Music Scenes
We are examining the under represented music scene of Newcastle Australia. To do this, we must examine this subculture in order to fully understand the meaning and values of this music scene. I would say that subcultures are certain values, attitudes, beliefs, styles and ideas that belong to and are shared by a certain group or class. I also believe that whenever style and music intersect, is where you will find subcultures. In the Clarke, Stuart Hall, Jefferson and Roberts’s article titled, “Subcultures, Cultures and Class”, they made a point that subcultures take shape around distinctive activities and focal concerns of different groups—specifically concentrating on youth subcultures. This article concentrates on style and the different types of youth subcultures. I believe that this is a very necessary topic in relation to the Newcastle music scene because in order to understand different music, it is essential to understand the groups that listen to it and how they act as a certain subculture. Music itself is essentially a subculture in the sense that it differentiates from the wider culture. In the “Subcultures, Cultures and Class” article, the authors make an interesting point that youth leisure and youth consumption go hand in hand. I agree with this completely. The more free time a person has, the more time they have to go shopping, discover new music, and feed into the new trends and styles of the time. Youth today I feel have more free time and have access to more money and have different financial responsibilities than any other previous generation. Therefore, I am expecting to learn about a really dynamic music scene in Newcastle. This scene IS a subculture with its own attitudes, values, beliefs, dress code, language and rules. We need to focus on the audiences AS WELL as the musicians. It is important to evaluate both in order to sufficiently critique and analyse this music scene.
Reference:
Clarke, John, Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson, and Brian Roberts. 1975. “Subcultures, Cultures, and Class.” In The Subculture Reader. Ken Gelder and Sarah Thornton (eds.). New York: Routledge. p. 100-11.
This entry by user: Jocelynn D. Yoerges
May 13, 2008 at 7:03 am
Also– Hopefully whichever groups or artists we evaluate will have a myspace page or some sort of website on the internet. We really need to utilize the internet as our main source of information gathering. I have been thinking about the relationship of style, behavior and music. There are so many ways to define you as an individual (or part of a group or scene in our case). I feel as though people’s Myspace pages and personal web blogs are just as definitive of whom people are as tattoos, piercings, and fashion statements are. Therefore, we should assess audiences and fans by for example, their Myspace pages. By creating a personal look to your Myspace page and adding pictures, music etc to convey a certain style, people are essentially marketing themselves and proving to others that they in fact do belong to a certain “scene”. Baiscally, what I wanted to add was that the internet has had an enormous impact on the concept of subcultures and scenes and that this idea of subcultures and scenes, just like the music industry, the internet is forever changing and affecting the wider culture as a whole.