Outputs from PMRU activities

A public workshop; a conference panel at IASPM 2018 ‘Spot the Difference: replication, rights and the musical work‘; and a forthcoming co-authored journal article based on collaborative research on Squeeze's Spot the Difference Album (so far!)

A commissioned chapter: Jan Butler, ‘Clash of the Timbres: The Battle for the Sound of Rock Authenticity on the West Coast, 1966 to 1968’ in Fink, R., Latour, M., Wallmark, Z. (eds.), The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Tone and Timbre in Popular Music (Oxford University Press, 2018)

A peer-reviewed journal article: Dai Griffiths, ‘Words to songs and the internet: a comparative study of transcriptions of words to the song “Midnight Train to Georgia”, recorded by Gladys Knight and the Pips in 1973’, Popular Music and Society, 2013

A commissioned twenty-minute film: Anyone Can Clear Music: Seven Things you Need to Know about Music Clearance from the makers of Anyone Can Play Guitar, 2012

An exhibition: Editions of You (26.3–24.4.2011), O3 Gallery Oxford, which included the work of 22 independent artists and 17 independent record labels

A PhD thesis: Jennifer Skellington, Transforming Music Criticism? An examination of changes in music journalism in the English broadsheet press from 1981 to 1991 (2010)

An MA dissertation: Marc Rose, ‘Music as Culture, Commodity, and Content: Musical Ownership and Copyright in the 21st Century’ (2012)

Commissioned Chapters

‘More hits than you can possibly imagine’: The Music of Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet’ in Cooke, M and Wright, C (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Music, OUP 2022

‘Clash of the Timbres: The Battle for the Sound of Rock Authenticity on the West Coast, 1966 to 1968’ in Fink, R., Latour, M., Wallmark, Z. (eds.), The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Tone and Timbre in Popular Music (Oxford University Press, 2018)

‘Album Art and Posters: The Psychedelic Interplay of Rock Art and Art Rock’ in Shepherd, T. & Leonard, A. (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Music and Visual Culture (Routledge Press, 2013)

‘The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and the Musicology of Record Production’ in Frith, S. and Zagorski-Thomas, S. (eds.), The Art of Record Production: An Introductory Reader for a New Academic Field  (Ashgate Press, 2012)

Journal Articles

IN PROGRESS - Co-authored article on Squeeze’s Spot the Difference album with Dr Dai Griffiths and Dr Jennifer Skellington, for submission to Popular Music in 2024

The Beach Boys and the musicology of record production, The proceedings of the 2005 Art of Record Production Conference

Musical Works, Cover Versions and Strange Little Girls, Volume! La revue des musiques populaires, 7/1, June 2010

Research Dissemination

Conference papers and outreach events

2023 - Sound on Screen II, Oxford Brookes University.  Co-organizer of a three-day hybrid international conference bringing together academics and practitioners to discuss music, sound design and soundtracks in a variety of visual media.

2023 - 'What Makes a Good Song?' My Jericho youtube channel broadcast with Prof Gary Browning discussing songs selected from Bob Dylan's 2022 book, The Philosophy of Modern Song

2022 - 'What Makes a Song Great?' Oxford Brookes University Think Human festival. Public panel with Prof. Roger Dalrymple, Prof. Constantine Sandis and Prof. Gary Browning discussing questions arising from Bob Dylan's 2022 book, The Philosophy of Modern Song. 

2021 - Sound on Screen, Oxford Brookes University. Co-organizer of a three-day online international conference bringing together academics and practitioners to discuss music, sound design and soundtracks in a variety of visual media.

2018 - IF Oxford Science and Ideas Festival, Oxford public workshop. ‘Explore Squeeze’s Spot the Difference album (2010)’.  1.5 hour interactive workshop co-organised with Dr Jennifer Skellington, Dr Dai Griffiths, Joe Turner and David Carugo.

2018 - ‘Reproduction, re-recording and the reimagining of historic tracks’, Crosstown Traffic: joint IASPM, ASARP, ISMMS and DANCECULT conference, Huddersfield University

2018 - Nightshift: Exploring Oxford’s Music Magazine, Oxford Brookes University. Co-organizer of a one-day public symposium bringing together academics and broadcasters, journalists, promoters and musicians of the Oxford music scene journalists to discuss the history and impact of Nightshift magazine.

