Red Emma’s

The Music & Work Project is launching this summer to explore the role that music plays in our working lives. How do the soundtracks to our jobs shape our daily experiences on the clock? Are these songs functioning only to increase productivity and profits for the boss? Or is the workplace playlist freely controlled by their workers to reduce alienation and open a portal toward liberation? Can music be a tool of resistance? What if there is no music at all? Looking at the realities of wage labor through the lens of music has the potential to heighten our understanding of capitalist society - and hopefully illuminate possibilities beyond the current economic system. And unlike existing academic and corporate research on music in the workplace, this exploration is from the bottom up; from the eyes and ears of actual workers. 

Matt Dineen is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist. In addition to a series of low-wage service jobs, he has spent the past 6 years volunteering at Wooden Shoe Books & Records where he coordinates events programming.