In this post, we’re introducing a special issue of the Journal of The International Association for the Study of Popular Music co-edited by the Live Music Exchange’s Martin Cloonan and Adam Behr, with Beate Flath. Festivals, along with live music in general, are increasingly a part of the broader political process and, relatedly, the cultural policy process. This timely issue approaches the politics of popular music festivals from a range of theoretical and geographical perspectives.
On March 19th, after a lengthy inquiry, the UK Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee produced its report on live music, drawing on numerous evidence submissions, including from the Live Music Exchange. Having followed the proceedings, this post sees LMX’s Martin Cloonan and Adam Behr assess the contents of the report, beyond the headlines.
The Popular Music scholar and writer, Dave Laing died suddenly on 6th January 2019. Amongst many other things, Dave was a very good friend to Live Music Exchange, someone to whom we often turned to for advice and help. Both were always freely given in a wonderfully supportive way. In this post, we offer an LMX tribute to Dave.
Music’s role in, and value to, society has emerged in the news from multiple angles recently from its health benefits, to its economic contribution, to challenges for music education and venues. With music at the centre of such a broad range of benefits, controversies and challenges, we revisit in today’s post the keynote address by Professor Simon Frith OBE from our Live Music Exchange, Newcastle event in 2016, in which he draws upon his experience as a rock critic, researcher and academic writer to examine the different criteria that we apply when making assessments of music’s value.