“Comprehensively researched and presented with numerous historical and ethnographic examples, Music and Capitalism is a major landmark in music studies and research on capitalism. Critical, insightful, and erudite, Taylor addresses the production and consumption of music in a work that deeply reveals the social organization of capitalism and its profound impact on music.”
— Jocelyne Guilbault, author of Governing Sound
“Music and money have a strong affinity. Taylor explores their synthesis as cultural commodities in the era of neoliberal capitalism. This pathbreaking book is an original work of theory built on encyclopedic knowledge of commercial music today.”
— Keith Hart, author of Money in an Unequal World
“Taylor’s contribution is to see the questions surrounding music and capitalism through the lens of traditions of social theory that have been crowded out by Adorno. His case studies, rich in the voices of actors and participants as well as in theoretical debate, throw us into the diverse histories and cultures of the musical market place. This is a bold and ambitious book, by an author whose reading in these fields is unrivaled and who has a knack for getting quickly to the point. Required reading across all of the musicological disciplines.”
— Martin Stokes, author of Republic of Love
Music and Capitalism examines the production, distribution, advertising, marketing, branding, and consumption of music in the last few decades. Drawing on extensive interviews with professionals in various corners of the cultural industries, including small independent record labels, this book shows how digitalization, globalization, and policies and ideologies in today’s capitalism are changing people’s relationships to music.
