Cultural and creative industries in Spain have experimented an unprecedented growth over the past few decades, and Latin America has followed suit, since these industries have been promoted as key instruments for economic expansion. So have the music industries too, as part of the cultural and creative industries. Specialised and higher education in Spanish in this field has increased as of late, with a variety of bachelor’s and master’s degrees. However, there has been an endemic lack of literature (especially textbooks, handbooks, and more specialised books on such matters as music marketing, music production, artist management, to name a few) in this language. Jon Icazuriaga, editor of the present book (From Passion to Profession. A Music Industry Hanbook, if translated into English), explains the situation up to date in these countries in the book preface:
An industry traditionally made up of self-taught professionals, deeply knowledgeable about their craft — and absolutely respectful of its various stakeholders and value chains — but mostly lacking a solid and holistic educational foundation for an industry to which they gradually contribute value and practical knowledge, in the many possibilities of professional integration within it. Therefore, there is an obvious need to bring together all this autarchic, fragmented, and decentralized knowledge in order to transform it into a rigorous, useful, and didactic seed that humbly contributes to the progressive training and professionalization of the sector.
(1) (Vol 1, pp. 15–16).
Publications in English have been available to English-speaking students and professionals for years, with excellent books by experts including Anderton, Dubber & James (2013), Baskerville & Baskerville (1979/2020), Hull, Hutchinson & Strasser (2011), Jones (2012), Passman (1991/2023), Rutter (2011), Nordgård (2018), Fitterman-Radbill (2012), Thall (2016), Tschmuck (2017/2021), Wikström (2009/2020), and Weissman (2009), to name just a few. However, native speakers of Spanish have rarely benefited from these resources, due to their persistent lack of command of the English language — which actually contrasts with the extended abuse of interspersed (supposedly cool) English expressions by generations Z, Y, and Alpha. At the same time, Spanish publishers have only timidly ventured into very few smaller introductory books, such as Mañó and Borí (2016), until now, when we finally find two solid projects by different publishers: Liburuak’s (with the here commented book), and Akal’s (with a book edited by prof. Juan de Dios and myself, expected to be published in 2026).
Founded in Bilbao in 1998, Liburuak is a smaller publishing company devoted to music and contemporary culture. Its De pasión a profesión. Manual de la industria musical is the first comprehensive handbook in Spanish in this field. This project was conceived by Last Tour (together with its associated Fundación Industrias Creativas and BIME, the famous international music industries event), and it has been coordinated by editor Jon Icazuriaga, a cultural market and entrepreneurship consultant and educator (university lecturer and coordinator of a master’s degree in music industries management) based in Bilbao (Spain).
This excellent handbook answers brilliantly the stated purpose of “[serving as a] reference for initial learning — and subsequent knowledge — of any profession [in the music industries] in its value chain: a learning base and permanent reference guide […] with a narrative tone that, while didactic, formal, and rigorous, avoids succumbing to excessively academic density and inflection” (Vol 1, p. 16). (2) As a matter of fact, a few chapters do not have any references, while others do not hesitate to include non-academic sources, such as Music Business for Dummies (Weisman, 2015), when needed.
The work contains thirty-five chapters, written by thirty-three different specialists in the music industries, that focus on the essential aspects of each subject and provide an initial foundation for later individual expansion by the reader. Accompanied by eight useful and well-designed infographics and generously provided with practical charts, the chapters are grouped into very complete six blocks.
The first volume of the book begins with a conceptual exploration of music as both an art form and an industry. It explains the standard division into traditional, popular and classical music in a critical way, while reflecting on their individual and societal significance. This section introduces cultural and creative industries, briefly tracing their historical development, categorization, and economic influence. It also analyses how technological advancements have shaped musical evolution, taking a look at different industry eras — pre-industrial, publishing, broadcasting, recorded, and digital, according to Tschmuck’s (2021) division — and how recording technologies and media formats have transformed over time. The section concludes with an examination of music’s role in the global economy, highlighting its impact on economic growth, revenue generation from recorded music, and market dynamics.
There are different ways of addressing the music industries. Some key authors in the field prefer to use ‘music business’ — e.g., Baskerville & Baskerville (2020), Hull, Hutchinson & Strasser (2011), Passman (2023), Thall (2016), while others rather use ‘music industry’, in singular form — e.g., Álvarez Vázquez (2017), Britten (2009), Leyshon (2014), Tschmuck (2012), Wikström & DeFillippi (2016). A third group of scholars favours the plural expression ‘music industries’ — e.g., Anderton, Dubber & James (2013), Hitters & Van de Kamp (2012), Hugues, Evans, Morrow & Keith (2016), Jones (2012), Nordgård (2018). The book title seems to point at the second option. However, the work uses “recording industry” in the title of several chapters, while no chapter titles contain “music publishing industry” or “live music industry” — terms that appear frequently in the text. This could be in a way misleading, as it implies a contradictory division of an industry into further industries. It is true that in Spanish the term industry may informally be used to mean “the sum or set of industries of the same or several types, of an entire country or part of it” (3) (Real Academia Española, 2014, definition 4), but a formal use should avoid this ambiguity in the interest of conceptual accuracy. Perhaps an initial chapter devoted to different conceptualisations of the music industries (e.g., value systems/networks, ecosystems) would have helped clarify the framework used.
The second block of the first volume shifts focus to the artist and their professional landscape. It outlines the various roles an artist can take on — be it author, composer, or performer — and delves into specific areas like jazz composition and film scoring. The structure of the artist’s team is thoroughly described, detailing the manager’s different roles (personal, tour, business) and the administrative, communication, and legal responsibilities of the artist’s office. It also points out new roles that are emerging around the artist. This block continues with the artist’s legal framework (both in Spain and Latin America), marketing and communication, and ways to finance the artist’s projects.
