Popular Music Heritage, Grass-Roots Activism and Web 2.0: The Case of the ‘Save the Palace’ Campaign

Abstract

Although the study of popular music heritage is rapidly becoming an established aspect of academic research, little attention has been focused on attempts made by groups of music fans to preserve aspects of their local popular music heritage when these are seen to come under threat. This article examines the ‘Save the Palace’ campaign in Melbourne, Australia, and argues that it provides an important illustration of the tenacity of local music fans when faced with the closure of an important venue, and their capacity to organise themselves into a cohesive campaign through social media technology. Through its examination of the online interactions that characterised the Save the Palace campaign, the article also facilitates an extension of the concept of the virtual scene beyond its more conventionally understood definition as a platform for fan discussion dedicated to a specific artist, genre or place. In the case of Save the Palace, a different manifestation of a scene is observed whereby fans of a broad range of artists and genres temporarily join forces online to protest against the threat to a specific aspect of their shared local music heritage. In this sense, Save the Palace also sheds significant light on how social media assist in giving a voice to competing discourses of cultural value. Thus, even as the Palace and countless other local music landmarks like it across the world are demolished to make way for new developments, their significance as important markers of local generational identity and belonging, and of emotionally inscribed urban identity, remains. Through their online sharing of personalised memories of the Palace as an iconic music venue, supporters of the Save the Palace campaign serve as a further example of how the internet has worked to broaden our understanding of the definition, nature and function of popular music heritage.

Recording studios as museums? Record producers’ perspectives on German rock studios and accounts of their heritage practice

“…The preservation moves from physical buildings and objects to digital representations in the form of photos, videos or textual accounts and facilitates discourse between the curators and other members of the community. Furthermore, these platforms can be curated either by dedicated fans (Bennett and Strong 2018;Flinn 2007) or by anybody involved in music creation as self-authorised heritage projects, making them more inclusive and democratic than physical heritage institutions (Roberts and Cohen 2014). Online heritage sites are empowering, affordable, allow wide dissemination across borders and social groups and enable fans and the original 'actors' to share memories and meanings with the community.…”

“…The discussion of issues related to heritage and preservation has flourished in popular music studies in recent years. Respective studies have explored music museums and their challenges (Baker et al 2018;Leonard 2007Leonard , 2010Fairchild 2017), grassroots activism and online documentation of heritage objects (Bennett and Strong 2018;Kaun and Stiernstedt 2014), DIY music preservation (Baker and Huber 2013), community archives (Baker 2017;Flinn 2007) and 'heritage rock' (Bennett 2009). Such research has often focused on the authority of heritage and cultural preservation (Roberts and Cohen 2014), usually characterised by a tripartite split between (a) officially authorised institutions like state-funded museums, (b) commercial heritage industries and (c) the community that assembles material artefacts, often by less canonical artists, and exhibits them in self-authorised collections offline and online.…”

Online communities and their contribution to local heritage knowledge

“…She argued that Facebook enhances awareness of public attachment to the past and enables the development of an online community that can generate the needed social capital to mobilize against the destruction of heritage (Gregory, 2015). Bennett and Strong (2018) examined the capacity of save the place campaign to organize themselves into a cohesive movement through Facebook to preserve aspects of the local popular music heritage. The campaign came as a response to the closure of an iconic music venue to make way for a new hotel.…”

“…The campaign came as a response to the closure of an iconic music venue to make way for a new hotel. Through Facebook, fans shared personalized memories of the Palace to eventually broaden the definition, nature, and function of popular music heritage (Bennett & Strong, 2018). Marinelli and Andò (2018) analyzed the pragmatic use of Facebook by a social movement, Cinema America Occupato, as an expressive storytelling tool to activate structures of feelings, to collaboratively co-produce narratives about cultural heritage, and to reach and mobilize followers.…”

Popular Music, Technology, and the Changing Media Ecosystem

“…Social media have profoundly changed communication with audiences and fans in the music industry, and the ways in which music brands are built (see, e.g., Choi and Burnes 2013;Baym 2012Bennett and Strong 2018;Suhr 2012). This change is characterized by a greater degree of personalization and value creation on the part of the artists (Ogden et al 2011).…”