Cirrus@Austlit

'Music scholarship across genres is often concerned with music's metaphysical and ephemeral effects on individuals, communities, and society. These scholarly framings constitute a concept that we refer to here as “the magic of music”.  Using this framing, this article addresses the ways that the magic is undermined by a range of worldly, non-magical realities, using the case study of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and their devastating effects on the previously thriving live music industry in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. The magic of music includes such aspects as the intangible sounds of music, the mysterious practice of creative music-making, and the transformative effects on audiences and others who participate in music culture. We begin with a broad discussion of the sonic properties of music as a form of magic—a common rhetoric that has been used across the world regardless of genre or cultural origin. Next, we turn to the social contexts surrounding music, such as live music settings. De Jong and Lebrun argue that “the power of music” can create “moments of rare, intense and direct interactions between individuals” that are often described as magical, and that “magic is, in this sense, understood as a perfectly natural and plausible, and not supernatural, experience, even if its intensity and rarity in one's life makes it extra-ordinary” (4). We use this framing of “music as magic” in our consideration of the specific context of Australia’s music industry from 2020 to the present. We posit that the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside government-sanctioned lockdowns, cultural shifts such as an increased focus on poor working conditions and risk in music work, and detrimental arts funding policies worked together to effectively break the spell of “music as magic” for industry and patrons. Finally, we draw on key examples from popular music studies, industry reports and new government policies, to call attention to recent proposals to rehabilitate the magic through a re-enchantment of music and the music industry.' (Introduction)

'Olivia Newton-John was a versatile artist with an appeal that spanned generations, and who played an important role in claiming a space for Australian popular culture on the world stage.' (Introduction)

Gender inequality is universally understood to be a continued problem in the music industry. This volume presents research that uses an industry-based approach to examine why this gender imbalance has proven so hard to shift, and explores strategies that are being adopted to try and bring about meaningful change in terms of women and gender diverse people establishing ongoing careers in music.

The book focuses on three key areas: music education; case studies that explore practices in the music industry; and activist spaces. Sitting at the intersection between musical production, the creative industries and gender politics, this volume brings together research that considers the gender politics of the music industry itself. It takes a global approach to these issues, and incorporates a range of genres and theoretical approaches. At a time when more attention than ever is being paid to gender and music, this volume presents cutting edge research that contributes to current debates and offers insights into possible solutions for the future.

This article will use the cultural and media materials produced around the death of Chrissy Amphlett as a way of interrogating the fact that surprisingly few resources exist that document or commemorate the contribution of women to the rock music scene in Australia. As Amphlett is unusual in being a woman who has, even before her death, claimed a place in the Australian rock canon, examining materials that are designed to construct her legacy upon her passing will provide examples of how women in Australian rock are discussed. It will be demonstrated that Amphlett’s gender is central to these discussions, and that she is used to both obscure the contributions of other women performers and to deny a need for women musicians to even be an object of discussion at all. These findings will be analysed using Aleida Assmann’s concepts of functional and storage memory, and it will be argued that the lack of information that we have about past female rockers makes it harder for women in Australia to see this field as one they can participate in, and also makes the retention of memories about currently successful women musicians less likely.

Source: Author's abstract