Global Harmonies and Local Discords: Transnational Policies and Practices in the European Recording Industry

This article focuses on processes of globalization in the music industry by examining the transnational practices of the major record companies in Europe. Outlining various pan-European repertoire policies and working arrangements, it describes how tensions arise between staff in different national divisions of record companies; over the unequal exchange of musical products and due to the way in which locally produced music is deprioritized in favour of material produced by artists from Britain and the USA. It also describes how various local state and community interests attempt to support musical activity, assuming a position explicitly in opposition to that of the major entertainment corporations. In general, this article argues that a complex series of nationstate, commercial market and civil society relationships concretely mediate processes of `globalization', intervening as the global strategies of corporations are actively translated into specific local cultural practices.