This paper examines the ways individuals in the indie music scene have changed their views of the relationship between indie music activities and value. Music, merchandise and ticket prices in the scene have increased significantly during the pandemic, and audiences have accepted these prices allowing gigs to sell out frequently and quickly despite the legal risks. Views of scene members differ regarding money and remuneration for various scene activities. In the past, many members of the scene rejected commercialisation, believing that certain levels of profit-making in indie music activities are an offense to the indie ethos which opposes the highly commercialised culture of the Hong Kong’s mainstream music sphere. However, more and more scene members state that consumption of music, merchandise and gig tickets is needed to achieve a sustainable music scene. The acceptance of these high prices constitute a shift in the way scene members view the role of money in the scene, accepting differing degrees of commercialisation to sustain the indie ecosystem. Through exploring the ways that value is constructed in indie music activities, I explore views of indie music activities are shifting from being merely a hobby to something more, a passion economy.

Ethnographies of popular music often associate local music scenes with a particular genre. This genre facilitates scene participants’ identity formation. By contrast, the contemporary Brooklyn independent music scene houses multiple genres at the same venues, including various forms of rock and punk, noise, other experimental or improvised genres, electronic music, and hip hop. Brooklyn musicians organize around shared affinities for practices, ethics, and tastes, rather than around genre conventions. This paper considers The Mutants: a collection of mostly New York-based artists who make extreme music that borrows from punk, noise, and electronic genres. They associate with nightlife-goers known as “freaks,” who dress in radical garb and cultivate aesthetics from performance art, while celebrating gender inclusivity and racial diversity. This paper utilizes data from years of participant observation in Brooklyn, interviews, and analysis of online discourse on music and social media platforms. I discuss Mutant members Bonnie Baxter, Deli Girls, and Lust$ickPuppy, as well as associated artists like Machine Girl. I consider the relationship between the sonic practice of these musicians and genre discourse, both online and in-person. I observe that digital technology, including electronic instruments, music production tools, and online record distribution sites, has enabled musicians to use genres pragmatically, rather than identifying with a specific genre. I argue that The Mutants have carved out a notion of alternative music culture that focuses on undefined identities, pregnant with possibility, rather than a clear-cut ideology.

In Iraq, the raw, synth-driven, over-the-top ma’zufah genre has emerged as the soundtrack to a vibrant, in many ways irreverent, male youth milieu that has reclaimed wedding parties as spaces for expressive self-assertion through bold fashion statements and outrageous comportment, most especially in Sadr City, a working-class Shi’a suburb of Baghdad that has seen significant influxes of migrants from Southern Iraq. Against the backdrop of an internet tabloid culture and a digital public sphere in which moral-ethical stances and national anxieties are voiced, I examine the agency of celebrity Iraqi wedding videographer Zuhayr al-‘Atwani and high-profile Iraqi singers Sa’adun as-Sa’edi and Jalal az-Zein in using digital media platforms to confront political and economic crises and raise awareness of social issues. The often sensationalized imprint of these cultural actors has met with varied responses from an Iraqi public harboring pronounced sensitivities regarding how Iraqi society, and its mores and decorum, are represented to the outside world. I draw on music videos, wedding footage, digital press coverage, user comments on social media, and interviews on Iraqi internet talk shows such as Ma’ Fares and Ḍeyf Ṭaş to illuminate the kinds of social tensions and ideological debates that have come to surround the ma’zufah aesthetic, the Sadr City wedding scene and prominent personalities such as as-Sa’edi and al-‘Atwani. In this era of digital consumption and truncated, voyeuristic, and manipulated content, I ask how degrees of proximity and detachment shape perspectives and frame representational agendas.