The formation of music-scenes in Manchester and their relation to urban space and the image of the city

The formation of music-scenes in Manchester and their relation to urban space and the image of the city

The paper I would like to present derives from a study of the relation between the atmospheric qualities of a city and the formation of music scenes.
I have studied Manchester which is a known example of a music city with its heyday in from the late 1970ies with post-punk and into the 1990ies with Madchester and brit-pop.
The post-punk scene with Joy Division as the primary exponent was very much embedded in the specific atmosphere and physical structure of certain parts of Manchester from which it took inspiration.
Later on other scenes developed on the basis of the infrastructure (recordcompanies, clubs, rehearsalspaces etc) that was put in place by the postpunk-scene. This culminated in the Madchester scene which quite contrary from postpunk, had a direct influence on the atmosphere and the image of the city. This image has later been utilised in the branding of Manchester as a creative city.
The case is interesting in relation to the current ideals of planning ‘creative cities’ and local cultural scenes.
The music scenes cannot be seen as participatory projects and has developed in more or less direct opposition to official plans and supported initiatives, but nonetheless does hold a potential of actually generating massive interests and participation in urban life. The paper will present the case and point towards general learning regarding the relation between urban space and cultural scenes.
The study is based on literature-review of music-history, on site visits and an interview with a key stakeholder. It does only sporadically rely on theoretical literature.