Empire of Dirt: The Aesthetics and Rituals of British Indie Music

Abstract

Acknowledgments Introduction Beginnings Theoretical Frame: From Observation to Communication Active Bodies The Audience and Subjectivity Music as Activity Subjectivity in Action Turn On the Bright Lights6 Methodology From Plus One to A Your Itinerary Conclusion What Is Indie? Indie... What's at Stake? Indie as a Mode of Distribution: An Industrial Definition Indie as a Genre Indie as an Ethos Indie as Pathetic Indie as a Mode of Aesthetic Judgement The Mainstream Is a Centralized Hierarchy Dance Is Not the Way the Future Is Meant to Feel Indie: What Is It? The Zones of Participation The Event Zone One The Pit The Front Zone One Spectatorship: The Initiates The Psychosomatics of Zone One Zone Two The Mode of Comportment of Zone Two Comportment Features That Vary over Space Gigs as Social Life The Process of Change from Zone One to Zone Two The Heterogeneous Audience A Move toward the Exit Conclusion Zone Three and the Music Industry The Activities of Zone Three The Liggers The Guest List Routine 1: Example of Professional Strategy Routine 2: Example of Personable Strategy Routine 3: Code Switch from Professional to Personable Passes Privileged Spectatorship Conclusion The Participant Structure and the Metaphysics of Spectatorship Proximity, Affiliation, and Consensus Building Verticality and Asymmetry Contesting Spectorial Positions: Closeness and Distance Age The Metaphysics of Participation African Expression in a Protestant World The Nature of the Moral Threat A Ritual of Transformation Conclusion Performance, Authenticity, and Emotion Indie's Version of Authenticity Indie's Conventions of Being in Performance Emotion and the Decay of Emotion Sex and the Ritual Practitioners Gendered Spectatorship The Groupie as Sexual Predator Indie Versus Mainstream: Groupie Troublesomeness Offstage Behavior Mirrors Onstage Spectacle Come Together Sing for the Moment The Tricksters Indie Coyotes and Foxes Afterword: My Music Is Your Dirt Appendix 1. NME's Top 100 Albums of All Time Appendix 2. NME's Top 50 Albums of the 1980s Appendix 3. Select Magazine Survey, 1994 Notes References Index.