A critical survey of museum collections of popular music in the United Kingdom
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.33288Keywords:
collecting, heritage, material culture, museum, popular musicAbstract
Drawing on an extensive nationwide survey of UK museum practice and interviews with museum professionals, this article documents and reflects on the increasing prevalence of popular music within museum collections. It argues for the significance of developing popular music as a museum subject, placing into context the differing ways in which museums have defined ‘popular music’ on an institutional basis, reflecting the history and context of the organizations themselves. The nature of popular music objects collected are analysed, with the classificatory systems into which they are inserted discussed and collecting motivations examined. Key museological issues affecting the collection of popular music material such as collection care, suitability for display, difficulty of acquisition, and ease of storage are addressed. Limiting factors such as the absence of popular music from many museum collecting policies and the perception that the museum is not the natural home of popular music are viewed as specific inhibiting factors in the growth of popular music as a museum subject; however the fact that popular music continues to develop within UK museums demonstrates shifting perceptions of cultural heritage and developing practices of contemporary collecting.
References
Arnold-Forster, Kate, and Hélène La Rue. 1993. Museums of Music. London: HMSO.
Baker, Sarah. 2015. Preserving Popular Music Heritage: Do-it-Yourself, Do-it-Together. New York: Routledge.
Baker, Sarah, and Jez Collins. 2015. ‘Sustaining Popular Music’s Material Culture in Community Archives and Museums’. International Journal of Heritage Studies 21/10: 983–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2015.1041414
Bourdieu, Pierre. 2010. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge.
Cameron, Fiona, and Sarah Mengler. 2009. ‘Complexity, Transdisciplinarity and Museum Collections Documentation: Emergent Metaphors for a Complex World’. Journal of Material Culture 14/2: 189–218. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183509103061
Cavicchi, D. 1998. Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning among Springsteen Fans. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chang, Jim H. Y. 2008. ‘Saving Local Music from Oblivion: The Hong Kong Music Collection at the Hong Kong Central Library’. Fontes Artis Musicae 55/3: 495–511.
Cohen, Sara; Robert Knifton, Marion Leonard and Les Roberts, eds. 2015. Sites of Popular Music Heritage: Memories, Histories, Places. New York: Routledge.
Collins, Jez, and Paul Long. 2015. ‘“Fillin’ in any blanks I can”: Online Archival Practice and Virtual Sites of Musical Memory’. In Sites of Popular Music Heritage: Memories, Histories, Places, ed. Sara Cohen, Robert Knifton, Marion Leonard and Les Roberts, 81–96. New York: Routledge.
Duncan, Carol. 1995. Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums. London: Routledge.
Dyson, Linda. 2002. ‘Collecting Practices and Autobiography’. In Temporalities, Autobiography and Everyday Life, ed. Jan Campbell and Janet Harbord, 128–40. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Edge, Kevin. 2000. ‘Music in the Museum: Some Problems in Collecting and Interpreting the Technologies of Pop’. Popular Musicology Online 3. http://popular-musicology-online.com/issues/03/edge.html (accessed 7 March 2017).
Fabbri, F. 2013. ‘Is There Popular Music Out There?’. Journal of European Popular Culture 4/1: 9–18. https://doi.org/10.1386/jepc.4.1.9_1
Fiske, John. 1992. ‘The Cultural Economy of Fandom’. In The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, ed. Lisa A. Lewis, 30–49. London: Routledge.
Frith, Simon et al. 2005. ‘Can We Get Rid of the “Popular” in Popular Music? A Virtual Symposium with Contributions from the International Advisory Editors of Popular Music’. Popular Music 24/1: 133–45. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143004000364
Grenier, Line. 2001. ‘In Search of an Archive: Methodological Issues in the Genealogical Analysis of the Popular Music Industry in Quebec’. Canadian Journal of Communication 26/2: 277–83.
Gronow, Pekka. 1981. ‘The Record Industry Comes to the Orient’. Ethnomusicology 25/2: 251–84.
