Independent Music and Independent Music Scenes. From DIY led Collectives to Individualized Professionals?

Especially with the emergence of subversive youth cultures in the 1960s and 70s, independent music and independent music scene have become emblems of aesthetic and socio-cultural distinction from mass culture and the cultural industry. But over the last decades, not only the usage of the term independent and music scenes seems to become increasingly inflationary, also neoliberalism and the digital transformation of music production and consumption as a whole raise the question how independent and independent scenes can be seen out of a today´s perspective. This chapter tries to answer these questions by analyzing socio-spatial strategies of scene related music venues and how they evolve over time. Therefore, the concepts of independent and grassroots music scene will be discussed and divided into three historical phases. Focusing on spatial values and socio-spatial constellations of scene actors and institutions, the handling of changing social and economic environments will be examined by a case study of three distinct scene based music venues in Hamburg, Germany. As the results show, the meaning and perpetuation of independent and independent music scene are part of several arenas of conflict.