Author Archives: jade.wright

There is certainly some historical evidence that recession breeds both creative musicians and entrepreneurial activity amongst music practitioners. From the birth of Rock ‘n’ roll in the USA in the 1950’s that spawned the first independent record labels. To the emergence of Punk in a very socially and economically challenged 1970’s Britain ( and later on to a lesser extent Rave), to smaller but not insignificant examples such as the emergence of Grunge in Seattle in the late 80’s early 90’s, a common denominator is very often recent or current economic and social hardship. This situation coupled with a lack of investment capital and/or a risk adverse climate within the major corporations has always seemed to breed musical creativity, technical ingenuity and business initiative on the furthest fringes of the market. Typically, these socio-cultural movements emerge from initially small-localised music scenes or increasing connection between geographically dispersed scenes.

Whilst the internet is arguably place, and a space where communities meet and socialise, what is lost is the proximity of musicians and fans congregating in a physical space to be part of something exciting and underground.

An interesting question related to this topic is, is it likely that digital socialisation can effectively replicate the experience of being part of a geographically localised music scene? Therefore, in the future will music scenes just as readily be germinated and developed in cyberspace as the real world?