I've always been struck by how Williams is particularly applicable to both popular music and the cultures that emerge around it. His theory of emergent, dominant, and residual styles seem to be most applicable in the realm of music.

Section three of “Institutions” we find another instance in which Williams' theories can be applied to popular music. In (ii) Williams maintains that popular music can be placed in the second post-artisanal stage in which “the producer sells his work to a productive intermediary, and typically capitalist social relations begin to be instituted. The intermediary invests in the purchase of a work for the purpose of profit; it is now his relations with the market which are direct” (45). Later in the section Williams maintains that within popular music “the second, productive post-artisanal phase has long been established, and there has been major movement in later phases of market relations” (46).

Yet, it is important to note that in the current digital era, popular music can be understood within the context of the first post-artisanal phase. Williams defines this phase as the producer selling his work “not directly but to a distributive intermediary, who then becomes in a majority of cases, his factual if often occasional employer” (45). While Itunes and Amazon may not be the patrons in the traditional sense, the way in which the function in distributing music is quite similar to the definition of the first post-artisanal phase Williams sets forth.

In (iii) “Market professional” Williams's definition primarily concerns itself with the role of literature and the wrier. But once again, this definition is highly applicable to popular music. The primary debate surrounding royalty and copyright no longer revolves primarily around the printed word. Instead, the debate in the last ten years has been about recorded audio. The issue is no longer a writer's relations with a publisher being bypassed by domestic or foreign pirates. Instead, artists' relationships with record labels are being bypassed by music pirates around the globe. Furthermore, the notion of royalty is an immense part of the current debate surrounding popular music. Particularly, the issue has been widely debated in regards to such trivial matters as ringtones. The question was to whether or not the use of songs as ringtones and their subsequent use warranted the payment of royalties to artists.