Irish rebel songs afford Scotland's Irish diaspora a means to assert, experience and perform their alterity free from the complexities of the Irish language. Yet this benign intent can be offset by how the music is perceived by elements of Scotland's majority Protestant population. The Scottish Government's Offensive Behaviour Act (2012) has been used to prosecute those singing Irish rebel songs and there is continuing debate as to how this alleged offence should be dealt with. This article explores the social function and cultural perception of Irish rebel songs in the west coast of Scotland, examining what qualities lead to a song being perceived as ‘sectarian’, by focusing on song lyrics, performance context and extra-musical discourse. The article explores the practice of lyrical ‘add-ins’ that inflect the meaning of key songs, and argues that the sectarianism of a song resides, at least in part, in the perception of the listener.

Joni Mitchell's ‘Woodstock’ is one of the most recognisable songs about the 1969 festival, yet Mitchell did not attend Woodstock and instead wrote her song in a New York City hotel room. The song ‘Woodstock’, then, represents the event not as it literally happened, but as it could have been, as an idealised depiction of nostalgia for the festival and the era's utopian potential. I analyse Mitchell's song as a utopian text and investigate the political efficacy of ‘Woodstock's musical and lyrical content for Mitchell, for other artists who cover the song, and for audiences who may recognise it as the festival's ‘theme’. As her career continues, Mitchell abandons the folk-based style of her early albums, but keeps ‘Woodstock’ an active part of her performance repertoire. I trace three later versions to show that the utopianism of the original disappears as Mitchell re-imagines the song, the event and its ideological legacy.

Between about 1580 and 1690, early modern England experienced three interrelated developments: first, the growth of a successful commercial popular music industry, centred on London, which served a socially broad national market; secondly, the development of political parties, emerging from the political and religious turmoil of the period, which impinged significantly upon the newly burgeoning popular music industry and its markets; thirdly, a substantial increase in the per capita consumption of alcoholic drinks across all social classes, for reasons of sociability rather than health or nutrition. This article explores the unexpected effects of these changes on cultures of politics, drink and song across the whole period. In particular, it explores the way in which the Cavaliers of the 1650s and the new ‘Tory’ party of the 1680s used the medium of song to encourage excessive drinking and the political and social denigration of sobriety in order to promote loyal obedience.

From an economic point of view, the business of record labels until recently boiled down to managing a portfolio of artists, with successful stars bringing the label enough money to recoup investments in market flops. The decline in record sales has called this model into question and forced labels to look for new sources of revenue. Employing qualitative data gathered in Poland, this paper demonstrates how labels react to adverse market conditions and what determines these reactions. The paper shows that these reactions include the monetisation of the relationship that a label has with artists through signing 360° deals, the commercial exploitation of artists’ brand names, and concentration on niche markets, either foreign or format-based (e.g. the market for vinyl). The paper concludes that record labels, regardless of which approach they choose to deal with the adverse market conditions, still think in terms of managing a portfolio of artists. What is more, there is no universal strategy which can be applied by every label to deal with declining record sales.

The use of computers is continuously changing the sound of records but also increasingly challenging established forms of live concert aesthetics. So what becomes of creativity and expressivity in the live performance? In this study, we present an artist-oriented approach to this question through interviews with artists invested in performing studio works on stage, as well as improvising musicians using studio technology in their concerts. We find that challenges to creative authorship and expressive agency are constantly negotiated through evolving practices of up- and down-scaling particular aspects of studio works on stage, as well as designing technological setups tailored to individual forms of improvisation. While these practices challenge deep-rooted notions of the ‘right’ or appropriate bond between musician and music, the appropriation of studio technology in live performance has clearly become an integral part of many artists’ continual exploration of their musical agency.

Although Kate Bush's reputation as a significant musical pioneer has been accepted by most critics and academic commentators since her return to music in 2005, most readings of her work have been highly ahistoric. This paper explores how, with the release of her fifth album, Hounds of Love, in 1985, her popular appeal was widened into a genuine acceptance of her idiom by contemporary cultural commentators. In particular, the paper focuses on the rival inspirations and the shape, form and delivery of the title track, ‘Hounds of Love’ and its ‘alternative’ version, released on a 12” disc. The paper concludes by analysing the visual presentation of the song through the promotional video (directed by Bush herself) and her two mimed performances and offering a contextualised explanation for Bush's perceived ‘authenticity’ as an artist and performer.

