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Books by Marcus O'Dair

Robert Wyatt started out as the drummer and singer for Soft Machine, who shared a residency at Mi... more Robert Wyatt started out as the drummer and singer for Soft Machine, who shared a residency at Middle Earth with Pink Floyd and toured America with Jimi Hendrix. He brought a Bohemian and jazz outlook to the 60s rock scene, having honed his drumming skills in a shed at the end of Robert Graves' garden in Mallorca.His life took an abrupt turn after he fell from a fourth-floor window at a party and was paralysed from the waist down. He reinvented himself as a singer and composer with the extraordinary album Rock Bottom, and in the early eighties his solo work was increasingly political.Today, Wyatt remains perennially hip, guesting with artists such as Bjork, Brian Eno, Scritti Politti, David Gilmour and Hot Chip. Marcus O'Dair has talked to all of them, indeed to just about everyone who has shaped, or been shaped by, Wyatt over five decades of music history.

Published conference proceedings by Marcus O'Dair

If Chris Anderson is right that the 21st century entertainment industry is based on niches rather... more If Chris Anderson is right that the 21st century entertainment industry is based on niches rather than hits [1], then the discourse surrounding popular music success seems decidedly outmoded, stuck in the era of the ‘overnight success’ and the ‘next big thing’. In this paper, I will explore the extent to which an alternative, slower, might be open path open to musicians: a path I will call ‘the slow burn’.

I will ask whether there is money to be made even in what Chris Anderson calls ‘the long tail’, the infinite number of niche markets that, Anderson argues, the internet has made economically viable. And I will ask whether an entrepreneurial approach, even on a relatively limited scale, can provide the sustainability and autonomy that eludes some apparently more successful acts. In reaching my conclusions, I draw on my own practice as a musician, on brief case studies of artists I consider representative of the ‘slow burn’, and on a pilot survey of popular music students at Middlesex University, where I am a lecturer.

Conference papers by Marcus O'Dair

Innovation In Music conference, University of York. 2013

Teaching, Learning & Assessing Songwriting in Higher Education HEA Workshop, Liverpool Institute ... more Teaching, Learning & Assessing Songwriting in Higher Education HEA Workshop, Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. 2014

International Conference of the Atlantic Sounds, Ships and Sailortowns AHRC Research Networking P... more International Conference of the Atlantic Sounds, Ships and Sailortowns AHRC Research Networking Project, University of Liverpool. 2014

Pop-Life: the Value of Popular Music in the Twenty-First Century, University of Northampton. 2014

Creativities, Musicalities, Entrepreneurships conference at the Institute of Contemporary Music P... more Creativities, Musicalities, Entrepreneurships conference at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance, London. 2014

IASPM UK and Ireland Biennial Conference, Worlds of Popular Music, University College Cork. 2014

Keynote: Dark Sound: Destructive Pop 2015, Falmouth University

Funded research by Marcus O'Dair

Much has been written about the disruptive effect of digital technologies on the music industries... more Much has been written about the disruptive effect of digital technologies on the music industries since the emergence of the peer-to-peer file-sharing network Napster in 1999. This literature review takes as its starting point that the challenge facing the music industries – an example of what Christensen and Raynor (2003) call ‘disruptive innovation’ – is primarily one of business models, rather than technology. In reviewing the literature on collaborative, co-operative and collective business models, I aim to identify and define key terms; to cite the various collective, co-operative and collaborative models in the music industries that have been cited by journalists; to analyse their underlying business models as far as possible; and to define the parameters of future research. Although it is only in its early stages, I identify Imogen Heap’s Mycelia – a new collaborative model that, with its pioneering use of blockchain technology, represents a new economic model – as perhaps the most promising possibility for the future.

Robert Wyatt started out as the drummer and singer for Soft Machine, who shared a residency at Mi... more Robert Wyatt started out as the drummer and singer for Soft Machine, who shared a residency at Middle Earth with Pink Floyd and toured America with Jimi Hendrix. He brought a Bohemian and jazz outlook to the 60s rock scene, having honed his drumming skills in a shed at the end of Robert Graves' garden in Mallorca.His life took an abrupt turn after he fell from a fourth-floor window at a party and was paralysed from the waist down. He reinvented himself as a singer and composer with the extraordinary album Rock Bottom, and in the early eighties his solo work was increasingly political.Today, Wyatt remains perennially hip, guesting with artists such as Bjork, Brian Eno, Scritti Politti, David Gilmour and Hot Chip. Marcus O'Dair has talked to all of them, indeed to just about everyone who has shaped, or been shaped by, Wyatt over five decades of music history.

If Chris Anderson is right that the 21st century entertainment industry is based on niches rather... more If Chris Anderson is right that the 21st century entertainment industry is based on niches rather than hits [1], then the discourse surrounding popular music success seems decidedly outmoded, stuck in the era of the ‘overnight success’ and the ‘next big thing’. In this paper, I will explore the extent to which an alternative, slower, might be open path open to musicians: a path I will call ‘the slow burn’.

I will ask whether there is money to be made even in what Chris Anderson calls ‘the long tail’, the infinite number of niche markets that, Anderson argues, the internet has made economically viable. And I will ask whether an entrepreneurial approach, even on a relatively limited scale, can provide the sustainability and autonomy that eludes some apparently more successful acts. In reaching my conclusions, I draw on my own practice as a musician, on brief case studies of artists I consider representative of the ‘slow burn’, and on a pilot survey of popular music students at Middlesex University, where I am a lecturer.

Innovation In Music conference, University of York. 2013

Teaching, Learning & Assessing Songwriting in Higher Education HEA Workshop, Liverpool Institute ... more Teaching, Learning & Assessing Songwriting in Higher Education HEA Workshop, Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. 2014

International Conference of the Atlantic Sounds, Ships and Sailortowns AHRC Research Networking P... more International Conference of the Atlantic Sounds, Ships and Sailortowns AHRC Research Networking Project, University of Liverpool. 2014

Pop-Life: the Value of Popular Music in the Twenty-First Century, University of Northampton. 2014

Creativities, Musicalities, Entrepreneurships conference at the Institute of Contemporary Music P... more Creativities, Musicalities, Entrepreneurships conference at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance, London. 2014

IASPM UK and Ireland Biennial Conference, Worlds of Popular Music, University College Cork. 2014

Keynote: Dark Sound: Destructive Pop 2015, Falmouth University

Much has been written about the disruptive effect of digital technologies on the music industries... more Much has been written about the disruptive effect of digital technologies on the music industries since the emergence of the peer-to-peer file-sharing network Napster in 1999. This literature review takes as its starting point that the challenge facing the music industries – an example of what Christensen and Raynor (2003) call ‘disruptive innovation’ – is primarily one of business models, rather than technology. In reviewing the literature on collaborative, co-operative and collective business models, I aim to identify and define key terms; to cite the various collective, co-operative and collaborative models in the music industries that have been cited by journalists; to analyse their underlying business models as far as possible; and to define the parameters of future research. Although it is only in its early stages, I identify Imogen Heap’s Mycelia – a new collaborative model that, with its pioneering use of blockchain technology, represents a new economic model – as perhaps the most promising possibility for the future.