Abstract

The dark web – drugs, arms dealing, and illegal videos, right?

Whilst all of those things do exist on the dark web, I have been intrigued to find that there is another side to this hidden world. There is art, literature, and (of particular interest to me, as a musicologist) there is music.

Exploring the music of the deep and dark web opens up a range of fascinating issues – why are people using part of the web notoriously associated with illegal activity to listen to the relative mundanity of the likes of Bon Jovi and Coldplay? How does musical subculture – which has up to this point been heavily focused around notions of identity – function in a space that places anonymity above almost everything else? And what kind of impact does existing shoulder-to-shoulder with human trafficking and crowdfunded assassinations have upon a music community?

All this and more will be explored as we delve into the music that exists on deep and dark web – discovering along the way the people who make and share it, their motivations, and what the future of online communities might look (and sound) like.