Popular music expert hits right note

Music mogul, journalist and academic, Professor Simon Frith, will be sharing his secrets with Edge Hill University's media students this month.

The former rock critic and sociologist who is considered the world's leading authority on popular music culture will be visiting the Ormskirk campus on Tuesday 26^th October.

Simon is currently Tovey Professor of Music at the University of Edinburgh and a highly influential figure in the study of music.

He is most famously known for his role as chairman of the judges of the prestigious Barclaycard Mercury Prize, an annual music accolade for the best album from the UK and Ireland and an alternative to the industry-dominated Brit Awards.

With an undergraduate degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and a Masters and PhD in Sociology, he initially taught in the Sociology Department at the University of Warwick. Always having an interest in the problems of taking popular music seriously resulted in him becoming the founding member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music and a founding editor of the journal, Popular Music.

As a journalist he started out as an editor of the pioneering British rock magazine, Let It Rock, and became rock critic for both the Sunday Times and the Observer, and music columnist for the New York Village Voice.

He will be travelling from Scotland to talk to the University's media students about his unusual career both as an academic and journalist.

The visit has been organised by Richard Witts, Senior Lecturer in Media, Music and Sound at Edge Hill University. "Simon has had an interesting career as an academic, a music critic, a Mercury Prize judge, and as an author of many important books," he said. "I'm sure that our students will find what he will tell them inspiring. His visit to Edge Hill is also a valuable opportunity to ask Simon about his concerns for the future of popular music."