The rediscovery of democratic traditions of folk song in Germany after the Second World War was not just the counter-reaction of singers and academics to the misuse of German folk song by the Nazis. Such a shift to a more ‘progressive’ interpretation and promotion of folk tradition at that time was not distinct to Germany and had already taken place in other parts of the Western world. After firstly examining the relationship between folk song and national ideologies in the nineteenth century, this article will focus on the democratic ideological basis on which the 1848 revolutionary song tradition was reconstructed after the Third Reich. It will look at how the New Social Movements of West Germany and the folk scene of the GDR functioned in providing channels of transmission for this, and how in this process a collective cultural memory was created whereby lost songs – such as those of the 1848 Revolution – could be awakened from extinction. These processes will be illustrated by textual and musical adaptations of key 1848 songs such as ‘Badisches Wiegenlied’ (Baden Lullaby), ‘Das Blutgericht’ (The Blood Court) and ‘Trotz alledem’ (For all that) within the context of the West German folk movement and its counterpart in the GDR.

In common with similar popular pressure groups, the temperance movement needed to inspire, to inform and to integrate its members, and music was a vital tool to fulfil these functions. This article explores temperance music, particularly songs, performed in a range of contexts from concerts of 15,000 voices to the individual use of material produced in songbooks and periodicals. The tonic sol-fa movement grew symbiotically with the drive for temperance and, with developments in printing and distribution, this musical technology enabled the effective spreading of the temperance message through activity and entertainment. A case study of songs for children reveals that, predictably, songs were informed by religion to some extent and acted as vehicles for propaganda, instilling principles and offering guidance. However, many were more martial and encouraged children to act as agents. Temperance songs were not merely instructive; many were designed to rouse the singer – and hearer – into action.

On the basis of observational studies in a number of rock music festivals during the period 2004–2012, I ask the following question in this paper: how does the music festival community arise and how is it maintained? With the help of perspectives from interactionist sociology and organisational studies I develop an analysis of how rock music festival ‘skills’ are collectively produced. A communally acknowledged competence is negotiated and made explicit by means, among other things, of the synchronisation of a daily rhythm that becomes common to many festivals. The present analysis will employ a close description of this rhythm's phases, and how transitions between them are interactively negotiated. While rock music festivals certainly celebrate fandom, this paper draws attention to processes that build strong senses of community between participants while joining together in the camping site, outside stage areas. The social rhythm, as it is interactively and artfully produced between participants, makes the festival recognisable as a festival, and attractive as a social event. A profound sense of connectedness between participants is to be found between the tents in the festival camp.

Kadongo kamu is a Ugandan guitar-based genre recognisable by its dense storytelling lyrics in Luganda language. This article offers a close analysis of kadongo kamu musical style, focusing on the interface between speech rhythm and musical rhythm. The style's poetic-musical ‘flow’ to be structurally analysed is interpreted with reference to a historically evolved language ideology which construes Luganda to be exceptionally ‘rich’ and ‘deep’. I show how specific musical techniques are used to foreground aspects of Luganda that speakers prize as elegant and learned. This musical artistry enhances listeners’ impressions of the proverb-rich ‘deep Luganda’ poetry for which kadongo kamu singers are famous.

Robert Wyatt's relationship with alcohol is multifaceted. He acknowledges its deleterious effect on aspects of his personal life, most notably on his relationship with wife and creative partner Alfreda Benge, and he has been teetotal since attending Alcoholics Anonymous in 2007–8. In professional terms, however, Wyatt continues to view alcohol positively: as a means to overcome anxiety as a performer and recording artist and as an aid to writing. From this perspective, the fact that Wyatt has not released a solo album since sobering up may be more than mere coincidence. This paper aims to answer two questions. First, what is the evidence that alcohol can reduce anxiety for a performer and recording artist, and increase creativity for a songwriter? Secondly, what is the evidence that this is so in Wyatt's specific case? In answering these questions, the author will draw on secondary research, as well as interviews conducted with Wyatt and various associated musicians and family members between 2008 and 2013.

