Hebdige's Subcultures

What are subcultures?

Subcultures are defined as "a cultural group within a larger group often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture." These subcultures share distinctive norms and values differing from mainstream culture in sectors such as behaviour, interests, beliefs or economic status.

Hebdige is a theorist who in 1979 published a work called Subculture: the meaning of style in which he focuses in particular on the evolution of styles in subcultures such as teddy boys, mods, rockers skinheads and punks. Their style is constructed from clothing, dance, make-up but most predominantly music. The subcultures described in Hebdige's theory however are outdated and more common subcultures now are populars, indies, emos, chavs, lads, jet-setters all of which have very different interests, lifestyles and music preferences.

How are they evident in the music industry?

Subcultures are evident in the music industry with different genres appealing to different subcultures. If we were to stereotype, we could say pop music such as the charts is associated with 'populars', the rap genre is associated with 'chavs', heavy rock is associated with 'emos', and alternative music with 'indies.' The result of having different subcultures relating to different genres enables artist management to directly target an audience when producing the artist image and arguable character.

Subcultures first emerged in the music industry in the 1950's where gang-culture began to emerge and they rejected the norms and values of mainstream culture, effectively rebelling against societies expectations. This subculture began to follow a genre aptly named 'Rock and Roll.' Since this point, artists have developed images to directly appeal to certain subcultures as opposed to the subcultures choosing to follow the artist. Therefore, the image is now crucial in indicating what genre the artist belongs to and therefore who they are aiming themselves towards. For example, you would rarely find a pop act covered in tattoos and wearing dark clothing just as you are unlikely to find a so-called 'emo' band consisting of well-groomed, boy next door males.

Examples of artists who associate with particular subcultures through their image are:

Pop --> Justin Bieber

Emo --> Bring Me The Horizon

Goth --> Motionless In White

Indie --> Blossoms

R&B --> The Weeknd 

Rap --> Tyga

Classical --> Katherine Jenkins

Timeline of subcultures in music -

1950's : Rock n Roll (E.g. Elvis Presley)

1960's : Flower-Power, (E.g. Scott Mckenzie ), Mods (E.g. The Jam)

1970's : Punk-rock (E.g. Sex Pistols), Reggae (E.g. Bob Marley)

1980's : New-romantic (E.g. Spandau Ballet), Metal (E.g. Iron Maiden)

1990's : Indie (E.g. Oasis), Hip-hop (E.g. Snoop Dogg)

2000's - present : Hip-hop (E.g. Rihanna), Pop (E.g. Beyonce)

Relation to Music Video:

Taking into consideration all of the subculture research, my music video will be positioned within the 'Pop' genre and aimed at popular/lad subcultures. This is because I believe the song 'Pretty Hurts' chosen for my music video will most appeal to these subcultures because the theme of the song is most likely to be experience by these people. It is important therefore to ensure that the character in the music video is styled to fit in with this target audience so that they can relate to the character and buy into the artist. This idea of the audience relating to the artists character is spoke about in more depth in my Star Theory blogpost.

Bibliography:
Subculture: The Meaning of Style - Wikipedia
http://subcultureslist.com/music-subcultures 
British Youth Culture timeline - SlideShare