Absolute beginners: the evolution of a British popular music

Material and cultural histories of the postwar development of popular music in Britain have largely tended to focus on the star performers, their achievements and the music they created. However, the research considered in this chapter demonstrates that its growth can only properly be comprehended through an equal consideration of the fans, listeners and audiences who effectively established Britain’s first popular music scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Within popular musicology, a ‘scene’ is a site within and across which the production and consumption of popular music are performed, discussed, refined, adapted and assessed. These activities are practised in collaboration, rather than in seclusion. The sites are not static, but always i motion. Above all, they are dynamic; those who engage in them are active agents rather than passive customers.