JOHNNY NORMAL's music in British Library Archive
Johnny Normal's music has been selected to be included in a music archive by the British Library: The New Music Network. The long term goal of the New Music Network is to systematically collect and document significant new music, in all its forms, across the UK. This part of the project, managed by Radio To Go Ltd for the British Library, has been in development for well over two years.
"Amazing new music has emerged online, as musicians have both taken control of their own production and distribution processes. This is a significant cultural development: valuable and inspiring. It is also fragile: extraordinary work can emerge one day, and disappear the next. We want to ensure that the best new music is kept for posterity, with the blessings of the people who created it.So how to do this? The first step was to rough out a solid way to identify new music. We went for a regional approach, as so much new music emerges from collaborative work in one area or another, and we picked the West Midlands as a particularly diverse starting point. This led to the selection of a team of advisors, all of whom work in or around the local music industry, some in specialised music areas. Our advisors selected up to 100 tracks each, and those tracks have been whittled down to the selection available on this site, and which will also go into the British Library’s archive. We looked for significant new music from the region that has emerged over the past two years, that was not on a major record label, and that was available online."