Does the audience play an active role in the production of meaning in popular culture?

I think the audience does play an active role in the production of meaning in popular music for a few reasons. One reason is that hormonal pre-teens who are known as ‘emo kids’ are going through the stage of puberty where they don’t understand what’s happening to them. These teens need some form of release for their emotions. This is why emo music has become so popular in the last decade. The record labels saw a gap in the market for these bands that sing about being depressed and feeling like the whole world hates them. This worked well for the teens because they found someone they could relate to.
Another way in which the audience plays an active role is that people go through trends. Recently ‘indie’ bands have become more and more popular and now there are so many I couldn’t even name them all. One band decided to start this kind of music, and once it became popular there was a new audience that craved for more of the same sort of music.