Abstract
In 2013 thirty-four Michael Jackson fans sued the King of Pop’s doctor, Conrad Murray, for “emotional damages” derived from the singer’s death. Satisfied that five of the plaintiffs had indeed suffered, a court in Orleans awarded “symbolic damages” of one euro each in February 2014 (Guardian 2014). Beyond its novelty value, the ruling says much about popular music’s trajectories in contemporary cultures. It reinforces how both the performer and their music speak to and for fans, underlining the deeply subjective modes of our choices and connections. Yet it also says something, perhaps, about the extent to which music fans have adopted the juridical and administrative discourses of industry, that our affective interactions with the star and their music are never far away from being transposed into their base commodity and legal forms (especially if threatened). Music remains at the centre of popular cultural experience for many; at the same time, “much music is overheard in states of distraction, barely registered consciously, or just the noise of someone else annoying us” (Zuberi 2004: 214). The diversity of popular music experiences (digital game/film soundtrack, shopping centre noise, mobile phone ringtone, on-hold telephone distraction, tribute band pub performance, gym soundtrack, karaoke video or superstar concert) underlines the need to assess popular music as part of a cultural economy of “amusement, ornamentation, self-affirmation, social display” (Scott 1999: 807). Music has been at the forefront of debates about the interplay (and display) of “cultural capital” (Bourdieu 1993) and the commodified cultural form. It is also increasingly visible in cultural/urban policy as cities and towns readily display their own cultural capital to attract tourists, workers and economic capital. It is for these reasons that music is more ubiquitous than other cultural forms in its individual and community uses. As an industry involved in symbolic creation and consumption (Hesmondhalgh 2013; Throsby 2001), the exchange value of its commodified forms resonates historically and aesthetically: “pop was about buying a dream, rock was about buying an experience” (Harron 1990: 180). The popular music industries share many of the characteristics evident in the broader development of the cultural industries.1 Often leading industrial change within audio-visual sectors, recording, publishing and live music companies have also shaped the emergence of the corporate multi-national. The contemporary popular music industries consist of five sectors: live performance; the production and sale of sound recordings; the administration of copyright in compositions and sound recordings; the manufacture and distribution of music instruments, recording and amplification equipment; and education and training (Dane et al. 1996). These industries have always been highly dynamic (even within monopolistic markets). They can also effect change in the regulation of culture. The particular conditions and uses of technology and labour in popular music also throw light more generally upon the histories and contemporary conditions of the cultural industries in terms of how pleasure is organized and distributed. The music industries, then, have some claim as the “canary in the coalmine, " announcing cultural and economic shifts in the cultural industries (Baym 2010) and as the “most advanced media model” (Cvetkovski 2013: 67).
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | The Routledge Companion to the Cultural Industries |
Editors | Kate Oakley, Justin O'Connor |
Place of Publication | Abingdon Oxon UK |
Publisher | Routledge |
Chapter | 10 |
Pages | 141-151 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Edition | 1st |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781317533986 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781315725437 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |