Abstract
Peter J. Martin reflects on developments in music sociology during the period in which two other relevant specialisms—the ‘new’ musicology and popular music studies—emerged and analyses both specialisms with reference, where appropriate, to Kurt Blaukopf’s works. With respect to the ‘new’ musicology, Martin argues that, from a sociological point of view, it looks much like the ‘old’. As far as popular music studies are concerned, Martin suggests that this approach developed at a time when the record industry was at its peak, dominating the music business—that is, in the 1980s. Since then, much has changed: even formerly ‘major’ record companies are now themselves part of global corporations and digitisation has produced the most fundamental challenge to the industry since the invention of recording. Some of the implications of these changes are considered in this contribution, including the emergence of new business models, the changing importance of music for youth cultures as a means of asserting identity, as well as the competition with smartphones and computer games in this context.
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Martin, P.J. (2019). Musicology, Sociology and Digitisation. In: Smudits, A. (eds) Roads to Music Sociology. Musik und Gesellschaft. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22279-6_3
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