Sound Factory: Bridging Art and Sociology in Music Studies

Edited by Stéphane Dorin, 'Sound Factory' is a collective work emerging from a 2008 symposium held during Jeremy Deller's carte blanche at Palais de Tokyo. The book assembles an eclectic roster of contributors, from pioneering rock sociologists Simon Frith (UK) and Patrick Mignon (France) to a new generation of pop culture scholars like Gérôme Guibert, alongside rock critic Vincent Arquillière. The volume highlights the circulation of ideas between contemporary art and social science research, taking Deller's exhibition 'D'une révolution à l'autre' as its starting point, which linked the decline of the industrial era to the rise of the music industry in England. The book opens with an interview with Deller and includes seven essays. It concludes with David Hesmondhalgh, professor of Media and Music Industries at the University of Leeds, who challenges common assumptions about the music business crisis—arguing it is overestimated by entertainment multinationals—and the democratization supposedly enabled by the internet.