Paper short abstract:

Based on a research in Mexico and the UK, this presentation focus on the four-stage process in which the listener gets attached to music in the digital world, as well as the meaningful attachments emerging from that process, making the practice of listening music meaningful in the digital era.

Paper long abstract:

Technological change in music consumption has transformed the ways in which listeners discover and engage with music in everyday life. Beyond challenging music industry models/processes and transforming the very act of creation, technologies of listening to music have developed new practices and ways of being engaged with music in everyday life. Hence, new ways in which music is understood as something valuable for the listener.

My research, based on 42 interviews in Mexico and the United Kingdom, is based on the notion of music experiences as assemblages in which music, sound, devices, places, expectations, social meanings, individual expectations and unexpected outcomes play a crucial role.

My data suggest that different assemblages are part of a four-stage process in which the listener (1) discovers new music, (2) drills it continuously to (3) assign meanings and finally (4) sets it with a specific role in its life. That is not a linear process though, but rather part of a continuous interrelationship in which certain forms of attachment are produced. In this presentation, I will explore those forms of attachment and will try to show how popular music, through new digital devices, is still valuable for the individual and the social world.