I've been thinking of changing the direction of my research project a little bit to examine the transition that artists make as the begin to enjoy more commercial success. Particularly, I want to look at the issue from the perspective of the fan looking at one music subculture, namely the re-emerging folk scene by artists such as Iron & Wine and Josh Ritter. I intend to take a look at their respective segways to more popularity and larger record labels and how fans have perceived this transition paying attention to the notion of "selling out". Conversations with many a number of superfans as well as the following blogs and fansite posting pages as my main data sources:
http://www.dougrice.net/joshritter.html
http://www.bowsplusarrows.com/2005/12/fansite-iron-wine-this-is-post-for.html
http://www.users.drew.edu/pbarnes/ironandwine/
http://www.passingafternoon.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=e0e5f04783ca54e841bb84e3c0e1538e&board=1.0
http://www.dougrice.net/joshritter_street-team.html
I think that this project will take an extremely interesting direction and will also let me study some of the more commercial aspects of the folk scene.
1 comment:
This project looks terrific. The tipping point between being successful and "selling out" is the site of major ideological struggle for many aspiring musicians and their fans, and I'm sure you'll have plenty of material to work with.
I encourage you to look to the scholarly literature on fan cultures for some parallel case studies. I've pointed several students to this book (and its bibliography could help point you elsewhere):
Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Cultures. New York: Routledge.
The chapter on alt.country in Music Scenes could also be of interest.
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