Overview

Can music be made “independently” in the 21st century? More than a generation of musicians, music workers, and music companies have now been operating in the context of the profound shifts in music production and dissemination in the “digital era.” Scholarly focus on musical independence has often been centered on genres, like punk and indie, rooted in the US and UK. This volume, focused outside the Euro-American context, shows the variety of ways musicians, music workers and businesses manage the economic, media and cultural shifts propelled by digitalization, asking what it means now to say one is “independent.” It brings together scholars from around the globe who are researching forms of music production, circulation, consumption and finance that blur the boundaries between the dominant corporate players and “independent” cultural production. With chapters detailing popular music in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Indonesia, Portugal, Spain and Taiwan, independence is shown to be a concept and practice simultaneously nebulous, contradictory, and practical.

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Table of Contents

Reviews

Engaged, rigorous research; impeccable editing; scintillating, essential and illuminating reading for anyone who's interested in the political economy of music. * Simon Frith, Emeritus Professor, University of Edinburgh, UK * This collection of essays is highly informative, illuminates the contemporary music industry, and provides an assessment of the current situation with respect to independent music production and its place in modern capitalism. * CHOICE *

Engaged, rigorous research; impeccable editing; scintillating, essential and illuminating reading for anyone who's interested in the political economy of music. * Simon Frith, Emeritus Professor, University of Edinburgh, UK *

Author Information

Shannon Garland is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research draws on economic anthropology, social reproduction theory and Marxism to examine the transnational indie music industry across the US and Latin America. She has published on music venues & social media; Spotify playlists; sociality, aesthetics and politics; and labor, value and commodification. Pedro Belchior Nunesis an integrated researcher at the Institute of Ethnomusicology (INET-md), New University of Lisbon and a Guest Lecturer with Lisbon’s Open University. He has researched and published several articles on topics such as music journalism and criticism, the recording industry in Portugal and questions of sustainability in independent labels and musicians. Pedro Roxo is Assistant Professor on graduate and postgraduate courses focusing on Ethnomusicology, Jazz, and Popular Music Studies and an integrated researcher at the Institute of Ethnomusicology at the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, New University of Lisbon, Portugal. He is co-editor of Current Issues in Music Research: Copyright, Power and Transnational Music Processes (2012).

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