Research
My primary research interest has always been Music Industry (rather than 'The Music Industry'). I draw the distinction because I consider 'Music Industry' to be an explicable process in contradistinction to 'The Music Industry' which tends to go on being represented as a mysterious and coherent 'place'.
In recent years, I have added research into the Beatles to this concern with contemporary music industry.
Music Industry
As my biographical information indicates, what floats my boat is understanding how music outcomes are created: 'outcomes' can be songs and tracks; they can be live shows; they can be recordings released to the public; they can be licences granted to use songs and recordings. All of these outcomes involve musicians working with specialist music businesses, and not everyone gets what they want or expect. The question then is, 'why'? Why do 'hits' happen, or fail to? Why are careers made, or not? I have explored these processes in the form of book length enquiries and in the form of articles.
The Beatles
I have been a Beatles fan all my life. In 2013 I was asked to help write a report into the economic value of Beatles tourism to the Liverpool economy. Beginning to research this meant trying to understand the relationship between the Beatles and Liverpool; trying to understand why people would still come to Liverpool 50 years after the breakup of the group; trying to understand how they are managed, by their company Apple Corps into the present day. Engagement with the Beatles through the publication of the Report (in 2016) has led to many further opportunities to speak in public and through the media on aspects of the lives and the career of the Beatles, individually and collectively. The most remarkable outcome of this work, so far, came in the form of my writing, directing and producing a full-scale concert at Liverpool Philharmonic on George Harrison and Indian Music. There is a chance that this concert may tour the Uk, which is a significant and significantly different way of publishing academic research.
Research grants
Songwriting Studies Research Network
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
December 2018 - November 2020
Music, Photographs and Stories from the Archives
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
February 2016 - September 2017