Author: Daniel B. Cornfield
At a time when the bulwarks of the music industry are collapsing, what does it mean to be a successful musician and artist? How might contemporary musicians sustain their artistic communities? Based on interviews with over 75 popular-music professionals in Nashville, Beyond the Beat looks at artist activists — those visionaries who create inclusive artist communities in today’s individualistic and entrepreneurial art world. Using Nashville as a model, Daniel Cornfield develops a theory of artist activism — the ways that artist peers strengthen and build diverse artist communities Cornfield discusses how genre-diversifying artist activists have arisen throughout the late 20th-century musician migration to Nashville, a city that boasts the highest concentration of music jobs in the US. Music City is now home to diverse recording artists — including Jack White, El Movimiento, the Black Keys, and Paramore.Beyond the Beat offers a new model of artistic success based on innovating creative institutions to benefit the society at large.
