Sheffield music's 'secret ingredient' that led to bands' chart-topping success
Global artists from Sheffield are taking the world stage by storm in a phenomenon now said to have its own “secret ingredient”.
Musical talent from the Steel City, from the Arctic Monkeys to Bring Me The Horizon and Def Leppard, are topping Spotify streams.
Now, as a University of Sheffield report lays bare for the first time the sheer scale of global impact, there are calls for a Sheffield Music Office.
Talent here isn’t just magically thriving, experts insist, but is born into a culture that stretches back centuries.
And while that showmanship may have come a long way since the days of sword dancing, they add, it is still bred with a sense of intent.
There is Jarvis Cocker now, and Pulp. The Human League. Then Reverend and the Makers. All Sheffield artists and together taking 1.85bn Spotify streams in a single quarter – to 100m listeners.
Neil McSweeney, a senior university teacher, is co-founder and director of Hudson Records and himself a singer-songwriter.
His research, in the Sheffield: City of Music report, shows how the sector supports some 2,100 jobs.
“It’s a very rare thing, for a city with half a million people, to consistently sustain the quality and variety of music that Sheffield does,” he said.
“Sheffield keeps stuff alive. That dynamic, it can feel like history, but it’s all in play right now. We are having a moment.
“A little bit of support would unlock that potential.”
It was only recently that Prime Minister Andy Burnham was put on the spot, asked what his favourite thing was about Sheffield.
Immediately, he launched into a list of bands, first The Human League and then Arctic Monkeys.
But this city’s musical history is entrenched. There is the curious tradition of carol singing in pubs, which dates back 200 years.
Then sword dancing, which is even older. And what’s most interesting of all is that these folk roots are actually still thriving.
This ability, the report finds, to pass down this tradition of music, is Sheffield’s “secret ingredient”.
And it’s a “fertile soil”, said Mr McSweeney, from which “tall poppies” can grow.
The report calls for a dedicated Sheffield Music Office to sustain and future proof this sector.
Ultimately, said Mr McSweeney, each era of the Sheffield scene depends on young people finding their way in.
There must be a way to protect music-making, in all ecosystems, he said, with an infrastructure that stretches to all corners.
It could even pursue a designation as a Unesco City of Music.
Now, for more modern times, there are massive crowds for the Tramlines festival. Artists that go on to perform on a global stage.
But Jon McClure, of Reverend and the Makers fame, said musicians are made by their music scene.
Speaking at the report’s launch, he said his own spark came from two centres of gravity.
The first was at Stag Works, in an old little mesters’ yard. The second was Boardwalk, working the bar. It was its own kind of music college, he said.
“Nobody ever sat us down and taught us how to have a career in music; we just got close to the people who were actually doing it,” he said.
What Sheffield has, he outlined, has been passed down from one to another. Inherited, was the word he used.
And he borrowed a metaphor from Pulp’s Richard Hawley.
“Sheffield music is like a little mesters’ yard, in that we're all sort of separate, but we share a forge,” said McClure.
“And I wonder whether, to your point, we shouldn't join that up more into a forge masters.”
The report sets out a series of recommendations, but core to it all is to recognise what’s happening here.
Music writer Daniel Dylan Wray, author of Groovy, Laidback & Nasty which looks at a history of Sheffield’s independent music scene, said this city is too vast and varied to comfortably pigeonhole.
“This report showcases the sheer depth and breadth of talent," he added. “Along with the global reach and huge potential, of the music being made in this city."
And Matt Ritchie, founder of Hybrid 3 Studios and of the Sheffield Grassroots Music Network, said it lands at exactly the right moment. There is “real growth” right now, he said, and a Sheffield Music Office is "genuinely achievable”.
He said: “Sheffield has talent and ambition everywhere, but no single home pulling it together. Let's get that central point anchored in.”