Alternative Journalism in Madrid's Blues Scene

Abstract

This article discusses how the blues music scene in Madrid (Spain) produces its own media and communication networks, based on the genre’s traditional and current development, in contrast to the lack of attention from mainstream media. Focusing on three key alternative blues-journalists whose activities relate to different periods, I trace the evolution of their practices in relationship to the scene. Overall, they have shifted from a more individual, discursive construction of the genre and the scene to the collective development of associative endeavours like the “Madrid Blues Society”. I argue that in the contemporary context, where conventional media fail to provide a music press apparatus to the scene, the contributions of alternative blues-journalists, who vocationally commit to blues dissemination for long periods, provide a community sharing practice for scene participants, contributing to the scene’s reproduction and gradually developing a higher self-consciousness that adapts to its dynamics.