A sharp, thoughtful and ultimately hopeful look at the past, present and future of the music industry from one of the people who helped shape it.

Kev Nixon, musician, songwriter, producer, artist manager, music educator and writer charts the unprecedented fall of British music’s global dominance with unflinching honesty, deep affection and biting wit. Drawing on five decades in the business, Nixon reveals how the UK’s once world-leading musical culture has suffered from an obsession with technology, addiction to nostalgia and has become increasingly disconnected from artistic substance.

What began as a phrase coined while observing music students making overly-polished recordings using GarageBand, Nixon evolved “brilliant sounding rubbish” into a damning metaphor for an entire industry. Part memoir, part manifesto, and part behind-the-scenes exposé, the book journeys from Nixon’s childhood musical awakenings in 1960s Yorkshire to the chaos of modern streaming culture, tracing the roots of the crisis in everything from the collapse of artist development, to the rise of corporate ownership, and the devaluation of true music education.

Nixon details class prejudice in genre and music industry hierarchies, the myth of the self-made artist and the digital structures that control what the world hears and what it doesn’t. Through personal stories, case studies and bold provocations, Brilliant Sounding Rubbish offers a clear-eyed vision for rebuilding an industry with heart, integrity and risk at its core while returning to the musical standards that put British music into world domination. Nixon believes there’s still time to turn things around. If we bring back risk, nurture real talent and cease allowing technology to dominate creativity, the music business might just get its soul back. The future, he says, could have brilliant sounding substance – this time for all the right reasons.

Kev Nixon

Audiobooks

Voice