Live music imaginaries in the reception of online popular music concerts

This article critically interrogates a range of themes in writing about online popular music performances. It uncovers dominant conventional narratives, experiences, and understandings of online concerts, captured under the term ‘live music imaginaries’. Recent scholarship, journalism, and other commentary typically emphasise the limitations of online music events compared to in-person performances. Most pressingly, online concerts are pervasively viewed as merely a temporary lifeline for live music during the COVID-19 pandemic. They need not be. Commentators also frame technology as determining online performance practices, based on speculation about some inevitably virtual future of entertainment. Yet the history and variety of online concerts as a media form and cultural practice are under-considered. By highlighting and evaluating the historically and culturally situated live music imaginaries that shape the experience of online concerts, this article sets the stage for a theoretical reframing of the value of online music events.