This paper focuses on music trends in Recife, Brazil in 2000-01. It explores how alternative music communicates a contemporary regional identity in Northeast Brazil, is affected by cultural politics, and circulates within the musical market, in order to show how the perceived demands of globalization, such as the need to consume the products of the global entertainment industry, intersect with the dynamics of a regional music community. It was presented at the first Associação Brasileira de Etnomusicologia conference held in Recife in November 2002.