This thesis looks at three of Belgrade's music scenes: indie pop, electronic dance and hip hop and their relationship with themes such as politics, trans-localism, the night-time economy, authenticity and gender, with special attention paid to Belgrade's nightlife that has recently been proclaimed the best in the world by various media outlets (Vogue, BBC, The Guardian). The thesis illustrates how these themes like politics, trans-localism and the night-time economy shifted Serbia's

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... st period and rejuvenated the music scenes in Belgrade The project aims to contextualise Belgrade's music scenes in the transitional, post-conflict and neo-liberal period of Serbia's social-political and cultural development in the 1990s and 2000s. The Belgrade music scene is used as a case study, as Belgrade is the city with the most developed music scenes in Serbia but can also be used as a benchmark for musical trends in the country and in the region. This is also due to the fact that most of musicians who want to make it in the industry eventually either end up living in Belgrade or have regular concerts in many of the popular Belgrade venues, thus becoming part of the Belgrade music scene. The research presented in this thesis was also inspired by the fact that in the past ten years Belgrade has been named as one the best places for nightlife in the world, with a Vogue article comparing it to Berlin (2017) and a Lonely Planet article proclaiming Belgrade to be the top party city in the world (2019). Moreover, a 2019 BBC article placed Belgrade among top five creative cities in the world (2019). Belgrade nightlife owes this media attention primarily to its vibrant music scenes. This connection between music and the city has been present in Belgrade since the first days of rock'n'roll in the 1950s and is something that today is attracting both the locals and the tourists in search of boosting their subcultural capital (Thornton, 1995), a term based on Pierre Bourdieu's (1984) theory of cultural capital, which discusses [...]