Bloomsbury Music and Sound

Bloomsbury Music and Sound is a growing digital hub for exclusive reference content, cutting edge scholarship and learning resources in music and sound studies.
Browse content, discover collections, and explore our range of research and study tools using the links above and below.

EXPLORE 1000+ GENRES

EXPLORE 700+ ARTISTS

Interactive World Map

Discover music genres and traditions from around the world with this interactive tool

Interactive Timeline

Explore the history of popular music with this interactive tool

Artist Biographies

Discover the lives and works of over 500 artists from around the globe

Click on the links below to discover artists, topics, countries, and more

The Music Industry in the Digital Age

Explore the various ways in which the music industry has adapted in response to the digital revolution in recent years.

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Artist in Focus: David Bowie

Discover David Bowie’s work as a music video pioneer and transmedia artist.

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Music and National Identity

From the beginnings of the twentieth century to today there has been a fascination with the idea of music as a marker of shared tradition within a nation, and therefore as a builder of cultural identity.

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Country in Focus: Vietnam

The music of Vietnam is influenced by both Chinese and South Asian elements. Prior to colonization, popular music entertainments included musical theatre with origins in Chinese opera, folk theatre and chamber music, as well regional folk song styles.

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Musical Countercultures

Musical countercultures have sprung up across the world throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, prevailing as an expression of societal subcultures and anti-establishment movements, and as a sonic rebellion against the dominant musical genres which embody the status quo in their particular moment.

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Artist in Focus: Fela Kuti

The Nigerian multi-instrumentalist bandleader and activist Fela Kuti brought the sound of radical African jazz to a global audience.

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Country in Focus: Argentina

Popular music in Argentina has a richly diverse history, with influences from the indigenous population, European settlers, and African slaves.

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The Music Video

Music videos in all their forms remain powerful cultural artifacts that circulate widely across social media platforms to promote music and musicians. The proliferation of social networking sites and handheld technologies has changed the course and format of the video and its modes of screening music.

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Studio photo of Marc Bolan, taken in 1970

Gender and Sexuality in Popular Music Studies

Popular music displays a vast range of gendered and sexualized subjectivities, communicating powerful stories about the ever-shifting dynamics of human agency in society.

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Bernhard Leitner, Sound Tube art installation, dated 1972

What is Sound Art?

Sound art is art. It is an art form that encapsulates all types of sonic expression—from acoustic, to digital, to sounds recorded in the natural world.

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