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Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to set out a critical and analytical framework with which to explore the ways in which popular music heritage in the UK (or in England more specifically) is variously understood, discussed, critiqued, practised or performed. Developed as part of a large-scale European project examining popular music, cultural heritage and cultural memory, our analysis is based on qualitative studies of popular music heritage discourses that reflect a broad cross section of sectors, institutions and industries. Adapting Smith’s concept of authorised heritage discourse, we propose a three-way analytical framework that theoretically and methodologically foregrounds those practices and processes of authorisation that variously ascribe music heritage discourses with value, legitimacy and social and cultural capital. Focusing our discussion on the example of music heritage plaques, we identify three categories of heritage discourse: (1) official authorised popular music heritage, (2) self-authorised popular music heritage and (3) unauthorised popular music heritage. The arguments developed in the final section of the paper in relation to unauthorised music heritage are presented as a critical point of orientation – heritage-as-praxis – that works in dialectical opposition to authorised heritage, or what we have more loosely termed ‘big H’ heritage.
Acknowledgements
This research has been supported as part of the Popular Music Heritage, Cultural Memory and Cultural Identity (POPID) project by the HERA Joint Research Programme (www.heranet.info) which is co-funded by AHRC, AKA, DASTI, ETF, FNR, FWF, HAZU, IRCHSS, MHEST, NWO, RANNIS, RCN, VR and The European Community FP7 2007–2013, under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities programme.
Notes
1. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2112047/Here-landed-Starman-Plaque-marks-London-street-David-Bowies-Ziggy-Stardust-touched-down.html#ixzz1vXsBKsPf [accessed May 2012].
2. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/plaque-to-mark-spot-in-london-where-ziggy-stardust-aka-david-bowie-fell-to-earth/story-fnb64oi6-1226293331843 [accessed May 2012].
3. Gibson and Connell Citation2005, Cohen Citation2007, Citation2012, Frost Citation2008.
4. In the UK, the dominance of heritage and AHDs positions music histories in England within a national discursive context that is markedly different to that operative in other European countries (see other contributions to this volume).
5. The research is funded by HERA and developed in collaboration with project partners based at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the University of Ljubljana and Mediacult in Vienna: http://www.eshcc.eur.nl/english/hera_popid/. See also related Australian-based project: http://musicmemoriesproject.blogspot.co.uk/p/our-project.html
6. http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/historic_environment/ [accessed 21 December 2011].
7. ‘Beatles’ Abbey Road zebra crossing given listed status’, BBC, 22 December 2010: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12059385 [accessed 21 December 2011].
8. ‘Beatles’ Strawberry Field gates removed’, The Guardian, 10 May 2011: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/may/10/beatles-strawberry-fields-gates-removed [accessed 21 December 2011].
9. As the interviewee pointed out, an obvious response to those who charged the organisation with ‘putting up plaques to a drug-taker’ was to remind them that the plaque that first launched the blue plaques scheme (in 1867) was to the romantic poet Lord Byron, who famously indulged in the drug laudanum.
10. Dissenting voices within English Heritage were highlighted in a BBC2 documentary about the plaque entitled ‘Picture This’ and broadcast on 5 June 1999 (see Cohen Citation2007)
11. ‘The Who’s Keith Moon to be honoured with ‘blue plaque’’, The Guardian, 2 February 2009: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/feb/02/who-keith-moon-blue-plaque [accessed 14 April 2011].
12. As noted by Regev (Citation2006, p. 2), for example, Anglo-American rock and pop is a major ingredient in the canon of popular music, whilst Appen and Doehring (Citation2006) illustrate the canonisation of white, male rock through lists of the 100 greatest albums of all time compiled by music journalists. See also Schmutz (Citation2005).
13. As well as Comic Heritage, the Heritage Foundation now encompasses Musical Heritage, Sports Heritage and Films and Television Heritage. See http://www.theheritagefoundation.info/aboutus [accessed 23 March 2011].
14. The plaque was unveiled in March 2009 at the site of the Marquee Club in Soho, where The Who often performed in the 1960s.
15. ‘Keith Moon gets plaque at last despite English Heritage snub’, The Independent on Sunday, 1 February 2009: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/keith-moon-gets-plaque-at-last-despite-english-heritage-snub-1522532.html [accessed 6 January 2012].
16. For example, in a report published by Birmingham City Council in 2012, a proposal for a plaque scheme and related tourist trail were put forward by authors of a report exploring popular music heritage in the city. By way of precedent, the report cites the examples of Liverpool, Coventry, Rochdale and Bristol as the other UK cities that have also erected plaques honouring popular musicians (see Birmingham City Council Citation2012, p. 27–28).
17. http://www.musicheritageuk.org/about.html [accessed 6 January 2012].
18. ‘London’s 100 Club fails in bid to become a listed building’, NME, 9 January 2012: http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/61327 [accessed 11 January 2012].
19. See http://www.musicheritageuk.org/media/100-club-listed-status-denied.html [accessed 11 January 2012].
20. http://www.prsformusic.com/creators/news/Pages/HeritageAward.aspx; http://www.prsformusic.com/creators/news/mmagazine/Pages/default.aspx [accessed 11 January 2012].
21. Schofield was in fact working for English Heritage’s characterisation team at the time. Accordingly, this example also highlights the ways in which official, self-authorised and unauthorised heritage can co-exist and intersect within a single ‘official’ organisation.
