By Glenn Fosbraey, University of Winchester

Streaming may still be the preferred method of music consumption for the vast majority of us in 2024, but vinyl, cassettes, and even the long-unloved CD format have shown resurgence in recent years.

In fact, physical sales are so healthy that HMV has risen from the ashes and returned to its flagship store on Oxford Street. And much of this can be attributed to pop star Taylor Swift, who currently has seven of her albums in the vinyl charts, including all of the top three places via 1989 (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and Midnights.

According to Lawrence Montgomery, the managing director of Rough Trade record stores, Swift owes her success in part to appealing to a younger contingent of fans by turning her albums into collectables. She has done this through the release of multiple alternate album covers or disc colours.

A recent trip to HMV made me realise just how true Montgomery’s observation was. On a large vinyl display sat the album 1989 (Taylor’s Version) in three “special editions” of “rose garden pink”, “aquamarine green” and “sunrise boulevard yellow”, plus a “Target Exclusive” LP. Each on sale for a cool £39.99.

Further research led me to discover eight limited-edition coloured variants of her 2020 album Folklore, and over 20 versions of Midnights (2022), which apparently made the album “a collector’s dream”. And Swift shows no sign of stopping.

Soon after announcing the April 19 release of her new album, The Tortured Poet’s Department, multiple special editions of the new album had been made available for presale. With a suitably aggressive marketing strategy on social media, purchasers were invited to “complete their collections” by buying three separate vinyl releases within 72 hours via Swift’s online store. Each contains a different “bonus track”.

A few days later, another special edition, with a fourth bonus track, was made available. With no way to buy the bonus tracks separately, if fans wanted to get all the songs, they’d have to shell out over £135 for the privilege, all encouraged by Swift.

The special ones

It’s not just Swift, of course. Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine album, released in March 2024 came in five CD and six vinyl variants, as well as a deluxe edition.

Harry Styles’ 2022 album Harry’s House is available from his online store in standard vinyl, picture disc, exclusive yellow vinyl, as well as on CD and limited edition yellow cassette.

And K-pop boy band ATEEZ’s 2023 mini-album The World EP2: Outlaw is more extras than music, with posters, stickers, a photo book, stencil card, trading cards, and temporary tattoo sheets accompanying the CD.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of all this is how children are being targeted as consumers of these expensive products. Researchers have observed that Swift’s 2019 album, Lover, was focused on a “tween identity”. A 2022 report from Audiense identified that 18.80% of Swift fans are aged between 13-17, and The Sports Business Journal observed that a huge amount of Swift’s fans are teen and tween girls aged nine to 17.

A 2021 poll suggested that 67% of fans of ATEEZ were under the age of 17, Grande has a target market of 13-21 year olds, and although Styles is more popular among Millennial fans, his appearances on the cover of Teen Vogue, Today Teen, J14 and Seventeen magazines attest to his appeal to the tween audience.

Cross-generational collecting

It’s not only Gen Z audiences that are being targeted, though. Millennials like me are also being suckered in by the allure of special editions.

I’m a Beatles and Pink Floyd fan, and I’m not oblivious to the numerous re-releases both acts have been party to over the decades. I have three copies of Abbey Road, three White Albums, three versions of Let it Be, and more editions of McCartney than anyone rightfully needs. Just like those Swifties, I’ve bought them because each is slightly different to the others, be it remixed, remastered, different format, extra tracks, new artwork, out-takes, or a hundred other reasons.

Just in the last year fans like me have been “treated” to different versions of The Beatles’ Red and Blue compilations (now expanded and with additional sleeve notes) and Pink Floyd’s seminal Dark Side of The Moon (remastered yet again and with a number of different buying options including a limited collector’s edition vinyl picture disc). And yes, I’ve bought them, even though I already own more than one copy of each.

I’ve been suckered in, and my world-weariness and cynicism knows no bounds. So what chance does a tweenager in that golden initial stage of fandom have? The loyalty of fans has been exploited ever since big business realised music could be commercialised.

Do we really think the world needed 31 Elvis feature films? Twenty compilations of Frank Sinatra’s greatest hits? Or more and more anniversary editions of Rumours, Thriller and Graceland? Well, supply equals demand, so yes, it seems it did. And that’s an even more disturbing thought than owning 20 different copies of the same Taylor Swift album – especially as they come in so many lovely colours.

Glenn Fosbraey, Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Winchester

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

By Howard Monk, University of Southampton

Thirty years from his death on April 5 1994, the impact of Kurt Cobain and his band, Nirvana, and their values, still resonates in today’s culture and music.

By Katie Kapurch, Texas State University and Jon Marc Smith, Texas State University

Prior to the release of “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé explained that her album’s links to country were motivated by industry gatekeeping. She was likely referencing the hostile reception she experienced after her performance of “Daddy Lessons” with The Chicks during the 2016 Country Music Awards.

