Joni Mitchell's ‘Woodstock’ is one of the most recognisable songs about the 1969 festival, yet Mitchell did not attend Woodstock and instead wrote her song in a New York City hotel room. The song ‘Woodstock’, then, represents the event not as it literally happened, but as it could have been, as an idealised depiction of nostalgia for the festival and the era's utopian potential. I analyse Mitchell's song as a utopian text and investigate the political efficacy of ‘Woodstock's musical and lyrical content for Mitchell, for other artists who cover the song, and for audiences who may recognise it as the festival's ‘theme’. As her career continues, Mitchell abandons the folk-based style of her early albums, but keeps ‘Woodstock’ an active part of her performance repertoire. I trace three later versions to show that the utopianism of the original disappears as Mitchell re-imagines the song, the event and its ideological legacy.

From an economic point of view, the business of record labels until recently boiled down to managing a portfolio of artists, with successful stars bringing the label enough money to recoup investments in market flops. The decline in record sales has called this model into question and forced labels to look for new sources of revenue. Employing qualitative data gathered in Poland, this paper demonstrates how labels react to adverse market conditions and what determines these reactions. The paper shows that these reactions include the monetisation of the relationship that a label has with artists through signing 360° deals, the commercial exploitation of artists’ brand names, and concentration on niche markets, either foreign or format-based (e.g. the market for vinyl). The paper concludes that record labels, regardless of which approach they choose to deal with the adverse market conditions, still think in terms of managing a portfolio of artists. What is more, there is no universal strategy which can be applied by every label to deal with declining record sales.

Although Kate Bush's reputation as a significant musical pioneer has been accepted by most critics and academic commentators since her return to music in 2005, most readings of her work have been highly ahistoric. This paper explores how, with the release of her fifth album, Hounds of Love, in 1985, her popular appeal was widened into a genuine acceptance of her idiom by contemporary cultural commentators. In particular, the paper focuses on the rival inspirations and the shape, form and delivery of the title track, ‘Hounds of Love’ and its ‘alternative’ version, released on a 12” disc. The paper concludes by analysing the visual presentation of the song through the promotional video (directed by Bush herself) and her two mimed performances and offering a contextualised explanation for Bush's perceived ‘authenticity’ as an artist and performer.

On the basis of observational studies in a number of rock music festivals during the period 2004–2012, I ask the following question in this paper: how does the music festival community arise and how is it maintained? With the help of perspectives from interactionist sociology and organisational studies I develop an analysis of how rock music festival ‘skills’ are collectively produced. A communally acknowledged competence is negotiated and made explicit by means, among other things, of the synchronisation of a daily rhythm that becomes common to many festivals. The present analysis will employ a close description of this rhythm's phases, and how transitions between them are interactively negotiated. While rock music festivals certainly celebrate fandom, this paper draws attention to processes that build strong senses of community between participants while joining together in the camping site, outside stage areas. The social rhythm, as it is interactively and artfully produced between participants, makes the festival recognisable as a festival, and attractive as a social event. A profound sense of connectedness between participants is to be found between the tents in the festival camp.

In his book, America, Jean Baudrillard characterised the United States as a nation created for the sole purpose of escaping history, a place that has purged itself of all negativity, and whose citizens live life in a perpetual present. Baudrillard's study of America provides an ideal framework with which to examine the ways that blues is both congenial and antithetical to postmodern America, and how the significations and meanings of blues have changed as the music has passed from modernity to postmodernity. Of particular interest is the question of whether African-American interpretations of blues can remain privileged. Examining blues music in the context of America provides clear cultural examples that support many of Baudrillard's often obscure metaphysical observations.

As a musical form, punk is often associated with urbanity, as embodied in the scenes in both London and New York, and in an Australian national context by the scenes in Melbourne and Sydney. In Perth, Western Australia – a primarily middle-class suburban city without a distinct inner city – punk was expressed differently. While the music itself exemplified many of the stylistic traits associated with the genre, punk in Perth was articulated through the city's isolation, its affluence and its suburban nature. Utilising interviews with key players in the Perth punk scene of the late 1970s, this paper seeks to illustrate the ways in which urbanity was constructed and voiced through Perth punk, in a city that constructed itself in opposition to traditional notions of the inner city's urban lived environment.