Throughout the history of music recording, the use of certain technologies and instruments has left distinctive marks on recordings – marks that imply an intrinsic relationship between an era and a sound. At the same time, producers and artists have taken advantage of this relationship, constructing and otherwise exploiting what I have elsewhere conceptualised as sonic markers. This study explores how Beck's use of sound as a compositional tool constructs sonic markers that have in turn contributed profoundly to the formation of his musical identity. First, I take into account Beck's use of various pop aesthetics to explore how sonic markers are constructed through appropriation. Second, I offer an assessment of the ways in which Beck's musical identity has been formed from his play with the sonic markers of other eras. Third, I provide an analytical account of ‘Sexx Laws’ (1999) to illustrate how Beck's play with sonic markers of time also informs individual song structure and composition.

This article examines some of the ways in which Australia's First Peoples have responded to serious community health concerns about alcohol through the medium of popular music. The writing, performing and recording of popular songs about alcohol provide an important example of community-led responses to health issues, and the effectiveness of music in communicating stories and messages about alcohol has been recognised through various government-funded recording projects. This article describes some of these issues in remote Australian Aboriginal communities, exploring a number of complexities that arise through arts-based ‘instrumentalist’ approaches to social and health issues. It draws on the author's own experience and collaborative work with Aboriginal musicians in Tennant Creek, a remote town in Australia's Northern Territory.

In his book, America, Jean Baudrillard characterised the United States as a nation created for the sole purpose of escaping history, a place that has purged itself of all negativity, and whose citizens live life in a perpetual present. Baudrillard's study of America provides an ideal framework with which to examine the ways that blues is both congenial and antithetical to postmodern America, and how the significations and meanings of blues have changed as the music has passed from modernity to postmodernity. Of particular interest is the question of whether African-American interpretations of blues can remain privileged. Examining blues music in the context of America provides clear cultural examples that support many of Baudrillard's often obscure metaphysical observations.

As a musical form, punk is often associated with urbanity, as embodied in the scenes in both London and New York, and in an Australian national context by the scenes in Melbourne and Sydney. In Perth, Western Australia – a primarily middle-class suburban city without a distinct inner city – punk was expressed differently. While the music itself exemplified many of the stylistic traits associated with the genre, punk in Perth was articulated through the city's isolation, its affluence and its suburban nature. Utilising interviews with key players in the Perth punk scene of the late 1970s, this paper seeks to illustrate the ways in which urbanity was constructed and voiced through Perth punk, in a city that constructed itself in opposition to traditional notions of the inner city's urban lived environment.

This article examines the relationship between music and sponsorship by drinks companies. Glasgow Jazz Festival has taken place annually since 1987 and is the city's longest running music festival. In its early years, the Festival enjoyed both cash and in-kind sponsorship from a wide range of organisations, including breweries and distilleries along with companies specialising in non-alcoholic drinks. In 2015 sponsorship was more difficult to secure, with cash sponsorship proving to be particularly elusive. The article focuses on cash sponsorship from drinks companies from 1987 to 2001, arguing that the decline in this form of sponsorship is a result of a shifting commercial and cultural landscape. Changes in Glasgow's festival calendar have resulted in a crowded marketplace which not only makes it harder for arts organisations to secure funds, but also makes relationships with sponsors more challenging to manage. Meanwhile, legislative and social changes have meant that the role of alcohol in the city's cultural life has been subject to adjustment throughout the Festival's history.

In rock historiography, Abbey Road Studios is depicted as the rock canon's ultimate recording house; home to the Beatles, Pink Floyd and a generation of classic rock album production. In recent years, the studio has struggled to maintain itself as an operational recording house, yet effectively exploits its past to secure its future. This article considers issues of heritage, pilgrimage and tourism before elucidating brand ‘Abbey Road’ as a conflation of geographical location, zebra crossing, graffiti wall, recording house and aura. In separating the tangible aspects of Abbey Road's heritage – the zebra crossing, graffiti wall and the Beatles Abbey Road album – out from its intangibles – its ‘magic’, legacy and studio ‘vibe’ – Abbey Road's studio aura is exposed as a commodity in its own right.