Thornton Critical Review

Thornton begins this piece by telling the story of a night she spent researching clubs, both open and exclusive, of similar types in London. Her tale helps to better illustrate her eventual conclusion that the term "mainstream" has very little substantive meaning. While many scholars have used the term in contrast with subcultures, they rarely define it and have never actually come up with a viable meaning for "mainstream." The same seems to be true for those in these subcultures. Club-goers and ravers all were able to describe to Thornton who the mainstream were - what they dressed like, what their clubs were like, what they listened to - but could not say they had actually been to those places or seen exactly the people they were describing. It became clear that the idea of "mainstream" was a way of defining "us" versus "them."

These club-goers and ravers had their own "crowds" and therefore felt they belonged with a certain group. This created the "us" they felt at home in. Yet, similar to what we discussed in class about pop music, no one wanted to consider that they were possibly part of the mainstream. Perhaps mainstream was simply an amalgamation or summary of all their different subcultures. Thornton seems to play with this idea, while explaining that "mainstream" is different than previous ideas and scholars have claimed.

Question: Does the term "mainstream" actually have any meaning in present day? With all the fragmentation of what music people like, all the different styles available, and constant exposure to different music through new media, can there even be a "mainstream" anymore?