2013 – ‘The Musicology of Recording and Production', Institute for Musical Research postgraduate training day, invited speaker

2010 – ‘The Role of the Rock Cultural Intermediary: The Birth of the American Rock Press in the 1960s’, Shifting Ground: A Study Day in Popular Music and Publishing, Oxford Brookes University

2009 – ‘Authentic Independents: Myth or Reality?’, 5th Annual Art of Record Production Conference, University of Glamorgan

2009 – ‘The Critic as New Cultural Intermediary: the Rise of the American Rock Press in the 1960s’, 6th International Conference on Music since 1900, University of Keele

2009 – ‘The Reception of the Use of Technology in the work of Jimi Hendrix’, 15th Biennial International IASPM Conference, University of Liverpool

2009 – ‘Ticket To Ride: Album Art as a Gateway to the Psychedelic Community’, RMA Study Day: Image, Music, Identity: Constructing and Experiencing Identities through Music in Visual Culture Conference, University of Nottingham

2009 – Image, Music, Identity Round Table (panel member), RMA Study Day: Image, Music, Identity: Constructing and Experiencing Identities through Music in Visual Culture Conference, University of Nottingham

2005 – ‘The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and the musicology of record production’, CHARM/The Art of Record Production Conference, University of Westminster

2005 – ‘High Fidelities: The discourse of authenticity and Jimi Hendrix’, 4th International Conference on Twentieth-century music, University of Sussex

2005 – ‘Musical works, cover versions and Strange Little Girls’, Postgraduate Study Day, University of Nottingham

2004 – ‘Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge: A new film music?’, RMA Students’ Conference, Royal Holloway

Reviews

Kirsty Fairclough and Jason Wood (Eds.) Pop Stars on Film: Popular Culture in a Global Market (Bloomsbury, 2023) IASPM Journal 13.3 (Dec 2023)

Monographs

Radiohead: OK Computer (Continuum, 2004)

Elvis Costello (Equniox, 2007)

Commissioned chapters, conference papers, articles

‘Talking about License to Kill’, in Elizabeth Thomson and David Gutman (eds.), The Dylan Companion (Macmillan, 1990), pp. 260–66

‘In Praise of “Anchorage”’, in Rossana Dalmonte and Mario Baroni (eds.), Secondo Convegno Europeo di Anilisi Musicale (Trento, 1992), pp. 351–58

‘So Who Are You? Webern’s Op. 3 No. 1’, in Craig Ayrey and Mark Everist (eds.), Analytical Strategies and Musical Interpretation: Essays on Nineteenth- and Twentieth-century Music (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 301–14

‘Grammar Schoolboy Music’ (1995), reprinted in Derek B. Scott (ed.), Music, Culture, and Society: a Reader (Oxford, 2000), pp. 143–45

‘Was Will der Mann: Gwrywdod ar y Groesffordd’, tu chwith 9 (1998), pp. 29–33

‘Kelly, Cerys, and James Dean Bradfield’, in Trevor Herbert and Peter Stead, Hymns and Arias: Great Welsh Voices (Cardiff, 2001), pp. 209–21

‘Cover Versions and the Sound of Identity in Motion’, in David Hesmondhalgh and Keith Negus (eds.), Popular Music Studies (Arnold, 2002), pp. 51–64

‘From Lyric to Anti-Lyric: Analysing the Words in Popular Song’, in Allan F. Moore (ed.), Analysing Popular Music (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 39–59

‘History and class consciousness: pop music towards 2000’, in Nicholas Cook and Anthony Pople (eds.), Cambridge History of Twentieth Century Music (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 557–83

‘“Home is Living Like a Man on the Run”: John Cale’s Welsh Atlantic’, in Sally Harper (ed.), Welsh Music History (2000), 159–185, Welsh translation, 186–211, reprinted in Martin Stokes and Philip V. Bohlman (eds.), Celtic Modern: Music at the Global Fringe (Scarecrow Press, 2003), pp. 171–99 and in Andy Bennett, Barry Shank, Jason Toynbee (eds.), Routledge Reader in Popular Music (Routledge, 2005)

‘Postcolonial Music in Contemporary Wales: Hybridities and Weird Geographies’ (with Sarah Hill), in Jane Aaron and Christopher Williams, (eds.), Postcolonial Wales (University of Wales Press, 2005)

‘Public Schoolboy Music: Debating Radiohead’, in Joseph Tate (ed.), The Music and Art of Radiohead (Ashgate, 2005)

