CLUB CULTURES:

MUSIC, MEDIA AND SUBCULTURAL CAPITAL

Sarah Thornton

Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995

The subject of this book, ‘club cultures’, refers to the youth cultures based first
around raves and then around dance clubs from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s.

The main sociological context for Thornton’s research was the approach to the

study of youth subcultures developed in the 1970s by the Centre for Contemporary
Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham in books such as Resistance Through
Rituals. This approach saw subcultures such as skinheads as expressions of class-based
cultures that were rebelling against the dominant ideology of a capitalist state.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s there were a series of what have been called

‘spectacular’ youth subcultures: mods, rockers, skinheads, punks, and so on. Every
subculture had a distinctive style of dress and appearance and particular tastes in
music and usually in choice of drugs. Many of these subcultures were analysed by
sociologists along the lines suggested by the CCCS – that is, seen as representing a
primitive kind of resistance towards capitalism.

From the 1980s onwards it became much more difficult to distinguish youth

subcultures. Instead, there seemed to be a variety of styles that were short lived and
shaped by the music and fashion industries. These could not be seen as authentic
expressions of the anger of working-class youth in the way the CCCS had suggested.
Thornton’s research focuses on a subculture, or cluster of related subcultures, in the
late 1980s and 1990s.

Thornton takes from Pierre Bourdieu the concept of ‘cultural capital’ and develops

from it the concept of ‘subcultural capital’. Bourdieu (1977) argued that the most
privileged groups in society are distinguished by their possession not only of
economic capital but also social and cultural capital, and that the class system is
perpetuated by these various forms of capital (not just wealth) being passed from
one generation to the next. Cultural capital in Britain, for example, might include
possession of a particular accent, and having attended an independent rather than a
state school. From this Thornton explores the idea that a subculture may also have
forms of cultural capital (such as knowledge of the latest music) that give status
within the subculture.

At the outset Thornton makes a series of points, derived from earlier findings but

supported by her own, which establish the importance of club cultures.

• Admissions to clubs and other dance events are higher than those to sporting

events, cinemas and ‘live arts’ combined; clubs only go relatively unnoticed
because they concern only one particular age group and the activity is mainly after
the rest of the population is in bed.

• There are few, if any, boundaries of class, race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality in

dancing, but relatively firm lower- and upper-age boundaries. Young teenagers are
excluded by parental rules about being out late and by lack of money, while older

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CONTEXT

clubbers lose interest as they leave home and enter cohabiting or marriage relationships.

• Clubbing is an integral part of growing up, providing a space where the young can

act like adults in some ways and can achieve a distinct identity. Clubs are
particularly empowering for girls. Dancing is the only out-of-home leisure activity
that involves more females than males.

• Music is an essential aspect of youth cultures. Young people buy and listen to more

music than any other age group

Thornton used two main methods in her research.

1 Ethnographic research (participant observation and unstructured interviews) in

which she went to raves and clubs and interviewed those involved in club cultures.

2 Secondary research involving the study of a wide range of sources both on club

cultures and on earlier forms of youth culture.

Over four years Thornton was a participant observer at over 200 clubs, discos and

raves and also attended at least 30 live gigs. She was therefore carrying out an
ethnographic survey of dance cultures rather than a case study of one particular club
or group of people. She was unable to find a way of constructing a random sample
of clubs, and does not claim that the clubs she visited were a representative sample.
She did, however, feel that she observed a very wide range of crowds, clubs and
dancing styles; there was nothing that could be called ‘typical’, and the cultures were
also in constant change.

One of the problems facing ethnographers is the relationship they have with the

people they are studying. The nature of ethnographic research means that Thornton’s
background and values are important to evaluating her work. Thornton is Canadian,
and came to Britain to research dance culture for her PhD. She says in the
introduction that she had been an avid clubber. However, in studying British club
cultures she felt herself an ‘outsider’, or as she puts it, ‘a stranger in a strange land’,
for several reasons. She began her research at the age of twenty-three, but the
research took several years, so that she became older than many of those she was
studying. Her nationality was also important, because the kinds of youth cultures she
describes are often localised (although the music can be global, the dance and style
associated with it will vary between places). She was also working (doing her
research) in places where almost everyone else was having a good time, and where
the ethos of ‘lose yourself in the music’ opposed her commitment to research and
analysis. These factors combined to make it possible for Thornton to keep a distance
from her subject matter.

Thornton needed the help of members of the club cultures to carry out her

research. She contacted people through the letters columns of the style magazines
The Face and iD and the London listings magazines City Limits and Time Out. She used
the replies she received to make contact with guides and informants, and as a source
in themselves of information about the values of club culture.

Thornton’s book contains extracts from her research diaries, describing visits to clubs

on one night, Saturday 22 September 1990. The style of the description (in the present
tense) suggests that it was written soon afterwards, based on memories still fresh. It is
also clear that Thornton was asking questions as well as recording her impressions of
the clubs. The extracts also tell us Thornton’s answer to a problem faced by those doing
ethnography with groups among whom drug use is normal: she shares a capsule of
MDMA (ecstasy) with ‘Kate’, her companion and informant for the evening.

