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.