This feature on music and capitalism arises and includes papers from a one-day conference convened by Anna Morcom and held in London in October 2014 entitled “Music and capitalism in historical and cross-cultural perspective” that aimed to tackle such an (admittedly ambitious) agenda. Given the immensity of capitalism’s spheres of influence and transformation, the conference also sought a range of interdisciplinary speakers. Thus, the essays in this feature are by scholars from (in alphabetical order): Anthropology; Ethnomusicology; History and Literature; Marketing; Media and Communications; Musicology; and Religious Studies. As these essays show, capital has been and remains a form of overarching power in music making across the world. It may be something people seek to consciously or unconsciously mobilize, or to resist, or just to coexist or work with in more or less comfortable ways. As with all forms of power, questions are at the fore concerning who benefits from capitalism and how it affects human life in terms of belonging or alienation, prosperity or exploitation, and energy and creativity. In all cases, the essays show how capitalism has been and remains a dynamic force of change on musical styles and the forms of human sociability they stem from and create. - See more at: http://www.focaalblog.com/features/music-and-capitalism/#sthash.AwTI4GlV.dpuf

Modern capitalism is a framework for the creation and circulation of commodities, which are goods intended for profitable exchange rather than immediate use. Three factors of production are required to make commodities: labor, land, and capital (i.e., goods and money used in production). The word capitalist emerged in the 1600s to refer to those who sustain themselves primarily through ownership of capital. In capitalistic production, a capital owner pays workers to use capital to create commodities, which the owner can sell. Because labor is purchased rather than coerced, it is also considered a commodity. Since the 1850s, the key word capitalism has referred to social systems in which the dominant relations of production are exchange relations between capital owners and workers. Much work done in formal economies today conforms at least nominally to this model. This entry traces the interwoven histories of capitalism and music in the West. It then explores the impact of capitalist globalization on music worldwide and introduces some theoretical perspectives on the study of music and capitalism.

Edward Said's two recent books Culture and Imperialism (1993) and Musical Elaborations (1991) are variations on common themes, and both are made more resonant by being read in relation to each other. The reasons for this are not simply circumstantial, but emanate from the internal logic of the texts and from the ways each can be seen to comment upon the ideas and methods of the other. Each operates within an explicitly musical mode of discourse, and each contributes to a cultural critique which is premised upon specifically overlapping aesthetic and hermeneutic understandings. This essay reads each text separately for its particular illuminations and then reads both together as integral parts of a comprehensive whole. It seeks to trace some of the deeper correspondences between the two texts and, in extrapolating from this polyvocal reading, to argue for a similarly polyvocal aesthetic and methodology in music and in musicology, as well as in expressions and interpretations of i...

Some members of the new music scene wish to decentralize its Eurocentric roots and criticize its colonialist tendencies. Prior to the discussion of strategies that could constitute a decolonizing framework, it is useful to identify how coloniality is reflected in this scene. The author, himself an active member of this scene, shares avenues of reflection on the cultural homogeneity of the milieu, questions of access, the legacy of classical music, the concept of European excellence, the presumption of universality, the coexistence of legitimacy and marginality, the ambiguous relationship with cultural appropriation and the foundations of the attribution of merit. Translated by Elise Pineda with support from the National Arts Centre (2021). Original article: Dharmoo, Gabriel. 2019. “Reflets de la colonialité dans la scène des musiques nouvelles.” Intersections 39, no. 1 : 105-121

Colonialism is a particular mode of domination exercised by a state or comparable entity over foreign lands and peoples. There is a good deal of overlap between the keyword colonialism and the more general concept of imperialism. The former has come to refer specifically to the European domination of vast expanses of the world during the modern period as well as to techniques of imperial control developed during this period and applied by powers such as Japan and the United States. Colonialism and decolonization have had a profound impact on all domains of cultural production, including music. After defining colonialism, this entry introduces some of the processes and musical effects of Western colonial expansion from the 15th century to the present.

Drawing on “global modernisms” from literary studies, this special issue is the first publication to articulate and theorize “global musical modernisms” as a critical and ethically complex framework that is anchored in the relation between modernities and modernisms, as well as the colonial context underlying both terms. Fundamentally, global musical modernisms expand the temporal, spatial, and genre boundaries of “musical modernism” as it is conventionally understood. Navigating the disciplinary divide between musicology and ethnomusicology that has contributed to the late emergence of “global musical modernisms,” the introduction theorizes the term through the lenses of aesthetics, sociohistorical context, and the resistive self-consciouness that is related to multiple schools of European and global modernity/modernism studies, and central to the rethinking of musical modernism in global terms. But does global musical modernisms navigate coloniality in a way that replicates or ameliorates oppression, or both? This special issue provides readers with a range of perspectives on that question.

This article argues that through historiography, global musical modernisms decolonize Western musical modernism, expanding and bursting the latter's spatial (geographic), vertical (high-low genres), and temporal boundaries. The unsettling of these various boundaries shows how coloniality is the context of, and thoroughly imbricated with, global musical modernismsand yet the latter has channelled the self-conscious resistance of global music-makers against the colonial condition that characterizes modernity. Examining global musical modernisms both in the real world and in the inter-disciplines, this article addresses material complexities that are elided in purist dichotomous conceptions of resistance and oppression as inhering in different musics and cultures.

Popular music is embedded in and connected to our globalized world. A world that is, however, not an equal and fair one. Issues of power, place, and positions play a fundamental role in all aspects of life: It matters in which context, world region, class, or ethnic belonging a person, an institution, a music is situated. The first volume of the IASPM D-A-CH series ~Vibes looks at (global) power relations and representations of differences in popular music (studies). In the introduction the editors argue for the inclusion of postcolonial thought and questions of decolonizing academia into popular music studies. Based on papers held at the IASPM D-A-CH conference in Bern 2018, this volume presents seven articles from various disciplines, discussing education, economics, globalization, and politics.