Defining the Discographic Self Desert Island Discs in Context

The radio programme Desert Island Discs has run almost continuously since 1942, and represents a unique record of the changing place of music in British society. In 2011, recognising its iconic status, the BBC created an online archive that includes podcasts of all programmes from 1976 on, and many from earlier years. Based on this and extensive documentary evidence, Defining the Discographic Self: Desert Island Discs in Context for the first time brings together musicologists, sociologists, and media scholars in one volume. They reflect on the programme's significance, its position within the BBC and Britain's continually evolving media, and its relationship to other comparable programmes. Of particular interest are the meanings attributed to music in the programme by both castaways and interviewers, the ways in which music is invoked in the public presentation of self, the incorporation of music within personal narratives, and changes in musical tastes during the seven decades spanned by the programme. Scholarly chapters are complemented by former castaways' accounts of their appearances, which give fascinating insiders' views into how the programme is made and how its guests prepare for their involvement.

1 - Introduction
2 - The Cultural Baggage of the Desert Island
3 - From Forces' Choice to Desert Island Discs: The BBC's Promotion of Personal Choice in Wartime
4 - Desert Island Discomorphoses: Listening Formations and the Material Cultures of Music
5 - Adrift or Ashore? Desert Island Discs and Celebrity Culture
6 - Playlists and Prizes: Cultural Authority, Personal Taste, and Musical Value since the 1940s
7 - What Does It Mean to Be Cultured? Desert Island Discs as an Ideological Archive
8 - Desert Island Discs and British Emotional Life
9 - Punk, class, and taste in Desert Island Discs
10 - Peripheral Identities on Desert Island Discs and Beti a'I Phobol
11 - Music and Narrative Selves in Desert Island Discs
12 - Desert Island Dislocation: Emotion, Nostalgia, and the Utility of Music
13 - Musicianly Lives Musically Told: Oral History, Classical Music, and Desert Island Discs
14 - Afterword: Playing the Discographic Self

Julie Brown is Professor of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London Nicholas Cook is 1684 Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of the British Academy Stephen Cottrell is Professor of Music at City, University of London