From Making Places Better To Saving The World
Ten years of music policy taught us that places listen. The next ten have to prove it mattered.
A note before we start: this newsletter has been called Making Places Better since I started it, borrowed from the question that has animated my work for over a decade — can music make your city better? And if so, how and why? I still believe it can. But I’ve come to believe the question is now too small, and over the coming months this space will reflect that, and I will be writing more. As always, if you’d like to support my work here, all proceeds will be donated to the Center for Music Ecosystems, where we work every day to incorporate music to address and solve the biggest challenges we face.
Also, for those in London, I am speaking at the ‘Pints of Knowledge’ series on Monday, July 20th at the Old Queens Head in Islington. It’s all about this. If you’re around and fancy a pint and a lecture, love to see you → https://www.tickettailor.com/events/pintsofknowledge/2248412
Yesterday, the UK government published Turn It Up: Our Plan for Music — a ten-chapter national music plan covering investment, education, place, exports, fans and music’s social and environmental impact. There will be criticism of this plan, as there is with all of these documents. Much of this is a ‘greatest hits’ compilation that we’ve heard before, and it’s even more telling that in the next few weeks, there may be a new Secretary of State in place to implement it. Yes, some of the investments are from existing sources. There’s little in it to explicitly demonstrate how other government departments will engage with music. But for a greatest hits package, it is encouraging and very welcome. There’s a £45 million Music Growth Package, a strengthened Agent of Change commitment, business rates relief for venues, and a place chapter that names six mayoral authorities — Manchester, Liverpool, the North East, the West of England, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire — as music regions with some money and mandates attached. It also reflects many of the ‘winds of change’ that have been underway since the pandemic shut down much of the sector. Many more regions are investing in the music and creative economy. The structures that existed before the 2008 financial crash, when every county had some sort of music office, are slowly returning. Not everywhere, but somewhere. And this should be applauded.
But for me, what stuck with me after reading it was that I kept thinking about how impossible this document would have seemed ten years ago. And that the UK, in this case, is actually late to the game compared to other countries. In a world where we need more optimism and hope, we need to stop for a second and look back to understand where we are so we can chart the best path forward.
Where we started: blind ignorance
A decade ago, when I (and others) were knocking on doors trying to convince cities that music was worth planning for, the standard response was polite confusion. Music was entertainment. It was what happened after the real economy closed for the day. Yes, there were outliers, and many folks were doing this work day in, day out in cities around the world. To my knowledge, the first Music Cities conference was held by RHI in New Orleans in 2004. There were music policies in France, Australia and other countries. Austin and Nashville were deemed ‘music cities’. But there was no organized structure or ‘movement’. In many cities, new venues were noise complaints waiting to happen. Very, very few cities had a music officer, no country had a music plan, and the idea that a planning framework should protect grassroots venues or cultural hubs did not exist.
The work then was generalist, as I’ve written before — explaining the value of music to ‘non-music’ people. Building the race track before anyone could build cars. And slowly, place by place, the track got built. I was lucky to be part of the design team in some cities. I learned from many experts in others. We all made mistakes; many of mine are reflected in my book.
What actually happened: becoming a norm, rather than the exception, for better and worse
Look at what a decade produced.
The term ‘grassroots music venue’, invented by the UK’s Music Venue Trust, is now a household term and cited in government debates and legal documents around the world.
Over 250 cities, as far as I can count, have done something to engage with music across local policy - from tiny towns like Homer in Alaska to Tokyo and all sizes in between.
We have staged 17 Music Cities Conventions worldwide.
Networks have been created and expanded, from the significant increase in UNESCO Cities of Music to the Music Cities Network, with cities working together on music censuses.
The number of trade associations representing music organizations has increased significantly, especially since the pandemic. Many countries now have dedicated lobbyists to advocate for musicians, grassroots music venues, the live sector, women in music, access, and others, even music offices themselves.
Countries have established national music plans. Iceland, Australia, Belize, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Canada, Norway, and many, many others.
There’s been a groundswell of engagement to address the sad state of mental health in the music industry. We can’t make places better if we’re miserable.
And much more…
So: blind ignorance to deep engagement. But engagement cuts both ways.
