The world according to iTunes: mapping urban networks of music production

This paper presents a social network analysis which explores and maps relational urban networks of production within the global recorded music industry. Within the analysis recorded music albums are viewed as temporary market-based projects that bring together teams of skilled creative workers in recording studios across the globe. New tools and techniques for networking studios in geographically distant locations give mobile musically creative workers the ability to coordinate musical recordings on a global scale, resulting in new relational geographies of music production. An innovative approach is taken to the social network analysis to assess the connectedness of cities and determine the centrality and power of cities within networks of production for three major Anglophone digital music markets. The end result is a mapping of the relational urban networks of music production as indicated through the interdependencies between projects, studios and local urban agglomerations.