Henke, James. 2009. ‘From Journalism to Exhibits: The Public Classroom of Rock and Roll’. Journal of Popular Music Studies 21/1: 102–107. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-1598.2009.01173.x
Jones, Ian. 2008. ‘Cities and Museums about Them’. In City Museums and City Development, ed. Ian Jones, Robert R. Macdonald and Darryl McIntyre, 1–15. Plymouth: AltaMira Press.
Kibby, Marjorie. 2009. ‘Collect Yourself’. Information, Communication & Society 12/3: 428–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691180802660644
Krzyzanowski, Thomas. 2013. ‘Making Noise: Toronto Public Library’s Local Music Project’. CAML Review 41/1: 11–14.
Leonard, Marion. 2007. ‘Constructing Histories through Material Culture: Popular Music, Museums and Collecting’. Popular Music History 2/2: 147–67. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v2i2.147
—2014. ‘Staging the Beatles: Ephemerality, Materiality and the Production of Authenticity in the Museum’. International Journal of Heritage Studies 20/4: 357–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2012.754367
Leonard, Marion, and Robert Knifton. 2012. ‘“Museums of Sound”: Collecting and Curating Everyday Popular Music Experiences’. In Recording Leisure Lives: Everyday Leisure in 20th Century Britain, ed. Robert Snape, Helen Pussard and Matthew Constantine, 67–83. Eastbourne: Leisure Studies Association.
Luyk, Sean. 2013. ‘Scene but Not Heard: Collecting Local Music’. CAML REVIEW 41/1: 22–33.
Magaudda, Paolo. 2011. ‘When Materiality “Bites Back”: Digital Music Consumption Practices in the Age of Dematerialization’. Journal of Consumer Culture 11/1: 15–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540510390499
Maguire, Marsha, David E. Motson, Gwen Wilson and Jen Wolfe. 2005. ‘Searching for Nirvana: Cataloging and the Digital Collection at the Experience Music Project’. Journal of Internet Cataloging 7/1: 9–31. https://doi.org/10.1300/J141v07n01_02
Marshall, Lee. 2003. ‘For and Against the Record Industry: An Introduction to Bootleg Collectors and Tape Traders’. Popular Music 22/1: 57–72. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143003003040
McCourt, Tom. 2005. ‘Collecting Music in the Digital Realm’. Popular Music and Society 28/2: 249–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007760500045394
Moody, Laura L. 2012. ‘The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Library and Archives’. Music Reference Services Quarterly 15/2: 99–110. https://doi.org/10.1080/10588167.2012.675832
Moore, Kevin. 1997. Museums and Popular Culture. London: Cassell.
Nannyonga-Tamusuza, Sylvia. 2006. ‘Constructing the Popular: Challenges of Archiving Ugandan “Popular” Music’. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa 18/2: 33–52.
Pearce, S. M. 1992. Museums, Objects, and Collections. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Pirrie Adams, Kathleen. 2016. ‘When Media Becomes Form: Declining Conventions of Materiality, Space, and Audience in the Popular Music Museum’. Unpublished PhD, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester.
Plasketes, George. 1992. ‘Romancing the Record: The Vinyl De-evolution and Subculture Evolution’. Journal of Popular Culture 26/1: 109–122. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1992.00109.x
Sarpong, Kwame. 2004. ‘Ghana’s Highlife Music: A Digital Repertoire of Recordings and Pop Art at the Gramophone Records Museum’. History in Africa 31: 455–61. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0361541300003612
Shuker, Roy. 2010. Wax Trash and Vinyl Junkies: Record Collecting as a Social Practice. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Stephens, Simon. 2011. ‘Using Oral History’. Museum Practice, 15 November. http://www.museumsassociation.org/museum-practice/oral-history/25112011-using-oral-history (accessed 1 February 2014).
Straw, Will. 1997. ‘Sizing Up Record Collections: Gender and Connoisseurship in Rock Music Culture’. In Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender, ed. Shelia Whiteley, 3–16. London: Routledge.
