RRU faculty member Phillip Vannini has co-authored a book about the world of popular music with Joe Kotarba of the University of Houston. Understanding Society Through Popular Music is published by Routledge and an excerpt appears below by arrangement with the publisher.

New book reveals that within a market economy and consumerist culture, self-expression is almost always inevitably mediated through the conspicuous consumption of commodities.

by Joe Kotarba and Phillip Vannini

In a not so distant past, as recently as the 1970s, music-related commodities were often hardly available for purchase.

Merchandise such as posters, concert shirts and even recordings was only irregularly available at best and even then a fan would be hard pressed to find much for sale in retail stores unless one’s beloved singer or band was extremely popular with the masses.

As youths’ spending power increased and as e-commerce replaced the older system based on catalogue-mailing retail, more and more popular culture-related merchandise became available in urban shops and suburban malls.

A clear example of this increased availability is the American chain store Hot Topic. Founded in 1988 by Orv Madden, Hot Topic has expanded its chain to about 600 retail outlets across the United States and has enjoyed constant revenue growth, estimated at about $650 million in 2004.

Featuring both traditional retail and Internet shopping, Hot Topic sells anything music-related, including software (CDs, vinyl, etc.), hardware (instruments, DJ equipment, music players), clothing (tops, bottoms, dresses, shoes, underwear), jewellery, belts, hats, bags, infant and toddlers’ clothing, and of course gifts (e.g. auto accessories, pet fashion, stickers, patches, pins, stationery, print media, room décor, keychain, lighters, candy, toys, and action figures), and accessories (e.g. cosmetics, bath and body fragrances, gloves and arm-warmers, hair colors and hair goods, hosiery, scarves, bandanas, shoelaces, socks, sunglasses, ties, watches, and wristbands).

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Let us then do this, as a hypothetical exercise. Joe and I will be the “lab rats".
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Hot Topic’s catalogue is seemingly depthless; it almost feels as if every major and relatively minor contemporary rock band has at least one or two items in most of the categories above. With some background and subcultural know-how, a consumer can literally walk into a store as a “square” and walk out with a new and refreshingly cool body, identity and style.

Phillip Vannini grabs a heart grenade keychain, a heart grenade ID case, an army cadet hat featuring the beloved symbol and a green bandana to go with the whole shebang.

Let us then do this, as a hypothetical exercise. Joe and I will be the “lab rats". Let us assume, for example, that a friend of ours, whom we happen to think is pretty hip, is into Green Day. We like our friend and we like his style and because we’re ready for a makeover, we decide to go shopping. Right away Joe and I go to the nearest Hot Topic outlet and start browsing around.

Generally, I am into classic dark and earth tone colors, whereas Joe prefers more histrionic stuff.

I cannot help falling in love with this dark button up shirt I find. 65 per cent polyester and 35 per cent cotton, this black short-sleeved shirt features a grey heart-shaped grenade on the right shoulder and a grey Green Day logo at waist height.

Since I really dig the heart-shaped grenade — I don’t know why, I guess because it’s just so sensitive and yet rebellious — I am going to grab a heart grenade keychain, a heart grenade ID case, an army cadet hat featuring the beloved symbol, as well as a cloth wristband, a lighter for the smokes that I really don’t smoke, a heart grenade belt buckle, an army-style necklace and a green bandana to go with the whole shebang.

After some more hesitation, Joe Kotarba is suddenly struck with awe as he lays his eyes on the look of his dreams: black vinyl five-pocket pants, Slipknot’s T.U.K. black double lace robot-style sole boots, and a fearsome long black grommet coat.

While Joe looks around for his stuff, I am going to find a pair of pants and shoes to match.

After going through some of the same piles of clothes and accessories, Joe realizes that even though he likes the style, he really cannot wear the same stuff as me — or else we might end up having to phone each other before going out together to make sure that we are not wearing matching outfits; how embarrassing — it would completely destroy our originality.

