SARAH THORNTON
Polity
Copyright © Sarah Thornton 1995
The right of Sarah Thornton to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 1995 by Polity Press
in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Reprinted 1996, 1997, 2001
Transferred to digital print 2003
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ISBN: 978-0-7456-6880-2 (Multi-user ebook)
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For Jeremy
Contents
List of Plates
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
1 The Distinctions of Cultures Without Distinction
Introduction
Youth and their Social Spaces
2 Authenticities from Record Hops to Raves (and the History of Disc Culture)
The Authentication of a Mass Medium
Industrial Forces, Musician Resistance and ‘Live’ Ideology
‘Real’ Events and Altered Spaces
Disc Jockeys and Social Sounds
The Authenticities of Dance Genres
The Response of the ‘Live’ Gig
Conclusion
3 Exploring the Meaning of the Mainstream (or why Sharon and Tracy Dance around their Handbags)
A Night of Research
Academic Accounts of the Cultural Organization of Youth
The Social Logic of Subcultural Capital
Participation versus Observation of Dance Crowds
Conclusion
4 The Media Development of ‘Subcultures’ (or the Sensational Story of ‘Acid House’)
The Underground versus the Overexposed
Mass Media: ‘Selling Out’ and ‘Moral Panic’
Micro-Media: Flyers, Listings, Fanzines, Pirates
Niche Media: the Editorial Search for Subcultures
Conclusion
Afterword
Bibliography
Index
List of Plates
Plates 1 and 2 Two ‘mould-breaking’ raves held just ten miles apart on 26–7 August 1989
(Photographs: David Swindells)
Plate 3 One of the first instances of records made specifically for the public dancefloor
(Reproduced by kind permission of the Musicians’ Union)
Plate 4 The death of vinyl
(Reproduced by kind permission of DJ magazine)
Plate 5 Front-page coverage of the rave scene, June 1989
(Reproduced by kind permission of the Sun)
Plate 6 A selection of flyers from 1989
(Photograph: David Swindells)
Plate 7 DJ Danny Rampling and his devotees at Shoom
(Photograph: David Swindells)
List of Figures
Figure 1 Dance versus other entertainments 1979–94
(Source: Leisure Consultants)
Figure 2 Axes of authenticity
Figure 3 The academic divides of youth culture
Publishers’ note: Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Association of Commonwealth Universities and the British Council (for funding my postgraduate research at the John Logie Baird Centre, Strathclyde University, Glasgow) and of the Coca-Cola Foundation (for financing a research fellowship at the Center for Humanities, Wesleyan University, Connecticut).
I am very grateful to many people for their advice and support during the writing of this book and the PhD dissertation from which it derives. First, my thanks go to those interviewees, informants and guides who spent time with me, on and off the dancefloor, sharing their experience of, and insights into, British dance culture. Thanks also to Andy Linehan at the National Sound Archive for his help with research and to David Swindells at Time Out for kindly allowing me to reproduce his photographs. Second, I want to express my profound appreciation to the following friends, students and mentors for their constructive comments on various chapters and drafts of the book. In alphabetical order, they are: José Arroyo, Brian Austin, Jacob Bricca, Matt Callaghan, Stephi Donald, Alan Durant, Leslie Felperin, Wendy Fonarow, Andrew Goodwin, Reesa Greenberg, Larry Grossberg, Dave Hesmondhalgh, Kate Lacey, Rachel Malik, Martin Montgomery, Mica Nava, Keith Negus, Richard Ohmann, Patria Roman, Kitty Scott, Roger Silverstone, Paul Theberge and John Thompson. I would especially like to thank Angela McRobbie and my dissertation supervisor, Simon Frith, for their invaluable and enduring guidance.
Finally, this book would not have been written without the steadfast support of my parents, Glenda and Monte Thornton, and my ad hoc editor and partner, Jeremy Silver.