‘I’m not a personal fan of drugs – I worry about my brain cells. But they’re a
fact of this youth culture so I submit myself to the experiment in the name of
thorough research.’(p89)

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METHODS

Thornton’s archival research covers a wide range of documents that she uses to

describe the development of particular aspects of youth culture. For example, she uses
the archives of the Musicians’ Union to describe how the union, representing musicians
who played in clubs and other places, responded to the threat to their livelihoods
posed by the arrival of recorded music, and the musical press (Melody Maker, New
Musical Express, Billboard and so on) to describe the evolution of the disc jockey.

Thornton reaches very different conclusions about club cultures from those that
might have been reached by a researcher from the CCCS tradition.

SUBCULTURES
Popular culture is a space in which cultural differences are not about resistance to the
power of the ruling class. Rather, groups create distinctions between themselves and
others on the basis of subcultural capital. They acquire status within their own social
world through possession of subcultural knowledge and through making distinctions
between themselves and other groups of young people. This often involves a
distinction between their own culture and that of the ‘mainstream’. Thornton’s
respondents were contemptuous of the ‘chartpop disco’ where ‘Sharon and Tracy
dance around their handbags’. But this mainstream of ‘them’ doesn’t really exist
(after all, the charts are an eclectic mix of many kinds of niche music) and is defined
simply as the opposite of ‘us’.

ROLE OF THE MEDIA
The earlier tradition had assumed that subcultures began as authentic and subversive
expressions of youth, then were taken over by the mass media and turned into
commodities. Thornton argues that the media are implicated from the very
beginning. Condemnation by the mass media is actively sought, while micro media
(flyers, listings, fanzines, pirate radio, e-mail lists, and so on) are the sources of
information that can supply subcultural capital. Clubbers produce these, and clubbers
turn to them for information. Niche media (mainly the music and style consumer
magazines) often try to identify and develop subcultures; New Musical Express was
strongly associated first with punk and New Wave and later ‘Madchester’, while the
established magazine that linked itself most closely to clubbing was iD. Subcultural
capital relies on the media (but not mass media) which, in turn, means restricted
accessibility. Subcultural capital is about ‘being in the know’.

Thornton also notes how the media make use of sociological discourse and concepts

in making sense of club cultures. They use terms like ‘subculture’ and ‘moral panic’.
This is an example of what Giddens (1991) has called, ‘the reflexivity of modernity’.

Thornton’s approach to studying subcultures is very different from that of the Centre
for Contemporary Cultural Studies in the following ways.

1 She regards empirical research as more important than the elaboration of theory.
2 She regards the mass media and popular-culture industries as inextricably bound up

with cultures (for the CCCS, subcultures were constantly trying to avoid being
incorporated, swallowed up and effectively neutralised).

3 She is concerned with social changes, particularly how club cultures were constantly

changing

4 She treats the knowledge and values of club cultures as subcultural ideologies, as

ways in which young people assert their differences from the mainstream.

By adopting this approach, Thornton gives an account of contemporary

subcultures that readers are likely to find more convincing and relevant than earlier
studies. This book should provide a wide range of ideas for further research.

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KEY
FINDINGS

IMPORTANCE

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Thornton’s book provides a wealth of information and ideas on popular music and
dance cultures and subcultures. Her own primary research is personal, immediate
and very readable. Her analysis of the media, with the useful distinction between
micro media, niche media and mass media, and her history of dance music with the
accolade of authenticity contested by live and recorded music, are also very
informative. To all of this she brings an illuminating theoretical analysis, though here
the reading may become challenging for A-level students.

In considering Thornton’s ethnographic research, we need to be aware of the

inevitable issues raised by such methods. Her findings will have been shaped by her
age, gender and nationality and people’s responses to these, her selection of
‘guides’, her recording of data (when and how notes were made), how she dealt
with issues such as drug taking, and so on. As will all ethnographic research, these do
not invalidate the findings but need to be borne in mind when assessing them.

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

1 Why were the youth subcultures of the 1960s and 1970s sometimes referred to as

References

Bourdieu, P and Passeron, J-C (1977), Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture,

Sage, London

Giddens, A (1991), Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age,

Polity Press, Cambridge

Hall, S and Jefferson, T (eds) (1976), Resistance Through Rituals, Hutchinson, London

EVALUATION

QUESTIONS

‘spectacular’?

2 With which sociologist is the term ‘cultural

capital’ associated?

3 How does subcultural capital differ from

cultural capital?

4 Why is dancing in clubs particularly important

for girls?

5 What is meant by ethnography?
6 What are micro media?

ANALYSIS

1 What problems might a researcher face in

carrying out ethnographic research on
subcultures?

2 To what extent do you think the facts that

Thornton is (a) female and (b) Canadian
affected this study?

3 Compare and contrast Thornton’s approach to

studying subcultures with that of the Centre for
Contemporary Cultural Studies.

4 How useful is the concept of ‘subcultural

capital’ to an understanding of club cultures?