Analogue myths and digital realities: examining expressions of technological authenticity and distinction amongst twenty-first century electronic dance music practitioners

This doctoral thesis will address the emergence of anti-digital/anti-software and pro-analogue/pro-hardware music technology orientated discourse (hereafter referred to as “the analogue promise”) amongst contemporary electronic dance music practitioners, including but not limited to DJs, producers, event promoters and record label owners. Existing scholarly work contends that since the inception of the genre in the early 1980s, electronic dance music has remained largely technologically reflective. However, the emergence of the analogue promise now appears at odds with this observation. Hence, this thesis will ask several discrete research questions thematically linked to the overarching objective of the study. Each question is to be represented by a specific chapter within the thesis, numbered as follows, which will (1) seek to ascertain what factors originally prompted the attitudes and discursive trends associated with the analogue promise; (2) attempt to establish what motivates contemporary electronic dance music practitioners to uphold the analogue promise; (3) identify the potential benefits and implications linked to the use of digital/software and analogue/hardware-based recording technologies; (4) move towards an understanding of how the potential of certain music technologies informs practitioner attitudes, opinions, and aesthetic choices; (5) address the associated subcultural implications of the analogue promise upon the electronic dance music scene. Methodologically, the research for this thesis involves two unique strands: ethnographic inquiry analogous to the work of Thornton (1995) and Butler (2014), and textual analysis and discourse analysis in the style of Fairclough (1989). The first component is comprised of semi-structured interviews which have been conducted with 23 electronic dance music practitioners, alongside online virtual-ethnographic observations, including but not limited to several electronic dance music orientated user groups and content sharing channels, made during the study. The second consists of textual analysis and discourse analysis of ten diachronic and ethnographic texts and ten music technology focussed magazine articles published from the 1990s to the present day. The overall aim is to articulate a detailed picture of the way contemporary electronic dance music practitioners utilise music technology to both convey and interpret subcultural meaning and authenticity, and how they employ ideologically supported discourse to draw distinctions between themselves and others who do not necessarily align with their subcultural outlooks.