Media and Popular Music

Volumes in the Media Topics series critically examine the core subject areas within Media Studies. Each volume offers a critical overview as well as an original intervention into the subject. Volume topics include: media theory and practice, history, policy, ethics, politics, discourse, culture and audience.

This book analyses the relationships between contemporary media and popular music, both via the mediation of music, and music as mediator. It does so through a series of original interviews with key practitioners: musicians, writers, magazine editors, radio presenters and major and independent label bosses. Those interviewed include Mark Ellen, editor of Smash Hits, Q, Mojo and currently Word magazines; Mark Cooper, producer of Later…with Jools Holland and CEO of Music Entertainment at the BBC; Ben Watt, half of Everything But The Girl and owner of independent label Buzzin’ Fly; and Fiona Talkington, original and current presenter of the Sony Award winning Late Junction on BBC Radio 3. Through these interviews, theory and practice are measured against each other and the book considers their experiences and observations in order to explore the ways popular music is produced, marketed and mediated.

Examining visual, print, radio and new media, Media and Popular Music draws together disparate elements of music and media which formerly have not been considered together, and provides a fresh and innovative contribution to the swiftly growing field of popular music studies.

Peter Mills is Senior Lecturer in Media and Popular Culture, Leeds Metropolitan University and was singer and lyricist for the band Innocents Abroad who made two albums, Quaker City and Eleven.