In an era of the rise of the free market and economic globalization, Martin Cloonan examines why politicians and policymakers in the UK have sought to intervene in popular music - a field that has often been held up as the epitome of the free market form. Cloonan traces the development of government attitudes and policies towards popular music from the 1950s to the present, discovering the prominence of two overlapping concerns: public order and the political economy of music. Since the music industry began to lobby politicians, particularly on the issue of copyright in relation to the internet, an inherent tension has become apparent with economic rationale on one side, and Romantic notions of 'the artist' on the other. Cloonan examines the development of policy under New Labour; numerous reports which have charted the economics of the industry; the New Deal for Musicians scheme and the impact of devolution on music policy in Scotland. He makes the case for the inherently political nature of popular music and asserts that the development of popular music policies can only be understood in the context of an increasingly close working relationship between government and the cultural industries. In addition he argues that a rather myopic view of the music industries has meant that policy initiatives have lacked cohesion and have generally served the interests of multinational corporations rather than struggling musicians.

This volume studies the relationships between government and the popular music industries, comparing three Anglophone nations: Scotland, New Zealand and Australia. At a time when issues of globalization and locality are seldom out of the news, musicians, fans, governments, and industries are forced to reconsider older certainties about popular music activity and their roles in production and consumption circuits. The decline of multinational recording companies, and the accompanying rise of promotion firms such as Live Nation, exemplifies global shifts in infrastructure, profits and power. Popular music provides a focus for many of these topics—and popular music policy a lens through which to view them. The book has four central themes: the (changing) role of states and industries in popular music activity; assessment of the central challenges facing smaller nations competing within larger, global music-media markets; comparative analysis of music policies and debates between nations (and also between organizations and popular music sectors); analysis of where and why the state intervenes in popular music activity; and how (and whether) music fits within the ‘turn to culture’ in policy-making over the last twenty years. Where appropriate, brief nation-specific case studies are highlighted as a means of illuminating broader global debates.

This volume studies the relationships between government and the popular music industries, comparing three Anglophone nations: Scotland, New Zealand and Australia. At a time when issues of globalization and locality are seldom out of the news, musicians, fans, governments, and industries are forced to reconsider older certainties about popular music activity and their roles in production and consumption circuits. The decline of multinational recording companies, and the accompanying rise of promotion firms such as Live Nation, exemplifies global shifts in infrastructure, profits and power. Popular music provides a focus for many of these topics—and popular music policy a lens through which to view them. The book has four central themes: the (changing) role of states and industries in popular music activity; assessment of the central challenges facing smaller nations competing within larger, global music-media markets; comparative analysis of music policies and debates between nations (and also between organizations and popular music sectors); analysis of where and why the state intervenes in popular music activity; and how (and whether) music fits within the ‘turn to culture’ in policy-making over the last twenty years. Where appropriate, brief nation-specific case studies are highlighted as a means of illuminating broader global debates.

What is happening to pop music and pop culture? Synthesizers, samplers and MDI systems have allowed anyone with basic computing skills to make music. Exchange is now automatic and weightless with the result that the High Street record store is dying. MySpace, Twitter and You Tube are now more important publicity venues for new bands than the concert tour routine. Unauthorized consumption in the form of illegal downloading has created a financial crisis in the industry. The old postwar industrial planning model of pop, which centralized control in the hands of major record corporations, and divided the market into neat segments, is dissolving in front of our eyes. This book offers readers a comprehensive guide to understanding pop music today. It provides a clear survey of the field and a description of core concepts. The main theoretical approaches to the analysis of pop are described and critically assessed. The book includes a major investigation of the revolutionary changes in the production, exchange and consumption of pop music that are currently underway. Pop Music, Pop Culture is an accomplished, magnetically interesting guide to understanding pop music today.

Listening to popular music and watching television have become the two most common activities for postwar generations in Britain. From the experiences of programmes like Oh Boy! and Juke Box Jury, to the introduction of 24 hour music video channels, the number and variety of television outputs that consistently make use of popular music, and the importance of the small screen as a principal point of contact between audiences and performers are familiar components of contemporary media operation. Yet there have been few attempts to examine the two activities in tandem, to chart their parallel evolution, to explore the associations that unite them, or to consider the increasingly frequent ways in which the production and consumption of TV and music are linked in theory and in practice. This volume provides an invaluable critical analysis of these, and other, topics in newly-written contributions from some of Britain's leading scholars in the disciplines of television and/or popular music studies. Through a concentration on four main areas in which TV organises and presents popular music - history and heritage; performers and performances; comedy and drama; audiences and territories - the book investigates a diverse range of musical genres and styles, factual and fictional programming, historical and geographical demographics, and the constraints of commerce and technology to provide the first systematic account of the place of popular music on British television.

This book explores popular music in Eastern Europe during the period of state socialism, in countries such as Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Estonia and Albania. It discusses the policy concerning music, the greatest Eastern European stars, such as Karel Gott, Czesław Niemen and Omega, as well as DJs and the music press. By conducting original research, including interviews and examining archival material, the authors take issue with certain assumptions prevailing in the existing studies on popular music in Eastern Europe, namely that it was largely based on imitation of western music and that this music had a distinctly anti-communist flavour. Instead, they argue that self-colonisation was accompanied with creating an original idiom, and that the state not only fought the artists, but also supported them. The collection also draws attention to the foreign successes of Eastern European stars, both within the socialist bloc and outside of it. v>

This new study of British popular music shows how it engages with class in mythical ways that allow audiences to perform class-based identities. Case studies on folk rock, punk and indie rock show how this performance works and explore the implications for listeners and audiences.