ABSTRACT

Introduction In the previous chapter, I discussed the pursuit of an authentic structure of feeling by young fans, including through their attendance of reunion gigs. But on a day-to-day basis it is more likely the mediated and technological foundation of retro culture that affords and sustains immersion in a musical past. This notion that technological mediation through the Internet and mobile technologies enables and encourages retro culture indicates technological determinism because it suggests that technology is a causal agent making, or at least urging, people to listen to older music. Technological determinism has, however, been commonly criticized for granting little attention to human agency, but I argue that this reading has been based on a misapprehension of the perspective. McLuhan and Fiore (1967: 25) clearly maintained that there was potential for agency as long as there was a willingness to think; they just believed that to think and take action was something humans did not do very often. In any case, the younger fans in this book view themselves as engaging their brains and exercising a level of agency by choosing to use older material formats in addition to new technologies. Twentieth-century material formats such as vinyl and CDs are seen as symbolic of the more futuristic and authentic prebiographical past. In addition, to listen to material formats in a fixed location appears to represent a more authentic way to listen to music for the younger generation unit in particular. There is thus an immaterial and material dimension to the debate in this chapter, with the older material formats being perceived as more authentic and representative of the “golden age” of the mid-to late twentieth century, whereas immaterial formats are perceived as inauthentic and symbolic of the supposedly dystopian and soulless twenty-first century. However, there is a contradiction here in the sense that the fans are searching for a “real” musical

past through archaic material traces (including the bodies of older performers at gigs) while often consuming representations of that past through the ubiquitous technologies of today.