Dr Simon Barber researches, writes and lectures about popular music, the music industries, digital culture and jazz. As a Senior Research Fellow in the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research (BCMCR) at Birmingham City University, Simon is particularly interested in songwriting, and the relationships between creative workers and industry, which he explores as a member of the BCMCR popular music cluster. He is currently leading the Songwriting Studies Research Network, a two-year project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and has published on songwriting in such journals as Popular Music and Society and The European Journal of Cultural Studies.
As a musician, Simon has performed at events including BBC Radio 1 @ The Cavern, The Music Week Festival and BBC Big Screen for 6 Music. He has contributed songs to the soundtracks of independent films such as Brutal, Dark Chamber, 10 Yards and Dead in Love, and has composed scores for award-winning animations and short films such as Killing Time at Home, The Lilac Papers, Day of the Jackanape, The Censor and The Odyssey.
Simon is also one half of the songwriting team Sodajerker. He has produced and co-presented over 160 episodes of their popular songwriting podcast, which has received millions of downloads, charted in more than 60 countries, and been awarded coverage in Esquire, Slate, NME and The Guardian among others. The podcast was also the basis for the BBC World Service documentary The Secrets of Songwriting, which Simon co-presented.
He writes his bios in the third person. Find out what he is working on now.