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Newcastle University School of Arts and Cultures British Independent Newcastle University School of Arts and Cultures British Independent Record Labels, Memory and Mediation – Situating Music Objects in Physical and Digital Contexts Elodie Amandine Roy Submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of PhD May 2014 ii Abstract This thesis examines the changing relationship between the material culture of music (in the form of recorded music objects) and memory (as it is sedimented in, and mediated by, the work of a selection of British independent record labels). The principal aim of this work is to explore the significant but often-overlooked material paradigm of recorded music, from Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877 up until the early twenty-first century, increasingly characterised by the digital archiving, collecting and consumption of music. Drawing from a broad range of cultural theorists (including Benjamin, Straw, Sterne, Kittler, Gitelman and Huyssen), this research seeks to situate recorded sound within broader discourses on memory and mediation, technology and cultural transmission. The thesis is structured around the analyses of several British independent record labels from the recent past and the present: Sarah Records (1987- 1995), Ghost Box Records (2004-) and reissue record labels, including Finders Keepers (2004-). By focusing on specific record labels and situated configurations of the material culture of music, both physical and digital, I identify and map various aspects of the music object and clarify the particular socio-technological contexts within which such configurations arise. iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Ian Biddle for his pragmatic approach to the research process and reading suggestions. Dr. Richard Elliott has been an inspiring mentor even since we first met in the Spring of 2010; he did not spare his encouragements, advice, or time despite being far away. Dr. Adam Hansen and Dr. Rachel Carroll offered me the opportunity to present a paper at the LitPop Conference at Northumbria University in June 2011, and edited my book chapter on Sarah Records. I am grateful to their suggestions. My most heartfelt thanks goes to Benjamin E. Belinska for his unconditional support, patience, and enthusiasm; even in difficult times, he read all of my drafts with a critical eye. Stephen Maughan has generously shared with me his fanzine archive and memories of the ‘independent’ 1980s. I have also benefited from conversations with my colleagues Gary Jenkins, Thomas Astley and João Da Silva, the team of Radical Musicology, as well as my friends Nicholas Brignell and Daniel Koczy, who organised a monthly reading group. I am indebted to the Whittaker Scholarship, which I was awarded for the academic year 2012-2013, and which allowed me to finish writing my thesis in more serene conditions. None of this research could have been written without the tireless and trustful support of my parents, Brigitte and William Roy. iv Table of Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Music objects ................................................................................................................. 4 Record labels ................................................................................................................. 6 Mediated materialities ................................................................................................... 9 Archaeologies .............................................................................................................. 13 Haunted, open archives ............................................................................................... 31 Chapter 1. Sarah Records (1987-1995) and the Everyday ....................................... 34 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 34 Playing the Sarah label: a practice of the everyday .................................................... 40 Documents ................................................................................................................... 50 An archive of the everyday .......................................................................................... 59 Story-telling: the Sarah myth and its circulation ........................................................ 64 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 70 Chapter 2. Ghost Box Records (2004-now): Materiality, Technological Mediation and the Birth of Ghosts ................................................................................................. 73 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 73 Ghost Box Records in situation ................................................................................... 77 Mediating the past ....................................................................................................... 83 Hearing ghosts ............................................................................................................. 92 The archive and the monument .................................................................................. 99 Between nostalgia and utopia .................................................................................... 105 ‘Present past’ ............................................................................................................. 111 Chapter 3. Collecting and Reissuing the Recorded Past: Finders Keepers (2004-) and Reissue Record Labels ......................................................................................... 116 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 117 Finders Keepers and reissue record labels ................................................................ 120 Collecting the past .................................................................................................... 123 Vinylphilia: the desire for the past ........................................................................... 137 Naming, labelling and the creation of desire ............................................................. 143 Collecting as imaginary map-making ........................................................................ 147 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 153 v Chapter 4. Music Objects in the Digital Context: the Internet and the Future of Phonography ............................................................................................................... 157 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 157 Dematerialised music ................................................................................................ 164 The internet as a cultural framework ......................................................................... 167 ‘Toute la mémoire du monde’ : the archive in a digital environment ....................... 169 Popular collecting: YouTube as an unstable music archive ..................................... 175 Remediating the phonographic medium .................................................................... 179 E-collecting and the life of digital files ..................................................................... 190 Second-hand markets: the digital flâneur .................................................................. 195 The semantic web and the database .......................................................................... 203 Conclusion: the lost web ........................................................................................... 205 Conclusion. The Afterlife of Music Objects .............................................................. 210 Phonographic ruins .................................................................................................... 213 Findings ..................................................................................................................... 215 Music objects in the museums – Voicing objects and creating memories ............... 219 Further reflections on mediated memories – Between forgetting and remediating .. 225 Music after materiality: an opening .......................................................................... 229 Appendix ...................................................................................................................... 233 Illustrations to Chapter 1 ........................................................................................... 233 Illustrations to Chapter 2 .......................................................................................... 238 Illustrations to Chapter 3 .......................................................................................... 241 Illustrations to Chapter 4 .......................................................................................... 244 References .................................................................................................................... 248 1 Introduction According to Auslander, ‗[t]o look at the progression of the material forms of music media – from shellac or vinyl discs to CDs to direct downloading from the Internet or
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