3) Celtic Music: What Sells? What becomes Popular?

The artist has a lot to navigate when framing themselves and their performance practice through the business lens. In this blog post, I will be exploring two questions related to the business of Celtic Music and its consequences on the artist:

  1. What Sells?

  2. What becomes popular?

The business of Celtic Music spans across the nations which are considered part of the Celtic movement across the Atlantic Arc. Of course, these nations include Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, Wales, Isle of Man, Brittany, Asturias and Galicia. As an audience member who has been going to Celtic Connections in Glasgow for many years, as well as The Big Burns Supper in Dumfries and Galloway, I have often found the idea of a festival as a great space to promote a craft and showcase it professionally. I enjoy the entertainment (the authentic idioms), but lust for art (a sense of integrity).

As an artist, I have a different set of sensibilities and thoughts towards the job of these festivals and what their role is in carrying the music of the Celtic Nations across the international, choppy waters. As Maryon McDonald mentions in her article "Celtic Ethnic Kinship and the problem with being English”

Each movement (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and The Isle of Man)
has its share of enthusiasts who are trying, with varying degrees of
militancy, to revive the respective Celtic, (…) to save it from
imminent disappearance.
(McDonald, M. 1986.).

McDonald summons the tension and the danger I have spoken of in previous posts by reflecting a militant tele-shopping style rhetoric that is in place to save the Celtic movements and their unique quirks. This got me thinking about how artists have to contextualise their offerings within this niche and I created the following illustration:

A Celtic singer questioning “What Sells?”

A Celtic singer questioning “What Sells?”

Questions about tradition, success and popularity started to arise. During my research I came across Simon McKerrell’s blog, where he shares his research on the social impact of music, connected to the role of the musician. In his blogpost ‘Is ‘Celtic’ music now the most quietly commercially successful music in Scotland?’  he speaks about how Celtic Connections 2015 attracted more than 100,000 audience members with ticket sales of more than £1.1 million. He explains how for him, this underlines two key points: 

1) ‘Celtic music’ as a genre is effectively a mass media marketing
term that has now proven itself as commercially useful as
‘World music’ in the late modern West, and, and 2) the social
networks that underlie traditional music in Scotland (and
possibly elsewhere) are in fact very quietly now fully
commodified and professionalised, despite the overt ethos of
communitarianism within folk and trad music communities
themselves.
(McKerrell, S. 2015).

He goes on to explain how the term ´Celtic´ has been ‘enthusiastically taken up by those with an interest in marketing or promoting Scottish traditional music both at home and abroad.’ This is interesting when considering what sells and what becomes popular. Terms “useful” and “proven” seem to irk towards the nastier sides of the super-capitalist beast of the mainstream music industry that artists, promoters and festivals have to please to get by.

When reading about McKerrell’s findings and thoughts on the commodification of Celtic music in recent years I found myself driven to understand the difference between the commercial successes of Celtic music today and to compare that to older research.  On March 12th in 1995 an article named ‘Celtic Music’s ‘Extended Family’ Keeps Alive Its Proud Tradition’ was published in The New York Times. What I find so fascinating about the article is how the journalist Billy Altman describes how ‘it remains to be seen how greater mass awareness and commercial interest will affect traditional Celtic music’ - directly addressing the commercialisation of Celtic music, but before it became as commodified and comparible to “World Music” as it is today. In the article he interviews folklorists and musicians, who he invites to predict what might happen in the future - which allows for a fascinating discourse towards my questions, as well as offering an important insight and reflection on the Celtic music industry at the time. One of the people he interviews is Scottish fiddler Johnny Cunningham who ‘recognizes the music’s current market value.’ He then explains: 

Oh, yes, everyone's making their Celtic album now, and I can see
why. Anyone can take hold of the music; it's very primal
in nature… it's much more likely that the music will
affect those drawn to it rather than the other way around. Any of
us who play Celtic music can tell you: Once you play this music,
it's part of your life. It's what you are.
(Cunningham, J. 1995).

