ISSN 2955-2206 (online)

УДК: 78.067.26(497.2)

Gergana Rayzhekova

RECONSTRUCTING BULGARIAN ALTERNATIVE ROCK SCENE FROM SCRATCH: THE UNFINISHED TRIANGLE – BANDS, AUDIENCE AND TWO MANAGERS

The alternative rock scene in Bulgaria abruptly freed itself from its imposed restrictions after the fall of the communist government in 1989. Freedom, however, brought new responsibilities and new heights, where innovations were followed by a redistribution of the market and the audience in the 1990s. Methodically, over the years, the scene has declined due to the lack of a professional managerial eye connecting the sides of the triangle audience-groups-media. Thus, an incomplete triangle was built on the music scene, where audiences, bands, and media did not meet or cross their paths, which inevitably led to shrinking and infantility, rather than growth and maturation of the music scene. Over time, the bands depersonalized and massively imitated Western models, the public lost interest, and the media almost completely turned their backs on the alternative scene. The disappearance of producers and managers was the result of several factors, such as the lack of prospects for exporting production abroad, the narrowed market in Bulgaria, etc. In this period, the groups found themselves subordinated to the business strategies of the clubs, which, in turn, imposed the "cover value", as a type of cover that should have been as close as possible to the original. Several alternative waves of the music scene later, managers are now an almost extinct species with two exceptions. Out of nowhere, they dig up the heat in their attempt to reconnect audience, bands, and media in the step towards a musical rise of the Bulgarian alternative scene.

Keywords: Alternative rock scene, Bulgaria, bands, audience, managers.