The Beat Goes On Liverpool, Popular Music and the Changing City

In 2001 the Guinness Book of Records declared Liverpool ‘City of Pop’, the City that has produced more hit records than anywhere else. But why is Liverpool so important musically and how has it sustained its importance from the Beatles to the Zutons via Echo and the Bunnymen, Cream, The La’s and others?

The Beat Goes On is a critical historical account of popular music in Liverpool which explores the contextual, creative and geographical factors that have contributed to the city’s status as a major centre of creativity within Anglo-Amercian popular music. Rather than attempting to create a singular linear account of the history of popular music and its cultures within the city the book will take a thematic and case-study approach which will offer a new approach to the study of the subject. The book is therefore necessarily interdisciplinary with contributions from experts from the field of popular music history, cultural geography, ethnography and musicology, alongside essays and interviews with Liverpool musicians.

Marion Leonard is Senior Lecturer, University of Liverpool and Rob Strachan Lecturer, in the School of Music at the University of Liverpool