These fourteen original essays examine the fascinating world of music scenes, those largely inconspicuous sites where clusters of musicians, producers, and fans explore their common musical tastes and distinctive lifestyle choices. Although most music scenes come and go with hardly a trace, they nevertheless give immense satisfaction to their participants, and a few--New York bop jazz, Merseybeat, Memphis rockabilly, London punk, Bronx hip-hop--achieve fame and spur musical innovations. To date, serious study of the scenes phenomenon has focused mainly on specific music scenes while paying less attention to recurrent dynamics of scene life, such as how individuals construct and negotiate scenes to the various activities. This volume remedies that neglect.

Andy Bennett is lecturer in sociology at the University of Surrey. He is the author of Popular Music and Youth Culture: Music, Identity and Place and Cultures of Popular Music. With Kevin Dawe, he co-edited Guitar Cultures.

Richard A. Peterson is professor emeritus of sociology at Vanderbilt University, and founding chair of the Culture Section of the American Sociological Association. His books include The Production of Culture, Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity, and The Sounds of Social Change: Studies in Popular Culture, co-edited with R. Serge Denisoff.