Scenes and sexualities: Queerly reframing the music scenes perspective

Abstract

Historically, research on music cultures has favoured examination of the subcultural affiliations of the youthful urban white working-class heterosexual male. While the prominence of this subject has since been contested by a number of scholars, even the most celebrated forms of scholarship in this area continue to work within heteronormative discourses. In fact, omitted considerations of non-heterosexualities and sexual styles are a stark reminder of the frequent invisibility of the queer subject, not only in relation to much subcultural and post-subcultural theory, but also in relation to broader discussions about musical and extra-musical style generally. This paper addresses these omissions. Specifically, it reviews existing music scenes literature demonstrating how, as a theoretical concept, scene has emerged out of the reductiveness and rigidity of subcultural theory. It examines work on musically mediated performances of sexuality, identifying the need for more work around sexualities and music scenes in everyday contexts. It proposes how and by whom such work can be done. And it details the integration of queer theories into the music scenes perspective, showing how ‘scene’ can accommodate a more flexible approach to queer collective formations which is necessary for everyday musically mediated queer subjectivities to be understood.

Notes

1. Horse Meat Disco bills itself as ‘the queer party for everyone’. Beginning in a basement in Soho, London in 2004, it has now toured to numerous locations in the UK, America, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico.

2. A punk ethic and style is central to the queercore and riot grrrl movements, while disco music was particularly central to the emergence of gay culture in the 1970s and dance music remains as such today.

3. Other notable attempts at theorizing beyond subculture to account for music and style include community (Frith 1981; Lewis 1992), club cultures (Thornton 1995), lifestyle (Chaney 1996), post-subculture (Muggleton 1997) and neo-tribe (Bennett 1999).

4. ‘Cruising’ is an argot used predominantly (but not exclusively) by same-sex attracted males. The term generally refers to the act of seeking casual sex either at known public ‘beats’, at designated sex-on-site venues, through Internet sex sites or telephone services.