Music and Collectivity

The purpose of this chapter is to explore issues of music and collective consumption by using notions such as consumer culture, consumer tribes, brand communities and scenes. This is not intended to be an exhaustive analysis of music and community or collectivity. Rather, this chapter focuses specifically on a number of ideas which have potential implications for the analysis, interpretation and understanding of music markets. Part of the contribution of this book is to examine what they buy us in terms of understanding exchange relationships, what their limitations are, and how these limitations might be remedied by combining them with social identity and consumer culture theory. The discussion of brand community builds on the earlier discussion of branding in Chapters 5 and 6. The focus of consumer tribes builds on the discussion in Chapter 7 about music consumption by focusing on collective aspects of consumption. The notion of scenes is one which has emerged within music studies.