Making Friends with Jarvis Cocker: Music Culture in the Context of Web 2.0

Abstract

The movement toward what has been described as Web 2.0 has brought with it some significant transformations in the practices, organization and relations of music culture. The user-generated and web-top applications of Web 2.0 are already popular and widely used, the social networking site MySpace already having more than 130 million members worldwide. By focusing specifically upon the presence of the popular music performer Jarvis Cocker across various Web 2.0 applications, this article seeks to open up a series of questions and create opportunities for research into what is happening in contemporary music culture. This exploratory article lays out an agenda for research into music culture and Web 2.0 that is not only concerned with the implications of Web 2.0 for music, but which also attempts to understand the part played by music in making the connections that form the collaborative and participatory cultures of Web 2.0 and the flickering friendships of social networking sites.