Wanser, Jeff. 2014. ‘Collecting and Collaborating to Build Community: The Evolution of a Local Music Collection at a Small Liberal Arts College Library’. Technical Services Quarterly 31/4: 332–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/07317131.2014.908586
Watson, Elizabeth F. 2003. ‘From Drum to Digital: Popular Music Collections in Libraries: A Bajan Perspective’. The New Review of Libraries and Lifelong Learning 4/1: 5–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/1468994042000240197
Wells, Paul F. 1998. ‘The Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University: Documenting the Broad Range of American Vernacular Music’. Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association 54/4: 860–72. https://doi.org/10.2307/900060
Yochim, Emily Chivers, and Megan Biddinger. 2008. ‘“It kind of gives you that vintage feel”: Vinyl Records and the Trope of Death’. Media, Culture & Society 30/2: 183–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443707086860
Baker, Sarah. 2015. Preserving Popular Music Heritage: Do-it-Yourself, Do-it-Together. New York: Routledge.
Baker, Sarah, and Jez Collins. 2015. ‘Sustaining Popular Music’s Material Culture in Community Archives and Museums’. International Journal of Heritage Studies 21/10: 983–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2015.1041414
Bourdieu, Pierre. 2010. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge.
Cameron, Fiona, and Sarah Mengler. 2009. ‘Complexity, Transdisciplinarity and Museum Collections Documentation: Emergent Metaphors for a Complex World’. Journal of Material Culture 14/2: 189–218. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183509103061
Cavicchi, D. 1998. Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning among Springsteen Fans. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chang, Jim H. Y. 2008. ‘Saving Local Music from Oblivion: The Hong Kong Music Collection at the Hong Kong Central Library’. Fontes Artis Musicae 55/3: 495–511.
Cohen, Sara; Robert Knifton, Marion Leonard and Les Roberts, eds. 2015. Sites of Popular Music Heritage: Memories, Histories, Places. New York: Routledge.
Collins, Jez, and Paul Long. 2015. ‘“Fillin’ in any blanks I can”: Online Archival Practice and Virtual Sites of Musical Memory’. In Sites of Popular Music Heritage: Memories, Histories, Places, ed. Sara Cohen, Robert Knifton, Marion Leonard and Les Roberts, 81–96. New York: Routledge.
Duncan, Carol. 1995. Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums. London: Routledge.
Dyson, Linda. 2002. ‘Collecting Practices and Autobiography’. In Temporalities, Autobiography and Everyday Life, ed. Jan Campbell and Janet Harbord, 128–40. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Edge, Kevin. 2000. ‘Music in the Museum: Some Problems in Collecting and Interpreting the Technologies of Pop’. Popular Musicology Online 3. http://popular-musicology-online.com/issues/03/edge.html (accessed 7 March 2017).
Fabbri, F. 2013. ‘Is There Popular Music Out There?’. Journal of European Popular Culture 4/1: 9–18. https://doi.org/10.1386/jepc.4.1.9_1
Fiske, John. 1992. ‘The Cultural Economy of Fandom’. In The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, ed. Lisa A. Lewis, 30–49. London: Routledge.
Frith, Simon et al. 2005. ‘Can We Get Rid of the “Popular” in Popular Music? A Virtual Symposium with Contributions from the International Advisory Editors of Popular Music’. Popular Music 24/1: 133–45. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143004000364
Grenier, Line. 2001. ‘In Search of an Archive: Methodological Issues in the Genealogical Analysis of the Popular Music Industry in Quebec’. Canadian Journal of Communication 26/2: 277–83.
Gronow, Pekka. 1981. ‘The Record Industry Comes to the Orient’. Ethnomusicology 25/2: 251–84.
Henke, James. 2009. ‘From Journalism to Exhibits: The Public Classroom of Rock and Roll’. Journal of Popular Music Studies 21/1: 102–107. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-1598.2009.01173.x
Jones, Ian. 2008. ‘Cities and Museums about Them’. In City Museums and City Development, ed. Ian Jones, Robert R. Macdonald and Darryl McIntyre, 1–15. Plymouth: AltaMira Press.
Kibby, Marjorie. 2009. ‘Collect Yourself’. Information, Communication & Society 12/3: 428–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691180802660644
Krzyzanowski, Thomas. 2013. ‘Making Noise: Toronto Public Library’s Local Music Project’. CAML Review 41/1: 11–14.