Under the title “Music Today and Tomorrow”, the last block gathers a miscellany of subjects relating both to the artist, the industries, and technology. Two chapters are devoted to the psychology of music and health and wellbeing issues in the music industries, followed by an interlude dealing with music criticism and industry associations. The final six chapters explain different technologies relating to the music industries (big data, NFTs, blockchain, AI), and changes they promote in areas such as social innovation, business models, and sustainability.
The second volume focuses on the three main industries: recording, music publishing, and live music. There is a brief initial review of the industrial history of music recording, starting from the very first phonographic records all the way to the rise of streaming services, covering significant milestones like the era of conglomerates and the wave of digitalization. Next, it takes a closer look at the business side of the industry, breaking down the different types of record labels and how the global market functions. The book also outlines who’s who in the recording industry, from artists and recording studios to producers, sound engineers, distributors, digital platforms, marketing agencies, and music curators — the key players in the music value chain. The legal framework of the recording industry, the music production processes, and music distribution represent the last three chapters of this block.
A significant portion of the second volume is devoted to music publishing. It describes the role of publishing in the music value chain and the main responsibilities of publishers. The book explains collective rights management and identifies the main entities involved, including CMOs and Independent Management Operators. It also introduces international organizations like WIPO, CISAC, BIEM, ICMP, and IMPF, and outlines their functions. Specific sections are dedicated to the legal and contractual aspects of authorship, including roles such as composers, arrangers, and editors, as well as co-publishing and sub-publishing agreements. The final parts of this block address technical and contractual details in publishing activity.
The last block of the second volume is devoted to the live music industry. It explores the different stakeholders involved in organizing live events, such as promoters, booking agents, technical crews, and festival organizers. It addresses the logistics of touring and the economic structures that support live performance, including revenue models and the professional networks that enable concert production. The book also discusses the impact of digital tools and hybrid formats (such as livestreamed shows), the cultural value of live performance, and the transformations in audience behaviour and artist-audience interaction. The volume closes with sections on concert production, live music financing, and marketing, and communication in the live music industry.
The beautiful book’s design and layout will be very appealing to younger generations, which will help the book’s dissemination. However, there are some aspects that could be improved in an already very attractive product. For instance, the page margins are extremely generous, and they would have allowed for a larger letter size, which would have helped for an easier reading — and maybe a smaller format would have contributed to a lower RRP, for a wider access, and to an easier portability. The use of very dark colours for some of the reference pages, though very attractive, makes them hard to read in some instances as well. Perhaps the most controversial aspect the book could be the way it uses the so-called ‘inclusive’ language in Spanish, instead of the standard (already grammatically inclusive) neutral style recommended by the Royal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española, 2020). This can make the text too wordy or slow to read at times, or even blur concepts that the reader could end up not learning properly — e.g., the concept of ‘music publisher’, worded here as the ‘person that works in music publishing’. Languages have mainly evolved towards word economy, and each has adopted different forms of grammatical inclusiveness for neutral/plural uses that can be traced back to Indo-European (Villanueva, 2021).
Regarding the content, as expressed above, the two volumes are really thorough. I can only think of a few ideas that could be added to an already very complete work. Firstly, a chapter on the classical music sector could make the book’s ‘holistic’ perspective more exhaustive, as well as one devoted to dance and ballet, which are so important for the live music industry and for the recording industry — especially in music videos and live concerts. Next to this, a history of music publishing could mirror the parallel sections in the Live Music and Recorded Music blocks as well. In addition, the third block of the first volume (“Music Today and Tomorrow”) gathers a miscellany of subjects and chapters that would benefit from a different distribution in the book, in the interest of narrative clarity. Finally, the marketing sections be enriched with a combination of the approach used and the traditional 4p (or 7p) approach, plus a more detailed explanation of audiences and audience development, with more detailed cases of impact measurement of music events.
Two last suggestions would include, firstly, the addition of a more in-depth chapter on music industries ethics — much needed these days —, in connection with a larger chapter on ‘real’ sustainability — and I say ‘real’, because real sustainability includes not producing unnecessary products for needs created artificially (e.g., the overuse of new electronic gadgets and wristbands in music festivals to allegedly “improve customer experience,” mentioned in the Live Music section). Secondly, it would be very helpful to include a subject index for quick searches.
On the whole, these are really minor suggestions, and we must thank and congratulate Last Tour, BIME, Liburuak, editor Jon Icazuriaga, and the thirty-three authors for De pasión a profesión. Manual de la industria musical, the first music industries handbook in Spanish, a first landmark in the literature of this field, which we all hope to see grow in the coming years. Conceived as a practical guide, it will be very useful not only to present and future musicians, but also to anyone wishing to work in the music industries. It can also serve as a practical textbook for music industries courses in professional training (e.g., production, recording engineering, artist management, music marketing), or for introductory courses on this subject for conservatoire and university studies in music or arts management. And we must not forget the general public: as consumers, a responsible and ethical use of music — from sheet music to concerts and recordings — can only start with a clear understanding of how its market and industries work.
We look forward to the eBook version of this work, which will make it available to a greater audience for a more accessible price and make it easy for readers to navigate through it in search for specific concepts, definitions, authors, references, etc., thus enhancing its purpose to serve as a reference and educational tool.
Translation from Spanish; Juan González-Castelao Martínez-Peñuela.
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Translation from Spanish; Juan González-Castelao Martínez-Peñuela.