It’s a dark moon weekend and it feels like a dangerous time for many in the music industry.

I see, and read of, the consequences of lockdowns, border closures, shows and tours cancelled in real time. I sense it in social media posts of artists and industry folks, daily. I could hear it in the interviews with spokespeople of the Australian music industry in last week’s The Music’s Music Industry Brainstorms Solutions As Govt Fails To Provide Roadmap Out Of COVID two part pod-cast.

It is a hard listen. The fear and desperation are palpable.

Reality is hard — there…

Written by: Leanne de Souza on 13 June 2021

TRIGGER WARNING: This article and pages it links to contains information about rape, sexual assault and/or violence which may be triggering to victim-survivors.

The Australian music industry has a problem. Men continue to pay unwanted sexual attention to women — men sexually harass and assault women in their places of work. Offices, venues, music festivals, industry conferences and events, in cars and tour vans.

Research, data, online activism and shared lived experiences of the problem have proliferated since 2017. …

My generation, the X-ers of Australian women, were hopeful of a feminist future much like this tree:

Strong, swollen with recognition and wisdom. A canopy rich with diversity and deep roots. Holding power to account and in place for future generations.

Alas this tree is how I feel today on International Women’s Day 2021:

Battle scars, grief and trauma run deep in the music industry.

My own experience includes ongoing, deep psychological wounds. The music industry spat me out twice — traumatic immediate loss of income, identity, purpose and imagined futures built on integrity, hard work and visions that failed to materialise.

I can now pinpoint, in the rearview mirror, both the summer of 1993–94 and the spring of 2008 as defining perceived industry ‘failures.’ Cognitive neuroscience research explains the influence past experiences have on behaviour. Often unconscious, these psychological and physical triggers explain the negative effect on our wellbeing. …

Seeking to understand why my Spotify use has changed and is now increasingly skewed toward algorithmic lists I researched a “Digital Cultures” paper for university – this is an edited version.

Canadian cultural critic, Marshall McLuhan would define Spotify as a medium, and therefore differentiated from the music (content) that is played on the platform. He would argue it is not the music that matters so much but what we do, as humans, with it is that has an impact on culture.

As a digital media platform Spotify functions within what new media scholar Jose van Dijck calls a ‘techno-cultural…

Music is everywhere. We hear it in coffee shops, salons, bars, restaurants, gyms, hotel and theatre foyers, workplaces, shopping malls, family leisure centres, tourism attractions and the list goes on.

We feel music through our hearts and communicate it through our brains — music creates a bridge between the heart and head.

Research in music and neuroscience demonstrates the many fascinating ways that music affects human’s mood and behaviour.

Barry Goldstein summarised here the four ways that music affects the brain : emotion, memory, neuroplasticity and attention. Listening to music affects our emotional and physical experiences. A 2009 study from…

A response to the Australia Council for the Arts provocations in the September 2020 Discussion Paper, re-imagine What next?

The discussion paper centres the idea that COVID-19 has provided a “clear imperative: future disruptions are inevitable, and the arts and culture industries must rapidly adjust to ensure they don’t just survive but thrive in the future.”

I was immediately curious — what would the collective arts and culture industries’ artists, artsworkers and organisations consider in the consultation to follow? …

How royalties are distributed to the owners of songs and sound recordings deepens the complexity of the issues unpacked in FAIR PLAY Part One and Part Two.

Data has reshaped the conditions of economic exchange in the 21st Century.

The UK Intellectual Property Office commissioned research from Ulster University in 2019. Their Music 2025 The Music Data Dilemma: issues facing the music industry in improving data management report adopted a holistic view. Inspired by SST (Social Shaping of Technology) with an emphasis on the contingent, complex and intricate relationships involved in innovation. The research evidenced strong and growing consensus that…