The Great Music City

Exploring Music, Space and Identity

Andrea Baker

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9783319963525
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

In the 1960s, as gentrification took hold of New York City, Jane Jacobs predicted that the city would become the true player in the global system. Indeed, in the 21st century more meaningful comparisons can be made between cities than between nations and states. Based on case studies of Melbourne, Austin and Berlin, this book is the first in-depth study to combine academic and industry analysis of the music cities phenomenon. Using four distinctly defined algorithms as benchmarks, it interrogates Richard Florida's creative cities thesis and applies a much-needed synergy of urban sociology and musicology to the concept, mediated by a journalism lens. Building on seminal work by Robert Park, Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs, it argues that journalists are the cultural branders and street theorists whose ethnographic approach offers critical insights into the urban sociability of music activity.

Part IIntroduction

© The Author(s) 2019

Andrea BakerThe Great Music CityPop Music, Culture and Identityhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96352-5_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: The Great Music City, Exploring Music, Space and Identity

Andrea Baker¹

(1)

School of Media, Film & Journalism, Monash University, Caulfield East, VIC, Australia

Andrea Baker

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Introduction

Today music cities, with its popular economy focus, is one of the world’s fastest growing urban spaces. As the “music city paradigm” (Baker, 2016, p. 334) evolves, city-based journalists play an important role in highlighting the music value beyond the political economy and the policy-driven narrative of most urbanists. Primarily adopting a journalism lens, The Great Music City, Exploring Music, Space and Identity investigates how the discourse of “urban sociability”, mainly reported upon by journalists, emphasizes the social, cultural and emotional civic value of nurturing communities and helps to shape the music cities debate (Creed-Rowan, 2017, p. 113). This chapter introduces the book’s rationale, scope and aims across the life, death and rejuvenation of the music cities paradigm. Firstly, the book asks what is the life of a music city and its social dynamics? Secondly, in regard to its potential death, it considers the urban processes and tensions that affect music cities’ sustainability? Finally, concerning rejuvenation of the music city, the book explores what are the urban responsibilities to maintain and restore a music city, its venues, economy and culture? Primarily based on rigorous, place-specific case studies of music cities (Melbourne, Austin and Berlin), it explores the tensions and contradiction between a music city’s natural and built environment, and the contradiction between the ways in which a music city fosters attachment, and the ways in which it facilitates, disenfranchises or encourages music activity.

The Urban Century

The United Nation’s (UN) Habitat III meeting in Ecuador (South America) in October 2016 argues that the twenty-first century is “Humankind’s great urbanization” period (Zenghelis & Stern, 2016, pp. 1–2). Attending the UN meeting for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), journalist Sean Coughlan (2016) notes that, with increasing urbanization by 2050, more than 70 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. He asks, is there more meaningful comparison between cities than nations and states? In the terms of the power of music cities, this book suggests YES. Robert Ezra Park (1952, p. 79), city journalist turned sociologist and co-founder (with Ernest Burgess and Louis Wirth) of the Chicago School of Urban Sociology in the United States (US) during the 1920s notes, “Great cities have always been melting pots of race and of cultures”. Author of The Culture of Cities (1938, updated in 1970) and long-time urban critic for The New Yorker , Lewis Mumford expands on Park’s point, noting that “through a complex orchestration of time and space … life in the city takes on the character of a symphony” (1970, p. 4). City journalist and author of the seminal text, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) Jane Jacobs concurs with them, adding that the city is a lively creative village. She argues that it is not the nation-state but rather the city that is the true player in the global economy. Today as the “nation-state” discourse collapses, music activity which is omnipresent and mobile appears to have no geographical heart (Garrett & Oja, 2011, p. 702). However, amidst this “post-national” discourse (Garrett & Oja, 2011, p. 702) mixes of music “fixity” and “fluidity” (Connell & Gibson, 2003, p. 7) The Great Music City, Exploring Music, Space and Identity highlights, that cities still have intense urban clusters of music activity, for example the case studies of this book, Melbourne, Austin and Berlin.

