ABSTRACT
When we hear our favourite performer singing to us, whether we are driving through open spaces in the country or immersed in the sounds of a personal stereo on a crowded bus or train, it is easy to forget the business context within which popular music is recorded and circulated. When the musician’s artistry connects directly with our own lives and everyday concerns, it is perhaps inevitable (and probably necessary) that we suspend belief and knowledge of how the music we are listening to has come to be heard in this way. Yet the mundane mediations of the music industries are important, and have a direct impact on the songs that come to be recorded and the way we get to hear them. The musician’s art and the listener’s pleasure occur within specific circumstances, and my central aim in this book has been to explore how musical creativity can be realized within and across the cultures of production shaped by the modern recording industry. In doing this I have highlighted how record companies manage creativity by incorporating musical genres into the techniques of portfolio management. I have also sketched the different ways that broader genre cultures intersect with and become an influential part of the industry of cultural production.