So, after browsing a bit more, Joe gets into this really cool heavy metal look that seems to fit his thirst for something unique. He starts out by trying on a black Deftones ball cap with a white stitch around the bill, a zipper on the front and the band’s logo on the back but even though he likes the idea of looking like a heavy metal fan, he feels like he does not want to wear a ball hat.

After some more hesitation, he is suddenly struck with awe as he lays his eyes on the look of his dreams: black vinyl five-pocket pants, Slipknot’s T.U.K. black double lace robot-style sole boots, and a fearsome long black grommet coat with a zipper running from neck to below the beltline and metal studs and buckles encircling the chest and back.

Plus, to truly scare the devil out of the neighborhood’s kids, he snatches the Slipknot 133 latex mask, featuring a grey metal zipper across the mouth, and a four dozen ten-inch plastic spikes exploding out of his skull.

To top it all off, he adds to his cart a Slipknot skateboard for easy commuting to his favorite 7-11 hangout from his university office.
 
Awesome!

We’re good to go represent!

As we proceed to charge our new identity onto our credit cards, the friendly clerk — referring to the tune playing in the background on the store’s stereo — says to me: “Don’t you just love their last CD?”

“Totally amazing” — I reply, then pausing just a second to hear some the lyrics going: “…Don’t wanna be an American idiot. Don’t want a nation under the new media. And can you hear the sound of hysteria? The subliminal mind fuck America.”
 
“Yeah", I add, "and what they say is totally true!”

“I know, it’s right on”—she replies—“Well, have a good one guys!”
 
“Yeah, take it easy”—I mumble as I walk out.

“Dude”—Joe looks at me and mutters from behind the mask he decided to wear out—“Who was that playing in the store?”

“Beats me, bro” — I answer — “I said that just to be nice, but I really didn’t like it that much, it sounded like poseur rock, you know what I mean? But hey, what about Slipknot, didn’t you get any of their CDs?”
 
“Nah…”—Joe concludes—“I’m more into the music of Green Day, anyway.”

What this scenario goes to show is that in this case Joe and I (and others like us) fetishize music-related commodities.

We do not care much about the actual sound of the music, and for the most part we are even unaware of musical conventions associated with the scenes to which we claim membership.

Music in this case for us is not something to appreciate in deep listening or a form of self-expression that we can produce by playing our own instruments.

Rather, music for us is a system of objects, a structure of commodities with symbolic values attached to them.

For us the music of Slipknot and Green Day has no use value — in other words, it does not matter to us as musical sound in itself — but it does have symbolic value since by purchasing the “look” associated with it and by conspicuously consuming such commodities we can establish our identity as fans (albeit, fans who try a tad too hard admittedly).

Music-related commodities have an almost automatic affiliation with subcultures of consumption. It is no accident that commodities belonging to the same consumer axis of signification (say, for example, the category of punk-related clothes and accessories) have a great degree of internal coherence.

It makes perfect sense, for example, for a Slipknot fan to wear a scary trench coat and a mask or for a Green Day fan to sport a casual but hip button up shirt and loose fit black denims. The homology amongst these symbols allows members of the same tribe to establish a sense of uniqueness from the rest of the world while maintaining a stable and value-congruent collective identity.

Of course our claim to authenticity is questionable and perhaps the object of a longer discussion that we cannot tackle here. After all, subcultures have always made distinctions among poseurs, weekenders, and authentic members. Yet, in the end it seems more and more difficult these days to establish who is authentic and by what criteria. In fact, can one be an authentic member of a commodified subculture?

In sum, what we have learnt here is that, within a market economy and consumerist culture, self-expression is almost always inevitably mediated through the conspicuous consumption of commodities.

Within such a system symbolic value often tends to matter as much or even more than the use value of music. As individual lives become more and more focused around self-expression the consumer system gains increasing power due to its ability to provide individuals with an increasingly larger volume of identity-expressing symbols rich with potential for enriching one’s symbolic capital.

Please note. Copying this electronic excerpt is not permitted. Learn how you can order your copy of Understanding Society Through Popular Music