Sound, Society and the Geography of Popular Music

Popular music is a cultural form much rooted in space and place. This book interprets the meaning of music from a spatial perspective and, in doing so it furthers our understanding of broader social relations and trends, including identity, attachment to place, cultural economies, social activism and politics. The book's editors have brought together a team of scholars to discuss the latest innovative thinking on music and its geographies, illustrated with a fascinating range of case studies from the USA, Canada, the Caribbean, Australia and Great Britain.

Introduction, Ola Johansson and Thomas L. Bell; Part I Music, Space, and Political Activism: Geographies of John and Yoko's 1969 Campaign for Peace: an intersection of celebrity, space, art and activism, Robert J. Kruse II; Scales of resistance: Billy Bragg and the creation of activist spaces, Edward Jackiewicz and James Craine. Part II Tourism and Landscapes of Music: Writing on the Graceland wall: on the importance of authorship in pilgrimage landscapes, Derek H. Alderman; Ambient Australia: music, meditation, and tourist places, John Connell and Chris Gibson. Part III Mapping Musical Texts: A lesson of geography, on the riddim: the symbolic topography of reggae music, Sarah Daynes; A listener's mental map of California, Kevin Romig. Part IV Place in Music/Music in Place: Musical cartographies: los ritmos de los barrios de la habana, John Finn and Chris Lukinbeal; The city she loves me: the Los Angeles of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Michael W. Pesses; The geography of 'Canadian Shield rock': locality, nationality, and place imagery in the music of the Rheostatics, Olaf Kuhlke. Part V Local Music in a Connected World: Internet radio and cultural connections: a case study of the St John's, Newfoundland radio market, Sara Beth Keough; Local independent music scenes and the implications of the internet, Holly C. Kruse; Where are the new US music scenes?, Ola Johansson and Thomas L. Bell. Part VI The Geography of Genres: Hip hop: a oostmodern folk music, Steven Graves; Techno: music and entrepreneurship in post-Fordist Detroit, Deborah Che; The production of contemporary Christian music: a geographical perspective, John Lindenbaum; Index.

Ola Johansson, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, USA and Thomas L. Bell, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA and Western Kentucky University, USA