Popular Music History news

We’re pleased to announce two new issues of Popular Music History:

11(3) General Issue

This issue has two articles on Rush, particularly apt given the recent death of Neil Peart. Just as importantly, tribute is paid to Dave Laing, and we thank Adam Behr and Martin Cloonan for their permission to reprint earlier takes on Dave’s career, and his qualities as a valued research comrade.

12(1) Lost Musical Histories: Curating and Documenting Local Popular Music-Making in the UK

This special issue edited by Paul Carr examines a range of local histories of music-making across important venues, towns and regions often lost to grander national narratives, that also assesses how such histories are curated and regarded by local populations. 

New journal section

We are trialling a new section, Soundcheck, which will feature essays on any area of popular music history. Contributions (3000 to 5000 words) will be subject to peer review, and will accord with established conventions of research rigour. At the same time the section will encourage and foster freer stylistic approaches to (research) writing, as writing.

The journal is open to submissions which broadly align with current literary essay forms and categories, referred to under various extant (and overlapping) rubrics, including but not limited to the personal essay, creative nonfiction, narrative journalism, as well as memoir, biography, auto/ethnography and so on. Poetry, fiction, screenplays as such will not be accepted (but editors may be open to poetic or even fictional elements embedded in larger primarily nonfiction pieces). At the same time essays will be expected to pose a clear research question (whether implicit or stated), to address gap(s) in the knowledge, and to create new knowledge. 

If interested, please email Soundcheck editor Peter Doyle with a short precis and/or sample of your essay idea.

As always, we welcome ideas for articles and/or issues.