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This edited collection examines statistics within the music industry. Its aim is to expose the historical and contemporary use and abuse of these numbers, both nationally and internationally. It addresses their impact on consumers' choices, upon the careers of musicians and upon the policies that governments and legislators make.
About the author
Richard Osborne is Senior Lecturer in Popular Music at Middlesex University. He is the author of Vinyl: A History of the Analogue Record (Ashgate, 2012) and co-editor with and Zuleika Beaven and Marcus O’Dair of Mute Records: Artists, Business, History (Bloomsbury, 2018). Outside of academia, he has worked in record shops, held various posts at PRS for Music and co-managed a pub.
He publishes widely in the field of popular music studies, including the blog ‘Pop Bothering Me’ (http://richardosbornevinyl.blogspot.co.uk/).
Dave Laing’s books include The Sound of Our Time (Sheed and Ward, 1969); Buddy Holly (MacMillan, 1971); The Electric Muse: The Story of Folk into Rock, co-authored with Karl Dallas, Robin Denselow and Robert Shelton (Eyre Methuen, 1975); Encylopedia of Rock, co-edited with Phil Hardy (HarperCollins, 1976); The Marxist Theory of Art (Prometheus, 1979); One Chord Wonders (Open University Press, 1985); The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, co-authored with Phil Hardy (Faber & Faber, 1990); The Guerilla Guide to the Music Business, co-authored with Sarah Davies (Continuum, 2006); and Popular Music Matters: Essays in Honour of Simon Frith, co-edited with Lee Marshall (Ashgate, 2014). One of the founding figures of popular music studies, Dave sadly passed away in 2019 when Music by Numbers was in production.
Summary
This edited collection examines statistics within the music industry. Its aim is to expose the historical and contemporary use and abuse of these numbers, both nationally and internationally. It addresses their impact on consumers’ choices, upon the careers of musicians and upon the policies that governments and legislators make.
