Wrocking Collaboration: Wizard Rock and the Work of J.K. Rowling | Rebecca-Anne Do Rozario

Summary: Collaborations: creative partnerships in music | Rebecca-Anne Do Rozario <strong>Wrocking Collaboration: Wizard Rock and the Work of J.K. Rowling</strong> <em>Harry Potter</em> is the series that launched a thousand wizard rock bands. This may be a slight exaggeration, but no other series of books has ever resulted in a genre of music. Wizard rock bands produce music, including rock, punk and folk, based on storylines and characters from the <em>Harry Potter</em> novels. Most of the bands have names drawn from the novels, including Harry &amp; the Potters, The Remus Lupin and The Moaning Myrtles. Harry &amp; the Potters on their website explain how wizard rock not only celebrates fandom and engages metafictionally with the narratives, but challenges the music industry: <blockquote>”Imagine if Harry Potter quit the quidditch team and started a punk rock band. Take that one step further and imagine that he stole a time-turner and decided to start that band with himself from a different point in time. Imagine that band could exist without compromising themselves. Imagine that they are able to operate completely independently, without managers, booking agents, recording budgets, publicists, record labels, or anything aside from a sense of enthusiasm and a desire to have fun. Hello. We are Harry and the Potters“. [<a href="http://harryandthepotters.com">harryandthepotters.com</a>]</blockquote> Drawing particularly on Henry Jenkins’ fan cultures work and the latest thinking on new media, the paper will examine collaborations between wizard rock bands and the <em>Harry Potter</em> fan community, the evolution of wizard rock from folk into an ‘outer-industry’ phenomenon embracing new media, and the unusual relationship between the bands and J.K. Rowling’s original series, with its implications for creative ownership.