Popular music and producing collectivities: the challenges of audience research in contemporary musicology

Abstract

In this paper I deal with the ways in which the audience functions as a means of producing collectivities. I define audience as a material body that is a carrier of affective potential in a certain time and space. Taking Yugoslav popular music as an example, i.e. the concerts of performers from the territory of former Yugoslavia, I analyse two crucial issues: the audience at popular music concerts in Belgrade in the period after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the audience that is created virtually through social networks.

Keywords

• audience
• Yugoslav popular music
• collectivities
• contemporary musicology