Feeling “unwelcome,” Beyoncé said she decided to delve into Black Americans’ “rich musical archive” for inspiration, and “Cowboy Carter” became a project akin to her previous album, 2022’s “Renaissance” – a way to teach listeners about Black music and Black history.

One of the songs, “Blackbiird,” is a rendition of the Beatles’ “Blackbird,” from their 1968 White Album. The Beatles’ “Blackbird” has a folk bent, but they were certainly influenced by country and other American genres, especially Black rhythm and blues. All of this musical history comes together in Beyoncé’s cover of “Blackbird,” whose composer, Paul McCartney, has a producer credit.

Beyoncé’s version appears to retain the Beatles’ instrumentation, incorporating McCartney’s acoustic guitar and foot tapping. But, importantly, Beyoncé also includes the voices of four Black female country singers: Tanner Adell, Tiera Kennedy, Reyna Roberts and Brittney Spencer.

Black musicians have long used the symbol of the blackbird to describe their careers – the isolation they’ve felt and the discrimination they’ve faced along the way. To appreciate Beyoncé’s “Blackbiird,” we think it’s important to go beyond the shadow McCartney’s song has cast over the symbol.

The legend of McCartney’s ‘Blackbird’

Many listeners hear the Beatles’ “Blackbird” as a civil rights song. Part of that may have to do with the evolving ways McCartney has talked about the song in the decades since its release, which we address in our 2023 book, “Blackbird: How Black Americans Sang the Beatles Into Being – and Sang Back to Them Ever After.”

After the release of the White Album, McCartney did mention “civil rights” and “riots” during a recording that captured a conversation about the track with the singer-songwriter Donovan. McCartney also mentions the “offense” Diana Ross took when he played “Blackbird” for her.

For the next three decades, though, he didn’t publicly connect the track to civil rights. Then, in Barry Miles’ 1997 biography of McCartney, McCartney says “a Black woman” was the inspiration for “Blackbird.”

In the 21st century, however, McCartney has been keen to make connections to various places and events associated with the movement during live performances. He mentioned “the Southern states” in 2002; by the 2010s, he started regularly identifying “Alabama” and “Arkansas.” Then, once McCartney specified “Little Rock,” he drew an even clearer connection to the Little Rock Nine, who integrated Central High in 1957. That year, a teenage McCartney was auditioning for John Lennon at the Woolton Village Fete in Liverpool, England, 11 years before “Blackbird” was composed and recorded.

Whatever the origins, McCartney now clearly wants listeners to hear his song in relation to civil rights and current movements like Black Lives Matter.

We aren’t suggesting McCartney’s feelings about these movements are insincere. But when we trace the evolution of his stories, we see the former Beatle working in earnest to emphasize “Blackbird” as a civil rights anthem after the fact.

Dreams of the skies

With “Blackbiird,” Beyoncé reasserts a legacy of Black artistry that predates McCartney. Centuries before the Beatles, birds and flight served as powerful symbols in Black storytelling and arts.

Enslaved Africans in the Americas imagined freedom by circulating tales about gaining the ability to fly. Their return home to Africa became possible when a spiritual leader arrived with a “secret password,” one that would allow them to soar as a flock.

Children’s author Virginia Hamilton’s illustrated retelling of the myth compares flying Africans to “blackbirds” with “Black, shiny wings flappin’ against the blue up there.”

The trope finds expression in lonely birds, too; some versions of the myth center on a single bird or flying person. The absence of a flock and the inability to fly are metaphors for slavery’s brutality, particularly the ways in which families were torn apart.

Blackbirds take flight

Black musicians in the 20th century often used birds to explore themes of isolation and discrimination. Sad, dejected birds populate the blues, including Lonnie Johnson’s 1926 song “Blackbird Blues.”

“If I was a blackbird, I’d pack my troubles on my back,” he mournfully sings. “I would leave this world, and I never would look back.”

Then there was Florence Mills, one of the most famous Black American stage performers in the 1920s.

Mills debuted “I’m a Little Blackbird Looking for a Bluebird” in 1924. The lyrics are explicit: She wants to find “a bluebird” – a metaphor for happiness – the kind that “white folks” are allowed to pursue.

Although Mills didn’t compose it, the song became one of her most well-known and an anthem for racial tolerance.

In interviews, Mills also detailed the song’s symbolism, connecting the bird’s predicament to the lack of opportunities Black Americans faced. With her talent and success, she felt an obligation to her community.

The blackbird of show business

Nina Simone co-wrote and released “Blackbird” in September 1963, five years before the Beatles released the White Album.

While Mills’ blackbird yearns for something better, Simone’s pessimistic speaker tells “little sorrow” not to bother trying to fly. McCartney’s “Blackbird” is upbeat, and its entreaty to “Take these broken wings and learn to fly” seems like a hopeful response to Simone’s “Blackbird,” although he has never mentioned the connection.

