(Re)Valuing Rock Music: Curatorship in the Production of Anthology Compilation Albums

Abstract

This paper will look at notions of curatorship in rock music, focusing on the curatorial practices involved in the production of anthology compilation albums. Anthology compilations have long been a mainstay of rock music fandom. They are highly curated media goods that cater to connoisseurist forms of consumption. This paper will look at the example of reissue anthology compilations of mid-1960s rock and roll that were produced from the 1980s through to the present. These albums were made by collectors and fans who sought to recover the more obscure strains of the mid-1960s sound. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, this paper explores the curating of garage rock compilation albums as a technical practice, which entails tracking down forgotten bands and “lost” recordings, narrativizing rock music history, and compiling this material in album form. The paper will draw on recent theorizations of value in the anthropological literature in order to explore the multiple and contradictory ways that value accrues in the cultural objects of rock music, especially in its audio media. These theories emphasize value as social action, for which I propose an approach to curatorship as a form of social action that creates new forms of value.