Introduction: Scenes and Memory

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, the concept of scene has gathered critical momentum as a means of studying the intersection of music and everyday life. A centrally important feature of scene theory has been its rejection of purely structural accounts of musical taste and a move away from associated conceptual frameworks such as ‘subculture’ and ‘community’. In its conceptual transgression, scene has also contributed to the recasting of collective musical participation as something that can transcend the physical parameters of space and place to take on more affective and trans-local qualities (Straw 1991; Bennett and Peterson 2004). Similarly, with the emergence and increasing sophistication of digital media, there has been a growing acknowledgement in academic work on scenes of the potential for ‘virtual’ forms of scene activity, either as distinctive practices or interlaced with more traditional forms of face-to-face interaction (Bennett 2002; Lee and Peterson 2004). The focus on scenes in the present has ultimately led to a broadening of the scenes perspective to consider the historical and trans-temporal dimensions of music scenes. Important points of departure here have been emergent literatures on music and ageing (see, for example, Bennett 2013) and music and heritage (see, for example, Cohen et al. 2015). Between them, these literatures have illustrated the extent to which the popular music culture of the last 60 years has shaped generational identity and memory.