DIY and Popular Music: Mapping an Ambivalent Relationship across Three Historical Case Studies

Existing scholarship considering the relationship between “DIY” music and popular music has tended to focus on how and why the former differs from the latter. This paper generates new insights into the specific character of DIY music by inverting that focus, asking instead, why is DIY quite so similar to popular music? I stress the under-acknowledged similarities between the “core units” of popular music culture and DIY music in order to theorise their relationship as fundamentally ambivalent. I then apply this theoretical framework across three historical case studies – UK post-punk, US post-hardcore indie, and riot grrrl.