Rethinking the Music Business

In this chapter, we introduce the book by first outlining the challenges of designing, writing and editing a research-based book during the COVID-19 pandemic. We explain why Part 1 features six chapters that concern the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the music business, while Part 2 is comprised of six chapters that present original insights into the music business in general. We edited this book in solidarity with the various authors who managed to contribute chapters to this volume despite COVID-19-related disruptions and time out from work due to illness. We also edited this book in solidarity with all the participants who contributed to our own research projects that feature in this book and with the participants who took part in our contributing authors’ research projects. Our aim in this book was to provide as holistic a picture of the music business as we could at this time by gathering contributions from authors who were in the United Kingdom, Austria, Zimbabwe, Germany, India, Australia, Norway and the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic.