MUSIC AND SOCIETY IN DISCOURSE

 

The Dynamics of Dance: How early media attention influenced the development of the category of electronic/dance music?

Dr. Alex van Venrooij (Department of Sociology, University of Amsterdam)

 

Friday, 14 June 2024, 15:00
mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
Department of Music Sociology
Seminar Room
Ungargasse 14, 2nd floor
1030 Vienna

How can we explain the emergence and development of the UK electronic/dance music field? A “movement-centric” narrative describes the emergence of the acid house revolution as an “organic growth” process that involved the activities of a network of people that developed a small underground scene which laid the foundation for the emergence of a large acid house movement that spilled over into the mainstream in the Summer of Love. Another narrative, however, suggests that established media – record companies and music magazines – had actually been instrumental in creating the scene, developing its subcultural credibility, and introducing house music to the UK in the first place. In this lecture Alex van Venrooij will further explore the second narrative. He will discuss how record labels and music magazines were quick to provide attention to “house music”, and through media exposure and compilation albums, did much of the cultural work to establish house music as a legitimate cultural form. Alex van Venrooij provides an empirical analysis of the long-term effects of this cultural work and investigate how the media discussion of dance music in this early take-off phase defined the parameters of the genre for decades to come.

 

Further information:

Juan Carlos Escobar Campos

Doctoral Researcher, Structured Doctoral Program, mdw

Mail: escobar-campos@mdw.ac.at