Florence + the Machine at the Academy, Manchester, 25th September 2009

Last night I saw Florence + the Machine play a sell-out show at the Academy and was not disappointed. With her ample vocal talent, Florence Welch has single-handedly made the name "Florence" cool to a new generation. Perhaps because the gig was timed to coincide with the end of Freshers Week, the Manchester crowd absolutely loved her. She has a tender, soaring voice reminiscent of Souixie Souix meeting Kate Bush on some pagan ritual site, with dashes of Chrissy Hynde and Dido thrown in for good measure. As you might gather, I'm a fan; I like the way she has arrived on the UK music scene with a strong voice and an aesthetic identity that combines 1970s vintage with slight undertones of the gothic macabre. Some of Florence's more tormented lyrics remind one of the sort of things Gordon Downie...

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Mark's posts on the music industry

Magazine, fandom and the music industry (how to avoid the mistakes of an artistic genius)The end of the noughties (a decade where attention to consumer technologies overtook conte...

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Magazine, fandom and the music industry

I've just finished reading Helen Chase's biography of my favourite band, Magazine. My experience as a fan began in the mid-1980s, when my younger brother introduced me to their music. It was, to say the least, an acquired taste, after my diet of early 1980s pop. Yet soon it had a hold of me: lead singer Howard Devoto's towering lyrics and cold cerebral voice seemed scary, surreal, knowing, too private and personal, out of time - intellectually triumphant but emotionally struggling. Like sexuality, music has a power to transform early trauma and unhappiness into something pleasurable.Devoto used his music to show us who he was and what art could be. It connected with me and I soon found myself on a mission to collect all the band's vinyl. There were times when I would walk into a record shop...

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NORTHWEST POPULAR MUSIC STUDIES NETWORK

POPULAR MUSIC FANDOM: A ONE DAY SYMPOSIUMBinks Building, University of ChesterFriday 25th June 2010Click here to see how the day went.Keynote speaker: Matt HillsHOW TO FIND USStart time: 9.30am, room 013/2, Binks Building, main Parkgate Road campus.While a range of researchers in cultural studies - notably Henry Jenkins, Matt Hills and Cornell Sandvoss - have moved the discussion about media fandom forward, much less work has been done specifically on popular music fandom. Confirmed speakers...Tonya Anderson, University of Sunderland:Still Kissing their Posters Goodnight: The Shift from Individual to Communal ‘Bedroom Culture’ as Pop Idol Fandom goes OnlineDr Lucy Bennett, Cardiff University: Triskaidekaphobics: R.E.M. Fans in Pursuit of the...

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Some 2009 pop research books

From a review list for the journal Popular Music, these recent offerings are mainly published by Ashgate and American university presses:Baraka, Amiri (2009) Digging The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music.UCLA Press. Bayer, Gerd ed. (2009) Heavy Metal Music in Britain. Ashgate. Bicknell, Jeanette (2009) Why Music Moves Us. Palgrave Macmillan. Cooper, David (2009) The Musical Traditions of Northern Ireland and its Diaspora.Community and Conflict. Ashgate.Charters, Samuel (2009) A Language of Song, Journeys in the Musical World of theAfrican Diaspora. Duke University Press.Dibben, Nicola (2009) Björk. Equinox/Indiana University Press.Ferris, William (2009) Give My Poor Heart Ease Voices of the Mississippi Blues.University of Northern Carolina Press.Hawkins, Stan (2009) The British...

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