‘Memorable music, forgettable words? Dilemmas of song in British progressive rock, c. 1972’, in Composition and Experimentation in British Rock: 1966-76 (Cremona 2005)

‘Words in Popular Songs’, in Delia de Sousa Correa (ed.), The Edinburgh Companion to Literature and Music (Edinburgh UP, 2020)

‘Function and construction of rock lyrics’, in Allan F. Moore (ed.) Bloomsbury Handbook of Rock Music Research (Bloomsbury, 2020)

‘Classical virtues in a popular song: Lorraine Feather’s “The Girl with the Lazy Eye”’, Proceedings of the Osnabruck Summer School, 2015 (forthcoming)

The Easybeats, ‘Friday on my mind’, in Sarah Hill (ed.), One-Hit Wonders (2023)

Peer-reviewed journal articles

‘Three Tributaries of The River’, Popular Music, 7/1 (1987–8), 27–34; reprinted in Richard Middleton (ed.), Reading Pop (Oxford, 1997), pp. 192–202

‘What was and is critical musicology?’, Radical Musicology, 5 (2010)

‘Internal rhyme in ‘The Boy with a Moon and Star on His Head’, Cat Stevens, 1972’, Popular Music, 31/3 (2011), pp. 383–400

‘Words to songs and the internet: a comparative study of transcriptions of words to the song ‘Midnight Train to Georgia’, recorded by Gladys Knight and the Pips in 1973’, Popular Music and Society, 36/2 (2013), pp. 234–73

‘Elevating Form and Elevating Modulation’, Popular Music, 34/1 (2015), pp. 22–44

‘Rock criticism’s musical text: Robert Christgau’s writing about words and music in song’, Rock Music Studies, 6/3 (2019)

Reviews

Anthony Pople (ed.), Analysis, Theory, and Meaning in Music (Cambridge, 1994) Music Analysis, 15/2–3 (1996), pp. 381–93

Anne Shreffler, Webern and the Lyric Impulse (Oxford, 1994) Music Analysis 16/1 (1997), pp. 144–54

Simon Frith, Performing Rites: Evaluating Popular Music (Oxford, 1998), Music and Letters (2000), pp. 343–46

Words for the Dying (DVD, 2009) and John Cale (DVD 2006), Journal of the Society for American Music (2010) 4/3, pp. 390–92

Carys Wyn Jones, The Rock Canon: Canonical Values in the Reception of Rock Albums (Ashgate, 2008), Music and Letters (2010) 91/3, pp. 471–73

Kyle Gann, Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice (2006), Twentieth-century Music (University of California Press, 2011) 7/1, pp. 127–30

David Pilgrim and Richard Ormrod, Elvis Costello and Thatcherism: A Psycho-Social Exploration (2013), Bulletin of the North American British Music Studies Association, 1/1 (2014), pp. 5–8

Recordings by Manic Street Preachers, Gruff Rhys, Gwyllt, Bur Hoff Bau: Planet: the Welsh internationalist, 216 (2014) pp. 130–36 

Robert Christgau, Going into the City (2015), Popular Music, 35/2, 2015, pp. 283–86

Erin Torkelsen Weber, The Beatles and the historians: an analysis of writing about the fab four (2016), Popular Music, 37/1 (2017), pp. 153–55

David Sanjek, Stories we could tell: putting words to American popular music (2019), Popular Music, 38/3, 2019, pp. 584–87

Ron Briley, Searching for Woody Guthrie: a personal exploration of the folk singer, his music, and his politics (2020), Popular Music, 39/2, (2020), pp. 354–56

Robert Christgau, Is it still good to ya? Fifty years of rock criticism 1967–2002 and Book Reports: a music critic on his first love, which was reading (2019), Popular Music, 39/2 (2020), pp. 384–89

Ray Padgett, I’m your fan: the songs of Leonard Cohen (2020), Popular Music, 39/3–4 (2020), pp. 747–49

Review articles

‘The High Analysis of Low Music’ (1999), Music Analysis, 18/3, pp. 389–435 (David Brackett)

‘After Relativism: Recent Directions in the High Analysis of Low Music’, Music Analysis, 31/3 (2012), pp. 381–413 (Moore, Tagg, Everett)

Reference articles

New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Macmillan, 2000), entries on Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Lyrics (2).

Cydymaith I Gerddoriaeth Cymru (Bangor University, 2013): entry on John Cale