How Music Policy Can Improve In 2025
It's time to be more specific and less general. And for that, we need to ask better questions
I plan to write more here in 2025. I appreciate having over 600 subscribers and believe we need more positive, pragmatic, and proactive voices, and I intend to be one of them. I am also going to broaden the range of topics I write about while ensuring that everything is focused solely on honouring the title of this blog - Making Places Better. So, expect additional subjects beyond music, culture, and place - including politics, diplomacy, urban planning, architecture, and even food and drink, as this is one of my passions. I will also post more music, as that’s what this is all about at its core, right? As always, thank you for reading, sharing, and commenting.
For me, this has to be a year of greater intentionality, specificity, and action. Recognising that something matters is one thing. Doing something about it to improve it is another. Over the past 10+ years, I have been working on what I’ve referred to as ‘explaining the value of music to ‘non-music’ people’ (i.e. those who do not make a living directly from music) business. This task is both generalist and specific. The generalist objective is to link the value of music to something else - jobs, skills, education, harm reduction, social value and so on. The specific task is to make my goal personal to my audience - so who I am speaking to cares - and demonstrate that it is worthwhile to that person (or groups of people like a government) to care - and, therefore, do something.
The first goal - the general demonstration of music’s value to X or Y objective - is straightforward. The second one - converting interest to care and care to action - is much more challenging. In the years I have worked on this, including writing my book (which is an attempt to accomplish both goals while at the same time realising that the reader will do as they wish with it), I realise more often I’m very good at the generalist side and increasingly challenged by the specificity side. In 2025, I am determined to address this.
Here’s how I think about the generalist approach: Much of my time is spent explaining and convincing people about the value of music and culture in a context that is familiar to them - economic policy, tourism, international development, etc. These are all expansive bodies of scholarship and insight I know little about, so I’ve found through lines - music’s role as a job creator for youth, for example - and used them, relying on external reports, friends who know more than I do and a lot of Google alerts. I realised a long time ago that there is no sense in building the fastest race car if there is no track to race on. So the goal was, and in many places still is, to convince those I’m speaking to to build their own track. Only then can we encourage others to build cars.
I have focused on the generalist approach because there has been much to explain. However, hundreds of cities now have music-related strategies, plans, and initiatives. There are now many race tracks. Not enough, I’d argue, but enough to move from a generalist approach to a specific one - how to maintain, expand and improve the track, get more cars built and have more races (I hope this metaphor works).
So 2025, for me, is focusing on being specific. Here’s an example:
One challenge many countries are tackling (such as the UK) is an overcrowded prison system. One of the issues is recidivism and reducing it relieves pressure on the broader prison systems. The UK has a recidivism rate of 25.1% (which has been slightly increasing). This is worse than Norway (20%) but low compared to Canada (a whopping 55%) and the USA (up to 76% in some places!). There are significant economic and social costs to recidivism. In the UK, it is estimated to cost the exchequer £18.1bn. In the United States, in 10 states alone, it is estimated to cost $40 per resident. This is a sunk cost, let alone eliminating any potential economic benefit less reoffending would have on jobs, communities, and the individuals involved and their families.
Now, onto music. There is a generalist argument that music can be used in prison to rehabilitate prisoners and reduce recidivism upon release. Still, the results are inconclusive because more longitudinal research is needed. This toolkit from the UK College of Policing offers further correlation (including linking increased youth programs in communities to lower offending) but no proof. Public policy and investment—a specific ask, for example, to create music programs in all prisons—has not happened. The economic argument remains vague despite the social argument being sound. Generally, we agree. Specifically, little has been done as a whole.
Here’s What This Means: Music Is Valued and Seen As Beneficial. But Not Enough To Produce Policy Change
The same can be said of increasing music investment in early childhood education (e.g., having it written into curricula and funded) or within preventative healthcare. How many countries incorporate music therapy into investment programs? That’s a genuine question. I know many examples, but they are not embedded in policy and investment plans (i.e government policy). Again, are we winning the specific argument and in doing so, incorporating music (or other art forms) into systemic policy change? Or is the generalist argument (and therefore, a piecemeal approach of amazing, ad-hoc initiatives) enough?
Yesterday, the World Economic Forum released its 2025 Future of Jobs report - outlining which jobs and skills are in the highest demand and which jobs are at the most risk of being impacted by AI and changing automation.
As AI continues to disrupt the workforce, the skills most needed are creative, analytical and interpersonal. In the jobs lists of those either in demand or under threat, few creative jobs were mentioned, but the ones in most decline - they say - are administrative. Yet, the most demanding skills are interpersonal - administrating people and ideas rather than paperwork and processes. As a secondary skill, I wonder how many hobbyist musicians are upskilling in their free time just by playing? I wonder how many of these skills are being prioritized in prisons, for example, to reduce reoffending, or in schools to ensure we’re creating a workforce that has these skills, which in addition to what WEF outlines, also includes honesty, humility, the ability to listen and, importantly, empathy. What is the role of music and art in this? Can this be answered? I hope so - in a far better way - in 2025.
This is my goal. To achieve this, we need more specificity— asking better questions and demanding better answers. If we can transform the genuinely shared appreciation and understanding of the value of music (and art, design, film, sound) into a tool that helps address and solve the most significant challenges we face, what ancillary benefits will this dedication to specificity support? Can it be part of a toolkit to reduce reduce reoffending? Or can it help foster the skills - technical and personal - we all need more of? These are big questions, I know, and I hope you’ll join me in exploring them in 2025, here and elsewhere.
NOW, ONTO SOME MUSIC
I am also influenced by the brilliant
and his ‘musical coda’ he does (I believe he feels the same way about music as I do). Here’s my favourite band, Phish, who came to MSG in New York last week. It’s a corker.