The sociology of music: A review on classical theories and an overview on potential issues

Abstract

This article reviews the classical theories, issues, and the emerging research trend in the sociology of music in recent years. The literature reviewed here is mainly to articles published in English. The sociology of music has regained popularity in the academy, and the phenomenon is especially striking with an upsurge in the publications on sociology of music in the past 10 years. The classical theories and issues reviewed here include two different approaches to conceptualize music: music as object and music as action. The researchers analyze how communities are shaped by musicians and how concepts, such as subculture, post-subculture, scene and tribalism are used to describe music practices. Sociology of music also explores how specific genres and repertoires are constructed by the power structure in the society and thus given historical meanings and values. Meanwhile, this paper also discusses the production and distribution of music from different approaches. The second half of the paper presents the new and potential issues in the field during the last 10 years, including: the relationship between senior rock fans and nostalgia, the links between music and negative situations, live music and ordinary musicians without original works, as well as the connection between science-technology and music.