“Heritage rock”: Rock music, representation and heritage discourse

This article seeks to illustrate how “rock” music, as originally defined by an aesthetic dating back to the mid-1960s, is now being culturally and historically repositioned through the application of “heritage rock” discourses. Changing definitions of heritage in an era of cultural fragmentation give rise to new understandings and articulations of cultural heritage. It is in this context that the concept of heritage rock must be placed. Three examples of the heritage rock discourse and practice are considered: Classic Albums Live, the Canterbury Sound website, and Songworks (a small independent record label). Classic Albums Live constitutes an essentially conservative articulation of heritage rock grounded in dominant rock canons; the Canterbury Sound website and Songworks, represent a more DIY (do-it-yourself) approach to the heritage rock project that seeks to reinsert into rock history and rememberings those artists overlooked and ignored in more conservative accounts.