist period. Central to this discussion are the impassioned reactions, both pro and con, that manele have generated and why they have been voiced so loudly. The Introduction concludes with a brief section that presents the authors and types of research and fieldwork that they have employed, along with a resumé of the chapters of the volume.