What Is a Music City?

The vibrant cultural economy, with its links to music activity and urban sociability, has forced urban theorists and journalists to assess what is a music city? Is a music city a place of memory embedded in public and private spaces and venues? Is it a location in regional and global networks? Or is a music city an arena wherein music communities form and reproduce themselves? Tracing the discourse of urban sociability, primarily via a US journalism lens, this book highlights that a music city is all of the above. As the first global industry report about music cities, Mastering of a Music City , published in June 2015 notes, the concept of music cities penetrates the global political vernacular because it delivers “significant economic, employment, cultural and social benefits” (Terrill, Hogarth, Clement, & Francis, 2015, p. 5). At the time of writing The Great Music City, Exploring Music, Space and Identity, there was no empirical study that combines “all these variables, and offers a comprehensive definition of a music city” (Baker, 2017, p. 1). This has partly occurred because the role of urban sociability, and its tie to journalism practice, has been overshadowed by the political economic focus on music city activity.

Economic Values

The Mastering of a Music City defines a music city as an urban area with a “vibrant music economy” (Terrill et al., 2015, p. 5). Currently this economic driver is the most popular way to define music cities. As UK musicologist Sarah Cohen (2007) contends, music cities are melting pots where music is produced, performed, advertised and sold. Examining 27 “recognized music cities” (p. 10), which included the case studies of this book (Melbourne, Austin and Berlin), the Mastering of a Music City notes that “quite suddenly there is a lot of interest [about] how to make one succeed” (Terrill et al., 2015, p. 10) (Table 1.1).

Table 1.1

Mastering of a Music City report (Terrill et al., 2015)

The United Kingdom (2)	North America (12)
London (UK)	Canada (4)
Liverpool (UK)	Toronto (Ontario)
Europe (6)	Montreal (Quebec)
Berlin (Germany)	Calgary (Alberta)
Cologne (Germany)	Kitchener (Ontario)
Paris (France)	United States (8)
Gothenburg (Sweden)	New York City (New York)
Stockholm (Sweden)	Austin (Texas)
Helsinki (Finland)	Nashville (Tennessee)
Australia (3)	Memphis (Tennessee)
Adelaide	New Orleans (Louisiana)
Melbourne	Boston (Massachusetts)
Sydney	Chicago (Illinois)
Asia (2)	Seattle (Washington)
Seoul (South Korea)	South America (2)
Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)	Bogotá (Columbia)
	Caracas (Venezuela)

Analyzing industry data and journalism coverage about music activity in urban contexts, this global industry report conducts in-depth interviews with 40 music spokespersons from the selected cities and had 2 international focus groups (Terrill et al., 2015, p. 11). The report is intended as a “universal roadmap that can be used to create and develop music cities anywhere in the world, both large and small” (Terrill et al., 2015, p. 5). However, because it focuses on the contemporary commercial music scene and the political economy, it only paints a partial picture of the “music cities paradigm” (Baker, 2016, p. 334). However, as academics (Homan, 2018; Homan, Cloonan, & Cattermole, 2016; Homan, Strong, O’Hanlon, & Tebbutt, 2018; Shaw & Porter, 2009) argue, critical attention should be paid to the socio-cultural consequences of music activity because it offers a wider perspective on the dynamics of consumption and production. This book highlights that music cities celebrating all their production genres are worthy of study because they are important drivers of not only economic but also the social and cultural growth in music ecosystems. In a similar vein urban sociologist, Andy Pratt (2009, p. 4) notes that the “culturalization” linkage to “economization”, while “endemic in late capitalism”, offers a narrow view of cultural activity. As cultural economists Michael Hutter and David Throsby (2008) note, the cultural turn in the economizatio...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Part I. Introduction
• Part II. Hierarchies of Power and Influence
• Part III. Life
• Part IV. Death
• Part V. Rejuvenation
• Part VI. Conclusion
• Back Matter