Centrality and Power in Urban Networks of Music Production: Exploring Relational Geographies in the German Music Market

Popular music emerges in production networks, in which various highly specialized actors such as producers, engineers, and artists interact. Relations between these actors reach out among recording studios across the globe, forming global urban networks of music production. The aim of this chapter is to identify key cities of music production in the German music market in terms of their centrality, power, and position in production networks. Using data on 155 albums of the German Top 20 charts, we apply an approach of social network analysis to identify and map comprehensive global urban networks. Our analysis differentiated by genre, label, and nationality of the artists indicates specific production patterns linking national and international networks thus revealing new relational geographies of music production beyond the dominant Anglophone markets.