In this paper I attempt first to identify some of the ways in which the growth of Welsh-language popular music and of more assertive and confident ideas of identity among young Welsh speakers were closely linked in the period 1960–85. Secondly, I briefly examine some elements of a period of diversification and crisis that occurred in the 1990s, and finally I attempt to identify three positions from which different musicians and audiences that I have been involved with seem to be currently rehearsing, negotiating and constructing contrasting roles and stances.