ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses frequent use of the idea that either all music, or a genre or an aspect of music is dying or has died. In the field of jazz, pianist Matthew Shipp has mocked it as the death industry where musicians can only be successfully marketed after death. Music will not literally come to an end as people will still be playing, listening and recording. Books and articles on the plight of supposedly 'higher' culture threatened music genres have freely used the term 'death'. A clear theme of 'purity in danger' runs through the death of music genre literature. Writers, and some musicians, are upset that some 'pure' vision or style is being killed by entrants to the market who have no interest in 'keeping the faith'. The use of the term 'death' in connection with falling demand attributed to digital innovation is surprisingly common in work by independent commentators.