Event overview
‘It’s Shit!’ Cultural Contexts and Songwriting Practice or What Makes a Good Song and How Do You Write One?
Music Research Series and the Popular Music Research Unit present a lecture by Pete Astor.
Abstract:
Our judgements about songs are informed by who we are, where we’re coming from and where we’re going; the songwriter’s job is to negotiate this, both in their own work and in relation to their audience. This talk looks at ways in which this might be done.
Pete Astor is Senior Lecturer in musicology and performance at the University of Westminster. He has worked for over twenty years as a musician, lecturer, researcher, writer, composer and music industry consultant. His career spans genre-defining releases with his bands The Loft and The Weather Prophets on Creation Records and Warner Brothers, as well as releases on labels such as Matador, Heavenly, EMI, Peace Frog and Warp. For several years he was A&R manager in the publishing arm of the Beggars Group. His most recent releases are solo album, Songbox on the Second Language label and Regions by his duo with David Sheppard, Ellis Island Sound. As a writer, he began his career working for the New Musical Express, later going on to write for Mojo. He has published academic research in Popular Music and has chapters in Routledge’s Music Industry Handbook and Ashgate’s Essays in Honour of Simon Frith. He has recently published a study of Richard Hell and the Voidoids’ Blank Generation as part of Bloomsbury Academic’s Thirty Three and a Third series.
All are welcome to these public lectures.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 7 Oct 2014 | 5:00pm - 7:00pm |
Accessibility
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