Goldsmiths - University of London

Professor Keith Negus

Keith Negus entered higher education as a mature student, having spent many years playing keyboards and guitar in a variety of bands after leaving school. He gained a degree in Sociology from Middlesex Polytechnic and then completed a PhD study of the acquisition, production and promotion of recording artists at SouthBank Polytechnic. He subsequently taught at the Universities of Leicester and Puerto Rico and was based in the Department of Media and Communications prior to moving the Department of Music at Goldsmiths. He is a coordinating editor of Popular Music (Cambridge University Press).

Academic qualifications

BA, PhD

Areas of supervision

Current PhD students and their fields of study:

Adrian Sledmere – The concept of talent and the music industry.

Richard Witts – A historical study of BBC Music policy with particular reference to Radio 3.

Stephen Graham - Contemporary Music Studies: 'Experimental Music in the Twenty-First Century: non-notated "classical music" and non-popular "popular music"'

Research interests

His research engages with all aspects of the production, consumption and mediation of popular music and key debates in cultural theory. He has recently completed research on musicians on television and written a book on the music and musicianship of Bob Dylan. He is currently conducting research on narrative and the popular song.

Selected publications

Books
Bob Dylan, Equinox Publishing. 2008.

Creativity, Communication and Cultural Value. Sage, 2004. Jointly authored with Dr M. Pickering, Loughborough University.

Popular Music Studies, Arnold, 2002. Edited with Dr. David Hesmondhalgh, Open University.

Music Genres and Corporate Cultures. Routledge, 1999 Spanish edition published by Paidós, Barcelona, 2005.

Doing Cultural Studies, The Story of the Sony Walkman. Sage, 1997. Co-authored with Paul du Gay, Stuart Hall, Hugh Mackay, Linda Janes, all Open University

Popular Music in Theory: An Introduction. Polity Press (UK) 1996, and Wesleyan University Press (USA), 1997. Japanese edition published in 2004 by Editions de la roses vents – Suiseisha, Tokyo.

Producing Pop: Culture and Conflict in the Popular Music Industry. Edward Arnold. 1992

Journal articles
‘Living, Breathing Songs: Singing Along With Bob Dylan’, Oral Tradition, Vol 22 No 1 pp71-83.

‘Musicians on Television: Visible, Audible and Ignored’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association. Vol. 131 No 2, 2006, pp310-330.

‘The Work of Cultural Intermediaries and the Enduring Distance Between Production and Consumption’, Cultural Studies, Vol. 16 No 4, 2002, pp501-515.

‘Belonging and Detachment: Musical Experience and the Limits of Identity’, Poetics, Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media and the Arts, Vol. 30, 2002, pp133-145. Co-authored with Dra. Patria Román-Velázquez, City University.

‘Cultural Production and the Corporation: Musical Genres and the Strategic Management of Creativity in the U.S. Recording Industry’, Media, Culture and Society, Vol. 20 No. 3, 1998, pp359-379.

Chapters in books
‘Rethinking Creative Production Away From the Cultural Industries’ in James Curran and David Morley (eds), Media and Cultural Theory, Routledge, 2006.

‘The Business of Rap: Between the Street and the Executive Suite’ in Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal (eds), That’s the Joint! The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, Routledge, 2004, pp525-540.

‘Identities and Industries: The Cultural Formation of Aesthetic Economies’ in P. du Gay & M. Pryke (eds) Cultural Economy, Sage, 2002, pp115-131.

‘Music Divisions: The Recording Industry and the Social Mediation of Popular Music’ in J. Curran (Ed) Media Organisations in Society, Arnold, 2000, pp240-254,

'The Production of Culture' in P. du Gay (ed) Production of Culture/ Cultures of Production. Sage, 1997, pp67-118

‘Sinéad O'Connor - Musical Mother' in S. Whitely (ed), Sexing the Groove: Popular Music, Gender and Sexuality. Routledge 1997, pp178-190.