Sharing songs on Hirakata Square: On playlists and place attachment in contemporary music listening

Abstract

This article focuses on the relation between music and place. More particularly, it theorizes and investigates how music leads people to imagine places, sometimes resulting in a ‘musical topophilia’: the love for a place based on its association with a particular genre, musician or musical activity. This concept is explored through 17 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Dutch users of music streaming services. The analysis shows how these music listeners connect their love for music to places in four ways: through (1) sound, (2) texts and images, (3) musicians, and (4) places of music production, distribution or consumption. Based on these four mediations, music listening shapes affective geographies.