Leonard, Marion. 2007. ‘Constructing Histories through Material Culture: Popular Music, Museums and Collecting’. Popular Music History 2/2: 147–67. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v2i2.147
—2014. ‘Staging the Beatles: Ephemerality, Materiality and the Production of Authenticity in the Museum’. International Journal of Heritage Studies 20/4: 357–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2012.754367
Leonard, Marion, and Robert Knifton. 2012. ‘“Museums of Sound”: Collecting and Curating Everyday Popular Music Experiences’. In Recording Leisure Lives: Everyday Leisure in 20th Century Britain, ed. Robert Snape, Helen Pussard and Matthew Constantine, 67–83. Eastbourne: Leisure Studies Association.
Luyk, Sean. 2013. ‘Scene but Not Heard: Collecting Local Music’. CAML REVIEW 41/1: 22–33.
Magaudda, Paolo. 2011. ‘When Materiality “Bites Back”: Digital Music Consumption Practices in the Age of Dematerialization’. Journal of Consumer Culture 11/1: 15–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540510390499
Maguire, Marsha, David E. Motson, Gwen Wilson and Jen Wolfe. 2005. ‘Searching for Nirvana: Cataloging and the Digital Collection at the Experience Music Project’. Journal of Internet Cataloging 7/1: 9–31. https://doi.org/10.1300/J141v07n01_02
Marshall, Lee. 2003. ‘For and Against the Record Industry: An Introduction to Bootleg Collectors and Tape Traders’. Popular Music 22/1: 57–72. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143003003040
McCourt, Tom. 2005. ‘Collecting Music in the Digital Realm’. Popular Music and Society 28/2: 249–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007760500045394
Moody, Laura L. 2012. ‘The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Library and Archives’. Music Reference Services Quarterly 15/2: 99–110. https://doi.org/10.1080/10588167.2012.675832
Moore, Kevin. 1997. Museums and Popular Culture. London: Cassell.
Nannyonga-Tamusuza, Sylvia. 2006. ‘Constructing the Popular: Challenges of Archiving Ugandan “Popular” Music’. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa 18/2: 33–52.
Pearce, S. M. 1992. Museums, Objects, and Collections. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Pirrie Adams, Kathleen. 2016. ‘When Media Becomes Form: Declining Conventions of Materiality, Space, and Audience in the Popular Music Museum’. Unpublished PhD, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester.
Plasketes, George. 1992. ‘Romancing the Record: The Vinyl De-evolution and Subculture Evolution’. Journal of Popular Culture 26/1: 109–122. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1992.00109.x
Sarpong, Kwame. 2004. ‘Ghana’s Highlife Music: A Digital Repertoire of Recordings and Pop Art at the Gramophone Records Museum’. History in Africa 31: 455–61. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0361541300003612
Shuker, Roy. 2010. Wax Trash and Vinyl Junkies: Record Collecting as a Social Practice. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Stephens, Simon. 2011. ‘Using Oral History’. Museum Practice, 15 November. http://www.museumsassociation.org/museum-practice/oral-history/25112011-using-oral-history (accessed 1 February 2014).
Straw, Will. 1997. ‘Sizing Up Record Collections: Gender and Connoisseurship in Rock Music Culture’. In Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender, ed. Shelia Whiteley, 3–16. London: Routledge.
Wanser, Jeff. 2014. ‘Collecting and Collaborating to Build Community: The Evolution of a Local Music Collection at a Small Liberal Arts College Library’. Technical Services Quarterly 31/4: 332–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/07317131.2014.908586
Watson, Elizabeth F. 2003. ‘From Drum to Digital: Popular Music Collections in Libraries: A Bajan Perspective’. The New Review of Libraries and Lifelong Learning 4/1: 5–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/1468994042000240197
Wells, Paul F. 1998. ‘The Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University: Documenting the Broad Range of American Vernacular Music’. Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association 54/4: 860–72. https://doi.org/10.2307/900060
Yochim, Emily Chivers, and Megan Biddinger. 2008. ‘“It kind of gives you that vintage feel”: Vinyl Records and the Trope of Death’. Media, Culture & Society 30/2: 183–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443707086860
Published
2017-04-07
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Knifton, R., & Leonard, M. (2017). A critical survey of museum collections of popular music in the United Kingdom. Popular Music History, 10(2), 171-191. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.33288
