Popular music scholars have long been interested in the connection between place and music. This collection brings together a number of key scholars in order to introduce readers to concepts and theories used to explore the relationships between place and music. An interdisciplinary volume, drawing from sociology, geography, ethnomusicology, media, cultural, and communication studies, this book covers a wide-range of topics germane to the production and consumption of place in popular music. Through considerations of changes in technology and the mediascape that have shaped the experience of popular music (vinyl, iPods, social media), the role of social difference and how it shapes sociomusical encounters (queer spaces, gendered and racialised spaces), as well as the construction and representations of place (musical tourism, city branding, urban mythologies), this is an up-to-the-moment overview of central discussions about place and music. The contributors explore a range of contexts, moving from the studio to the stage, the city to the suburb, the bedroom to festival, from nightclub to museum, with each entry highlighting the diverse and complex ways in which music and place are mutually constitutive.
List of contributors Introduction (Geoff Stahl, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and J. Mark Percival, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh) Section I: Theory & method 1. Music, space, place and non-place (Geoff Stahl, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) 2. Rhythmanalysis and circulation (Will Straw, McGill University, Canada) 3. Global, local, regional and translocal: Towards a relational approach to scale in popular music (Hyunjoon Shin, Sungkonghoe University, South Korea and Keewong Lee, Sungkonghoe University, South Korea) 4. Sociological perspectives on music and place (Andy Bennett, Griffith University, Australia) 5. Ethnomusicology and place (Kimberly Cannady, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) 6. Political economies of urban music (Shane Homan, Monash University, Australia) 7. Sensobiographic walking and ethnographic approach of the Finnish school of soundscape studies (Helmi Järviluoama, University of Eastern Finland, Finland) Section II: Space, place and consumption 8. At Home with Sinatra (Keir Keightley, University of Western Ontario, Canada) 9. Music radio (J. Mark Percival, Queen Margaret University, UK) 10. The record shop (Nabeel Zuberi, University of Auckland, New Zealand) 11. The nightclub (Hillegonda C Rietveld, London South Bank University, UK) 12. The live venue (Robert Kronenburg, University of Liverpool, UK) 13. Mobile listening cultures (Raphaël Nowak, Griffith University, Australia) Section III: Space, place, production and performance 14. In the City - Glasgow (Martin Cloonan, University of Turku, Finland) 15. Bedroom production (Emília Barna, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary) 16. The Studio (Ruth Dockwray, University of Chester, UK) 17. The virtual studio (Martin K. Koszolko, RMIT, Australia) 18. The space of the record: Something happening somewhere (Simon Zagorski-Thomas, University of West London, UK) 19. The live gig (Sam Whiting, RMIT, Australia) Section IV: Cities, suburbs, nations and beyond 20. Suburban breakout: Nomadic reverie in British pop (Andrew Branch, University of East London, UK) 21. Sounding South African township life (Kathryn Olsen, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) 22. Funk - A musical symbol of Rio de Janeiro's favelas (Vincenzo Cambria, UNIRIO/Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) 23. Banlieue: Postcolonial noise: How did French rap (re)invent 'the banlieue'? (Christina Horvath, University of Bath, UK) 24. Music and the nation (Melanie Schiller, University of Groningen, The Netherlands) 25. Transnational music (Simone Krüger Bridge, Liverpool John Moores University, UK) Section V: Selling, celebrating, representing space and place 26. Music and Heritage (Catherine Strong, RMIT, Australia) 27. Music and Tourism (Leonieke Bolderman, Erasmus University, The Netherlands) 28. Festivals (Chris Anderton, Solent University, UK) 29. Cinematic places: Popular music soundtracks and the charge of the real (Kate Bolgar Smith, SOAS University of London, UK) Index
Geoff Stahl is a Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is was an executive member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM), and a current editorial board member of the New Zealand Journal of Media Studies. He is author of several books including Understanding Media Studies (2010), and Poor But Sexy: Reflections on Berlin Scenes (2014). J. Mark Percival is Senior Lecturer in Media at Queen Margaret University, Scotland. His areas of interest and publications include local music production, music radio, and representations of popular music with a focus on speed and volume.
Reviews for The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music, Space and Place
The latest addition to Bloomsbury's Popular Music Handbook series is a well-conceived and intelligently organized introduction to one of the most interesting areas of contemporary popular music scholarship: the study of musical spaces and places. The editors do an excellent job of arranging a variety of voices and bring together contrasting approaches in a way that makes coherent a topic that is, it seems, limitless! There are essays here on the bedroom, the studio and the record shop; on the toilet circuit of small gigs and the portaloo logistics of large festivals; on French banlieus, South African townships, Brazilian favelas and English suburbia; on musical cities as conceived by policy makers, tourists and musicians; on travelling at home with a Frank Sinatra album and feeling at home in the circuits of the digital universe; on the historical space of heritage and musical nationalism; on experiencing the noise of cities and the sounds of the countryside. This is a rich field of scholarship indeed! -- Simon Frith, Professor of Music, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, author of Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music (1998)
