You probably recognise them, t-shirts with the yellow smiley with crossed-out eyes or the red lips with sticking out tongue. Band t-shirts are a common sight on the streets, but where does it actually come from? And what does the shirt say about its wearer? Julian Schaap, music sociologist at Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, tells the story behind band shirts in Villa VdB on NPO Radio 1.
The first band shirts were probably first made in the 1950s by fans of Elvis Presley. That was followed up with the Beatles and Rolling Stones, and in the late 1960s, festivals started doing it more and more and people could buy shirts from those particular festivals as well. And that never really stopped.
Seeking recognition
Why do people want that? ‘For festival-goers, a festival shirt is a token to show the world that you have been to a gig or festival, just like the famous festival wristbands, for example,’ Schaap says in the radio interview. ‘But the artist shirt is an expression that you are a fan of something. It shows others what music you like and in it you can recognise each other. That creates cohesion and group feeling. You share something with another person you don't know, for example a listening history and the same association with songs. And the more unknown artists are, the more important that signal becomes.’
"Before you were born"
A well-known statement around band shirts is that young people who wear band shirts that were popular before they were born don't even know the band. ‘That may be true, but you would really have to ask individuals,’ Schaap says. ‘Who knows, they might have really listened to everything by Nirvana or Metallica.’
What comes into play is the sale of band shirts by big fashion chains, which started around 2010. That had an impact on the meaning of band shirts. "We often see Nirvana shirts in fashion shops, for example. That does not necessarily mean that fans no longer wear or buy the shirts, but the moment it becomes a mainstream fashion item and you are not sure if someone is really a fan of the band, the shirt takes on a different function. Music fans and especially young people value it. Then, if you like 90s grunge, you leave your Nirvana shirt in the closet and put on, say, a Soundgarden shirt to stand out."
Cultural capital
T-shirts signal to others something Schaap calls “cultural capital”: certain knowledge of a music genre. The more niche and obscure the music, the more knowledge fans often have. With the way fashion brands appropriate it, that cultural capital is actually misused.
"A fine response to this came from a metal fan in Sweden, when fashion chain H&M started selling metal-inspired “band shirts” (fictional bands). Showing the importance of knowledge about the genres, the fan created websites about the non-existent bands and linked all kinds of fictional Nazi and fascist expressions to them. He forwarded this to H&M asking ‘do you know what you are selling?’. That caused panic at the design studio and shows very good the power of that cultural capital."
- Researcher
