My thesis here is that music subcultures are the same thing as consumer identities and changing forms of musical consumption changed how the subcultures presented themselves. So, music subculture in the USA began in earnest in the 1920s and into the 30s, which was around when A) radio broadcasts began as a commercial entity and B) when nightclubs began to be a thing again. Nighclubs were a thing in the middle 19th century, but really only around NYC and surrounding areas. The revival in NYC built clubs that lasted all the way up until covid killed them, like the 21 Club and Copacobana. With the explosion of both new media and areas dedicated to the rapidly diversifying clientele base, there was a rush to promote specific musical interests to certain demographics.

Now, this was inextricably linked to racial segregation, homophobia, misogyny, a lot of American social ills. So, the venues had to diversify to promote to specific interests. There were Jazz clubs like the Cotton Club in Harlem. Gay folk would have masquerade balls in Harlem too. Cis, straight white people had honkey-tonk or church hymns and would freak the fuck out if they found out their daughter was a flapper. Musical subculture at this point was starting to become what it would eventually become, which is both an outlet for expression of particular identity and an aesthetic consumption habit. What records you buy, the types of clothes you wear, the language you use, the drugs you have or don't have access to, and the people you congregate with. Music subcultures became little societies onto themselves

This would get more intense over the next few decades, reaching fevered heights once rock music and hippies became a thing. Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, the Who, they weren't just musicians playing music, they were outlets of political expression made manifest. To their adherents at least, materially speaking it was still just a consumption habit and an expression of individual identity. A way to dress, a set of words to say, places that you'd congregate.

While the content of the subcultures would ebb and flow, die out, revive, or mutate, etc over the successive decades, the actual things themselves wouldn't change. Hippies mostly died out, disco rose up, motown died, heavy metal rose, country music goes from being an ill-defined conglomerate of folk tunes to a laser focused expression of "white people music." (i'll get to country music later)

This is where it gets really anecdotal and I haven't hammered out the theory exactly yet. So that gets us up to nearly today, maybe around 2010 or slightly earlier is when I'd pinpoint music subculture dying out. If you put a gun to my head I'd say the invention of the iPod was what killed it. Musical subculture is no longer about congregating in a certain place or buying certain physical totems. Music is an algorithm now where your individual input is vastly limited now. It doesn't really matter how you're dressed or what store you visit when the music is on YouTube, or it's part of a pre-generated playlist on Spotify. The individual musicians and songs are no longer part of what most people in general go for. People now go at it more casually, finding a playlist based on vague genre that they enjoy, then play that. There's so much choice and options now that it's hard to be a die hard fan of just one specific style or another.

The product is the app, the website, or the playlist. It's not the location or the cassette/vinyl/CD. It's the place where you get it all. That right there doesn't generate subculture in the same way.

What does generate subculture now is posting styles and social media influencers. People have their favorite podcasts, streamers, and motivational instagram accounts. Rather than being a passive participant just listening to music and buying the t-shirts, now more people feel drawn in to being social media subcultures instead of necessarily part of a music subculture.

Country music however has maintained a pretty tight grip on its own subculture, my pet hypothesis there being because modern country music isn't so much a music genre but more generally a conservative political project to spread propaganda that white culture is a real thing, not just a quickly cobbled together justification for white supremacy. Country music lives and breathes upon spreading a myth of proud American Protestant white people living in utopia based on simple family values and good honest living. Despite many country artists themselves being millionaires riding around in private jets, they still present as simple blue collar folk full of charming southern wisdom. Country music will remain a musical subculture so long as it remains part of the project of white supremacy. You'll notice black country artists often get shuffled to the much less precise "folk" category.

Anyway so that's my thing, sorry if I ranted your ears off