Interrogating Popular Music and the City

How does popular music influence the culture and reputation of a city, and what does a city do to popular music? Interrogating Popular Music and the City examines the ways in which urban environments and music cultures intersect in various locales around the globe. Music and cities have been partners in an often clumsy, sometimes accidental but always exciting dance. Heritage and immigration, noise and art, policy and politics are some of the topics that are addressed in this critical examination of relationships between cities and music. The book draws upon an international array of researchers, encompassing hip hop in Beijing; the city favelas of Brazil; from Melbourne bars to European parliaments; to heritage and tourism debates in Salzburg and Manchester. In doing so, it interrogates the different agendas of audiences, musicians and policy-makers in distinct urban settings.

Shane Homan is Head of the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University, Melbourne. He has published five books and many book chapters and journal articles on cultural policy, particularly intersections between the music industries and national cultural policy.

Catherine Strong is an Associate Professor at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests include cultural heritage and history, and gender issues in popular music. She is the co-editor of the journal Popular Music History.

Seamus O’Hanlon teaches contemporary urban, social and cultural history at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His most recent publications include City Life: the New Urban Australia and Music City Melbourne: Urban Culture, History and Policy co-authored with Shane Homan, Catherine Strong and John Tebbutt.

John Tebbutt has a PhD in History (University of Sydney). John is Associate Professor (Honorary), School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, and at the Faculty of Social Sciences, City University of Hong Kong. He is managing editor with Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies.