Music and national identity

Here's an essay on music and national identity.

Popular music policy and the articulation of regional identities. The case of Scotland and Ireland: " To put this another way, because music is ubiquitous — we cannot avoid it even if we want to — it is accepted as a kind of public property: 'our music' is something which belongs to us, whether individually or because we are members of a particular nation or community. What is available for us to hear (whether as consumers in record shops or as audiences for radio and television shows or simply as citizens at work and play) thus becomes a factor in our sense of ourselves as members of a public."