Cover image: Quote: David Fricke, Rolling Stone, 1988, p. ???? Ilana van den Berg - 0426628
[email protected] MA Arts Policy and Management Professor: Prof. dr. T. F. M. ter Bogt May 2012 111 THE ISLAND SYNDROME A VIEW ON THE INTERNATIONAL SUCCESS OF THE ICELANDIC MUSIC SCENE Ilana van den Berg Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Master of Arts Supervisor: Prof. Dr. T.F.M. ter Bogt University of Utrecht June 2012 Cover Image: Retrieved April 12, 2012 from http://www.list.co.uk/article/17721-exposure-benni-hemm-hemm/ Quote: David Fricke (1988). Rolling Stone. Retrieved April 12, 2012 from http://www.icelandmusic.is/music/made-in- iceland/made-in-iceland-1/ 2 ABSTRACT This study investigates the factors facilitating the success of the Icelandic alternative music scene. Its main goal is to gain better insight in the question why some local music production centers are more successful than others. It brings together some main findings of studies on the international success of scenes and yields a set of facilitating factors that can be used to analyze the success of local music scenes. The theoretical framework first deals with the concepts scene and success and subsequently provides a number of facilitating factors to the international success of music scenes in general, extracted from literature on other internationally successful local music scenes. The data consists of 12 semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Among the respondents are mostly musicians who did or did not (yet) break through internationally, but also people working in the music industry and people who are in other ways connected to Icelandic music and its scene.