"Art, of course, has always to some extent been bought and sold. Even so, as Taylor masterfully argues, the rise of neoliberal capitalism has effected a transformation by which many musics are made as 'cultural commodities,' created for and defined by their role in exchange. Music and Capitalism presents a wide-ranging history and ethnography of this shift. . . . Analysis such as Taylor’s is essential in helping us understand and internalize how capitalism and technology drive the shift—that is, how market forces make music."

Ethnomusicology

“Using a historically informed approach grounded in Marx, Weber and Bourdieu, Taylor’s book is wide ranging but focused, nuanced and clearly articulated.”
 

Ethnomusicology Forum

“This book addresses a fundamental question: how have changes in capitalism impacted the production and consumption of music? In the first chapter, Taylor (UCLA) offers a brief history of music and capitalism, and in the chapters that follow, he looks at neoliberalism and the cultural industries, globalization, digitalization, and neoliberal capitalism. . . . In contrast to many social scientists who critique present-day society, Taylor is mildly optimistic: he concludes that humans have the potential for better lives. Of interest to those in the culture industries. . . . Recommended.”

Choice

“Taylor convincingly argues we can’t properly look at music in a vacuum that doesn’t consider economics, and provides a framework for understanding the big pictures and unseen hands driving the industry and the people who work within it.”

PopMatters

“First-hand accounts from Taylor’s interviews tie together the wide-ranging topics throughout, revealing how each individual or organization negotiates their own position in the economy and builds their own identity in the cultural value system of the music business. . . . Music And Capitalism builds on the argument put forward by Jacques Attali in Noise: The Political Economy Of Music that capitalism both shapes and is shaped by culture. This approach necessarily invokes systems of value other than the monetary—brand value, edginess, tastemaking, and the construction of identity through conspicuous consumption are discussed. Yet in Taylor’s view of capitalism as a cultural force, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between aesthetic judgments and marketing decisions.”
 

The Wire

“Taylor’s contribution is to see the questions surrounding music and capitalism through the lens of traditions of social theory that have been crowded out by Adorno. His case studies, rich in the voices of actors and participants as well as in theoretical debate, throw us into the diverse histories and cultures of the musical marketplace. This is a bold and ambitious book, by an author whose reading in these fields is unrivaled and who has a knack for getting quickly to the point. Required reading across all of the musicological disciplines.”

Martin Stokes, author of Republic of Love

“Music and money have a strong affinity. Taylor explores their synthesis as cultural commodities in the era of neoliberal capitalism. This pathbreaking book is an original work of theory built on encyclopedic knowledge of commercial music today.”

Keith Hart, author of Money in an Unequal World

“Comprehensively researched and presented with numerous historical and ethnographic examples, Music and Capitalism is a major landmark in music studies and research on capitalism. Critical, insightful, and erudite, Taylor addresses the production and consumption of music in a work that deeply reveals the social organization of capitalism and its profound impact on music.”

Jocelyne Guilbault, author of Governing Sound