However, the more engagement this issue has gotten, the more challenges have been uncovered. Some of them have been ignored or made worse. For example:
As the idiots and grifters who sit in positions of power in some governments continue to force governments to expand their military budgets, we’ve seen the ‘culture gets cut first’ narrative grow in the past few years. In some countries that have made significant progress, like Iceland and Norway, budgets are being slashed right now, undermining much of that progress.
This is far from equitable. First, many cities and places (and the economic development and tourism professionals who work for them) believe that investing $20,000 in a survey or a branding campaign is good enough. The more people care, the more they want to grasp the benefits without putting in much work. This has produced ‘music cities washing’ in many places: cities that celebrate their music but fail to invest in it. Policies tied to elected officials that die when they leave office. Continued support for ‘voluntary’ mechanisms that should be made mandatory, or failing to implement oversight on monopolisation or extraction. The more we’ve won, the more we’re also failing.
Musicians, without whose labour none of this would exist, continue to benefit the least from it.
Much of the discussion in this space is centred in the global north, and we continue to present the ‘global music industry’ as something that actually exists everywhere around the globe. Yet, we live in a world where 46 countries still lack any copyright protection, corruption is rife, and systems continue to struggle with fraud and mismanagement.
Many of the policies continue to be written by people who look and sound like me - a white, cis-gendered, English-speaking middle-class bloke.
At the same time, the existential crisis of climate change is accelerating, affecting touring, access to raw materials, our literal homes and lives.
None of this is to discount the progress. I’ve learned that you can only make your challenge a challenge if you’re recognised as being part of the conversation. None of the above challenges matters if music policy doesn’t matter. But we have a long, long way to go. In many ways, we have won many arguments while the infrastructure that we all rely on continues to erode. Recognition, it turns out, is not the same as protection.
So — saying all that, has music made places better?
Honestly: yes, where engagement became systems, and no, where it stayed rhetoric. It’s a mixed bag, but at least we have a bag. There are many, many lessons. In a few weeks we’re launching new research in Huntsville, Alabama, that will demonstrate what six years of intentional music policy has led to there. In the UK, the work of organisations like the Music Venue Trust and UK Music has supported countless positive developments, much like what NIVA has done in the United States and Music Australia down under. There are many, many cities that have made the lives of the musicians who choose to live there better, from creating the first-ever artist hub in Nuuk, Greenland to demonstrating the economic potential of music-led developments in Aarhus, Germany. Every conference having a ‘music cities’ panel is good (keeps the conversation going), and the continued life of our conferences and similar initiatives shows momentum remains.
Yet a strategy is only as good as the person who implements it. And the lesson of Turn It Up — genuinely the most comprehensive national music plan a UK government has produced — is that we now get to hold governments accountable to their own documents.
That is a luxury we did not have in 2016.
Why I’d like to change the question
But here’s the thing. While we were arguing about venues and planning policy, the stakes changed. Turn It Up’s tenth chapter — music as a force for good in health, loneliness and climate — is the part I think would not have been included in a government music strategy a decade ago, and it’s the part that points forward and the one I am most interested in. What is the role of music - as an ecosystem - now? Is it to make folks money? Is it to make life liveable, bearable or enjoyable? Is it to improve our health? Is it to fight poverty? Is it all of those things? If music can demonstrably support £18.6bn a year in health and wellbeing value in one country, supposedly, what is it worth to a health system? A development bank? A climate strategy?
Making places better was the right question for the last decade. The next one is bigger: not whether music can make your city better, but whether music can help solve the problems your city — and every city, country, place, neighbourhood — actually faces. Poverty. Health. Loneliness. Climate. The breakdown of the systems that hold us together.
So this newsletter is going to grow into that question, and you’ll see a lot more new writing from me, as well as some big announcements in the coming weeks. My goal is the same evidence, same pragmatism, but a much bigger canvas. I hope you’ll continue to join me, and I’m curious to know your reflections.
How do you think the ‘music policy’ space has done in the past decade?
Where do you think we need to go from here?
What frustrates you? What gives you hope?
I want to hear. Comment below.
The track is built in some places. We need to build it in others, so everyone can race.
Now, onto some music. I love this video. One of my favourite Japanese ambient guitarists, in one of my favourite record stores, in one of my favourite cities. Enjoy.