Memory in the Chapel Hill Music Scene (2006)

Undergraduate: Nicole Bogas

Faculty Advisor: Timothy Marr
Department: African, African American & Diaspora Studies

---

In the early 1990s, in the wake of the Seattle grunge music scene, the national press and the music industry turned to Chapel Hill with the question: "could it really be the next Seattle?" Defiant against commercialization and exploitation of their vibrant independent rock music scene, energetic local music activists armed themselves with anti-corporate, anti-outsider attitudes, grassroots publications, a slew of local-music-friendly venues and festivals, and scores of music-supportive institutions like independent record stores, college radio stations, and collectives for musicians' health insurance. They succeeded. Because of this activism during the "Chapel Hill hype" of the early-to-mid '90s, the national media and corporate record labels were not able to pigeonhole and commodify the Chapel Hill sound; but they did, however, serve to legitimize Chapel Hill as a nationally-recognized site of music production that continues to attract independent rock musicians and fans alike.