Cunningham’s description is a familiar one from my conversations with friends and colleagues who identify as Celtic musicians or fans of Celtic music. They all speak of this ‘strong connection’ and how it becomes ‘part of them.’ When does this rhetoric turn into a ‘useful’ business offering? And at what cost? It seems as if the tension between I created another illustration to document my thoughts:

The Artist's Dilemma.png

This in some ways relates to McKerrell’s argument on the commodification of Celtic music and our construction of a ‘western self’ that relies on commodified ‘other’: 

  This is also where the power of ‘Celtic music’ lies; in the
discursive and narratological ability to commodify the
white, ancient internal Other found on the fringes of Europe
as a counterpoint to the dominant capitalist identity.’
(McKerrell, S. 2015.).

It seems that it is the identity that sells, perhaps, and that there are two different routes to explore when crafting a ‘useful’ offer - authenticity or integrity. Does this not, though, take away from the very soul of this music? The artist is sacrificing the internal and intimate effects of the music in order to potentially become popular. In the thesis ‘Transnational communities through global tourism: Experiencing Celtic culture through music practice on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia’, Kathleen Elizabeth Lavengood describes how: 

Celtic music practices today are arguably more and more
a product of increased international tourism, travel, and
cultural interest, where participants are not tied to a single
region or originating from a single diasporic community.
(Lavengood, K. E. 2008.).

This description of the participants of Celtic music not being tied to a single place or community is interesting when considering Johnny Cunningham’s description of ‘how anyone can take hold of the music’ as well as McKerrell’s description of Celtic music haven ‘proven itself as commercially useful as ‘World music.’’ From my findings I could argue that the commercialisation of Celtic music is a combination of people’s ability to connect and associate with the music and its international appeals which ties in with its ‘otherness’.

My argument is interesting when considering what it is that makes people connect with music, and whether it matters if the musicians or bands have a Celtic connection or whether it is more important that they have a slot at Celtic Connections?  In order to answer my question, I return to my findings in the Lavengood’s thesis. She conducted a research at Celtic Connections where she interviewed audiences on their ability to relate to the music presented at the festival, as well as their understanding of the authenticity of the Celtic acts on stage: 

Certainly, audiences were cognisant of the implications of
commodification and music. Nevertheless, the audience
maintained a belief in the authenticity of the music due to
the emotional responses conveyed and generated by Celtic
music. The audience’s emotional responses to the music may
be delineated by their interpretations of music construction,
emotional expression, and the interplay between emotional
responses to the music and the regulation of self identity.
The tensions that arise from the changing traditions within the
music are articulated. Consequently, this offers an insight into
the ways the Celtic music consumer interprets the processes
of cultural change.
(Lavengood, K. E. 2008.).

The tension that surmounts for the artist is bold in this context. Audiences and the wider arts eco-system I would argue has much work to do to continue the sustainable process of cultural change to stop the unhealthy pressures that are seemingly apparent for the artist. Should it not be about the music and the artist’s wellbeing rather than popularity and shifting CDs? Is that too much to ask? To conclude, I reflect on Leah O’Brien Bernini’s thoughts on how as artists and audiences, we need to ground questions of commodification in less diluted waters:

I believe we require a deeper, more nuanced understanding of how
commodification affects musicians and their music, and we should
use our skills and knowledge to help artists navigate the industry.
(Bernini, L. 2019.).

We are entering into the new post this pandemic and we as an industry need to navigate the newly still waters with much more care. I wish for a much less competitive popularity contest, desperate to sell out and a much more sustainable, eco-centric place which celebrates, standardises and appreciates the artist’s craft. To enable this, I urge for a radical upheaval in the language that is used to justify someone’s practice - which, albeit, is proving harder and harder due to the immense might of social media statistics which is driving audiences more than ever to whoever looks the coolest. I wonder if the conversation can ever becomes about curiosity rather than judgement, grace over popularity and community over competition - especially as Brexit looms ever closer. Is this too much to ask?

Morgan Harper Nichols - You Have Never Shamed The Waves.

Morgan Harper Nichols - You Have Never Shamed The Waves.

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