By Colin Outhwaite, Edith Cowan University

The tribute music scene has evolved time and again since it first emerged more than 60 years ago.

Beginning with Elvis impersonators, tribute acts garnered somewhat of a “grubby” reputation through the 1970s and ’80s. They became synonymous with glitter, wigs, jumpsuits and elaborate stage props – frowned upon by anyone with an ounce of self-perceived integrity.

However, while these acts mainly existed as tributes to music no longer accessible, in recent years we’ve seen an increase in artists being tributed while they’re still active.

For the many Australian “Swifties” left without tickets for the recent Eras tour, tribute shows offered a financially viable alternative. Interstate fans who couldn’t embark on a “swiftcation” could instead see Adelaide sister duo Reputation.

In Melbourne, drag star Taylor Sheesh performed “The Errors Tour” for a crowd of thousands, while Taylor Swift performed about a kilometre away at the MCG.

But while they say it’s the sincerest form of flattery, can tribute acts really come close to the “real thing”?

A ‘real’ experience?

It’s not only affordability and accessibility that make tribute shows appealing. Experiencing live music in a smaller, dedicated live music venue also provides audiences with a much more personal experience.

Perth-based Ed Sheeran tribute singer Joe Boshell said, as a fan, he would much rather experience his musical heroes in a more intimate setting. “Obviously these tributes are not the real guys but the sound can be better [at smaller venues],” he said.

“You feel like you’re at a gig rather than watching it from miles away on the [stage-side] TV screen.”

The experience at a stadium can sometimes feel detached and isolated. Not to mention, climate change and extreme weather events are making it increasingly difficult to hold large festivals and outdoor stadium concerts.

Smaller venues are usually indoors and offer easy access to the bar and toilets, liberating people of the conundrum of giving up a hard-earned vantage point to relieve a bursting bladder.

At tribute shows, you can even initiate a dialogue with the band onstage, or share a drink with them afterwards. They’re often happy to chat as fellow fans of the music – and don’t have to be whizzed off to a nearby hotel.

This experience surrounds you with friends, loved ones and like-minded individuals. Tribute events aren’t just a spectacle, but an immersive, participatory outlet.

Authenticity in imitation

You might be wondering: should the original artist hold precedence when it comes to performing their music?

While it seems like a straightforward question, the answer isn’t always simple. As ageing rockers become distant from their original ethos, some argue they may as well be performing a tribute to their former selves.

For example, Morrissey of fabled indie pop band The Smiths has little in common with his 1980s back catalogue that he still performs today. Many fans feel “betrayed” at his political transition from leftist torchbearer for disillusioned youths to an outspoken rightist provocateur.

Another consideration is that tribute acts aren’t just imitative; they have their own personality.

Graham Sampson, the lead singer of The Smiths tribute band, The Smyths, said their audiences desired a more individual performance. They want the band to “be themselves” rather than provide a “pantomime” version.

Impact on local music scenes

Accessibility is a major factor contributing to the popularity of tribute scenes throughout Australia. Perth had more than 70 ticketed tribute shows dedicated to ska, punk and Britpop in 2022 alone – and as many as five tributes to Oasis over the past few years.

Tributes now jostle for space in a competing musical landscape, striving to prove their legitimacy as cultural ambassadors of music history. This competition is driven further by the fact that our love for old music is far from shrinking. In fact, music of the past increasingly dominates the music charts today.

At the same time, tributes reflect our society’s desire for streamlined consumption: getting what we want, when we want it. They are therefore a corrosive agent in local original music scenes.

An abundance of tribute shows gives fans a choice of what music they can experience on any given night, rather than having to “take a punt on an original band”, as one Perth promoter grimly said.

This is where tribute acts differ from “cover bands”. Cover bands play a mix of hits that appeal to a broad demographic, rather than targeting individual taste groups.

The future of tributes

Swedish rock band The Hives is now looking to franchise tribute bands across the globe (seemingly drawing on The Wiggles’ blueprint). We may be on the cusp of a new era where tribute shows can achieve commercial prominence.

In a similar vein, the Netherlands now has a tribute-based Battle of the Bands TV show. And this isn’t a big leap from the 2005 reality TV show Rock Star: INXS, in which contestants battled it out to replace deceased lead singer Michael Hutchence.

“Tributing” is undoubtedly dribbling into all areas of the music industry. We live in a world where The Rolling Stones continue to make commercially successful music that offers little more than a reminder of their younger years, and where AI is used to reincarnate deceased musicians and release songs written decades ago.

Clearly, tribute shows aren’t the sole contributors to a lack of forward propulsion in music. Perhaps, for the time being, we should focus on what they do offer: an affordable, accessible and intimate space to celebrate the music we love with others who love it, too.

Colin Outhwaite, PhD Candidate, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.