Tim Wall

Studying popular music culture

Introduction: Definitions and Approaches PART ONE: HISTORIES Constructing Histories of Popular Music Musical and Cultural Repertoires Social, Economic and Technical Factors Writing Popular Music History PART TWO: INDUSTRIES AND INSTITUTIONS An Overview of Popular Music Production Taking Issue with the Record Industry Popular Music and the Media PART THREE: FORM, MEANING AND REPRESENTATION Form Meaning Representation PART FOUR: AUDIENCES AND CONSUMPTION The Sociology of the Music Consumer Listening, and Looking Dancing Acquiring, Organising and Sharing music

Policy, Pop, and the Public: The Discourse of Regulation in British Commercial Radio

This paper examines the language and practices of regulation that have constructed the idea of British commercial radio. It concludes that the regulators definitions of its purpose and practice are characterized by variability because of the attempt to draw simultaneously from repertoires of definition established in Britains public service, commercial, and community traditions. In turn, it is noted that this discourse of regulation does not seem to be shared by those who run commercial radio stations. The paper explores the way that the dominance of a particular public service ideal is negotiated with the increasing influence of commercial orders of discourse, and the marginalization of concepts of community broadcasting.

Experimenting with Fandom, Live Music, and the Internet: Applying Insights from Music Fan Culture to New Media Production

Abstract This article maps and theorizes online jazz fandom activities around live music, and then reports on applied experimental work that the authors undertook with jazz promoters and musicians to explore ways in which live music can be situated in the activities of online fandom. Three theoretical themes of online taste-maker-led fan communities, narratives of online fan experience, and modularization of content are explained and discussed. Two case studies, where the theoretical themes are applied to the practical needs of live events organizers, are then introduced, discussed and evaluated. The authors then draw conclusions about the extent to which an understanding of fan practices and the possibilities of online platforms can be combined to extend the experiences of live musical events into online experiences. They also consider the possible ways in which online media re-address a series of questions about narrative and narration, agency and subjectivity, expertise and accessibility.

Duke Ellington, Radio Remotes, and the Mediation of Big City Nightlife, 1927 to 1933

Histories of the career of Duke Ellington often give a significant, if somewhat superficial, place in the story to radio remotes of the later 1920s and the 1930s. These broadcasts from nightclubs like the Cotton Club in Harlem allowed those listening in to experience at least some of what the clubs patrons did. The claim is often made that such broadcasts could be heard nationally and that they both account for and provide evidence for Ellingtons rising popularity. However, a detailed examination of the radio stations and their place in Americas media, cultural and economic life raises many questions. By focusing on the political economy of the three stations which originated the Cotton Club remotes, and setting them in wider discourses of jazz and radio listening at the time, this analysis proposes new ways to conceive of the reception of Ellingtons music in the late 1920s. Specifically, the article argues that the broadcasts were far less extensive than usually thought, and that the reception of the music over the airwaves needs to be understood within the context of different radio stations and different radio audiences. Further, the connection between radio and sound film in this period is examined. Drawing on approaches derived from media and cultural studies, the article explores both the political economy and cultural meanings at play in the mediated representations of Ellington in this period.