What hasn’t changed, though, is the belief that music is or can be a special experience. Under certain circumstances we do still pay special attention to the soundtrack of our lives, and is these circumstances that the music business has to understand. The industry itself has a touching faith that it is the songs (and singers) themselves which create the right circumstances. If the marketing teams and radio pluggers and video makers can get people’s attention for just a moment then listeners may be ’hooked’ by a tune or lyric or tone of voice. But the occasions on which people really listen to music are also institutional and emotional. – In short, we could say that the popular music industry depends, first, on the regular rhythm of work and play, the weekend and the holiday, on the concept of having fun, and, second, on the ideology of romantic love and its consequent narcissstic narratives of feeling. Music is still about special events, it’s just that these events are now either commonplace or personal. (sivu 37)
Woe betide the rock critic who suggests, as I once did, that there was not much difference in the selling of Genesis and Bros! Gender ideology is certainly at play here too: the same boys who despise girls for their collection of Boyzone mags and toys will proudly show off their collection of Radiohead b-sides and tour tee-shirts; girls, it seems, are dupes; boys are cognoscenti. (sivu 39)
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