What’s
so German about it? – Race and Cultural Identity in Berlin’s Hip Hop Community
Inez H. Templeton, doctoral student,
Stirling Media Research Institute, University of Stirling, UK
Literature on the appropriation of hip hop culture outside of the United
States maintains that hip hop engenders local interpretations no longer reliant
on African-American origins, and this research project is an attempt to determine
the extent to which this is the case in a specific local context. My project
is an effort to move beyond the rhetoric of much of what constitutes the debates
surrounding globalisation, by employing a research strategy combining theoretical
analysis and direct engagement with
Furthermore, this project is concerned with the ways in which the spaces and
places collectively known as
Kai Khiun Liew, doctoral student, University College
London, UK
As the genre of hip hop music
disseminates globally, its narratives are no longer exclusive to the African
American domain. Even though US based artistes still predominate on the world
stage, regional and local offshoots have made use of the music as a vehicle
of amplifying their own discourses and experiences. In this respect, Hip Hop has found increasing
appeal to youths in Chinese societies and communities both within and outside
On a broader perspective, from
Berlin-Frankfurt-Istanbul:
Local, Trans-local, and Global Imaginaries in Turkish Rap Music
Thomas Solomon, Associate Professor,
the
Rap music and hip-hop culture, with their simultaneous
explicit emphasis on constructing both local identities and a shared international
"hip-hop nation," are an ideal field for the investigation of relationships
between the local and the global in popular culture. In this paper I explore
some of the ways participants in Turkish hip-hop youth culture draw on the
globally circulating musical style of rap to create local and trans-local
identities. Based on ethnographic research in Istanbul, the paper explores
how local uses of rap and hip-hop have implications for the study of how people
make meaning with mediated musics, and challenges some common assumptions
about how globally circulating musics are received and used outside their
points of origin in the so-called "center" or "core" countries
of production. Among issues the paper will address are: imaginations of local
identities in Turkish rap, with the rivalry between Istanbul and Berlin used
as a case study; the place of trans-local hip-hop "culture-brokers"
who move between Turkey and other countries, especially Germany, in facilitating
communication between different local scenes; and the role of the Internet
and other media in creating a feeling of shared membership in an international
"Turkish hip-hop movement." Combining ethnographic field work with
a cultural studies approach to the texts of public culture, I also discuss
specific Turkish rap recordings, analyzing lyrics and musical style to explore
how musicians emplace rap within local and diasporic landscapes.
Understanding
Jewish Rap: Pastiche and Syncretism
Keith Kahn-Harris, Dr., associate
lecturer, Open University, UK.
Whilst Jews have been heavily involved in western popular
musical production, they have rarely explicitly articulated 'Jewishness' through
popular musical forms. In recent years though, 'openly' Jewish forms
of popular music have developed that engage specifically in Jewish themes
(musically, lyrically or both) whilst remaining within the idioms of western
popular music.
This paper explores how rap music has been drawn on by a number of Jewish
artists to articulate particular constructions of Jewishness. The distinction
between pastiche and syncretism is used to explore the emerging field of Jewish
rap. Jewish rap can be seen as pastiche when artists use rap in
order to communicate
particular Jewish themes in entirely Jewish spaces and scenes. In contrast
Jewish rap can be seen as syncretic when artists seeking to explore Jewishness
and rap simultaneously in a space that straddles Jewish and non-Jewish spaces
and scenes. The distinction between pastiche and syncretism in Jewish
rap is related to the distinction between two kinds of constructions of Jewishness
- as 'ethnic' or 'religious'.
Global or Universal in Polish
Popular Music
Anna G. Piotrowska, Assistant
Professor,
I would like to propose to look at the dichotomy: global
versus regional in popular music from two points of view. The first
one would determine global e.g. similar in all
The second dichotomy global/regional I would like
to discuss refers to how musicology in so called Western countries differently
approaches the problem of popular music in comparison with post –communist
countries like Poland where popular music’s analysis is heavily influenced
by Adorno’s thought and musicological research treat popular music as emanation
of Popper’s “art of delight”.
The Nordicness
of Nordic Popular Music
Terhi Skaniakos, Ph.D., Nordic
Arts and Culture Studies,
Working as a lecturer in Nordic Arts and Culture Studies Master’s Programme
has pleasantly forced me to focus on the “Nordicness”. Numerous times we asked
questions with the students: Is there something specifically Nordic in the
culture of Nordic countries? Can we talk about such thing as Nordicness? What
do we mean and what kind of issues we are confronting when trying to discover
the Nordic elements of culture, of Nordic popular music?
Nordic countries can be seen as a region. They have shared history, cooperation
in organisational and institutional levels, and there is political and economic
influence. The unity of the Nordic countries is partly suggested to be due
to the fact, that alone they all are small countries, but as a larger region
it is easier to market and promote and make known abroad. Yet, regarding the
language and culture
The political level, practices, organisations and institutions, is quite
clear. The question of regional identity is more challenging one. What are
the mental constructions, what do we think and say about the Nordic identity?
Why does it mean something, why is it important to the people? How is “us”
constructed at the regional level?
Theoretically the case of popular music could be approached by adapting
the critical discourse analysis (Fairclough), which is an analysis of communicative
events of: 1) Socio-cultural practices, and 2) Discourse practices, and 3)
text, in the larger context of regional identity construction. In this paper
I will further suggest theoretical and analytical approach into the question
of studying the Nordicness of Nordic Popular Music.
The Newly-composed
Folk Music – a Specific Popular Music Genre in
Sanja Raljevic, ethnomusicology,
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
This paper is about very specific genre of popular
music in transitional society of a western Balcan state. It is so called newly-composed
folk music, which originated in the mid- twentieth century in the republics
of ex-Yugoslavia, during the period of swift urbanization and industrialization
of undeveloped countries with a majority
of rural population. This process caused migration to the cities from many
rural areas. In Bosnia and Herzegovina those migrations intensified, because
of the conflicts during the 1990s. After a period of socialistic cultural
policy ,the country is going through
a period of transition towards capitalism,
continuing with even more curious cultural policy, with
support of commercial mass culture while neglecting the core of cultural progress
– literacy and education. In these conditions, the basic system of values
has changed. In this society with strong patriarchal mentality and growing
poverty in all social layers, especially, less educated and unemployed populations,
media culture offers the newly-composed
folk music as a way to forget everyday reality.
The work on this subject began in 1980s. There were
no extensive studies on the same subject, especially not about the basic guidelines of this genre, although it
has been for decades present in all press and electronic media. In order to
gain a deeper insight in the vocal-instrumental forms of the newly composed
folk music, it was necessary to make an broad analysis of the style elements
and structure as well as of the lirics, and to compare it with the popular music practice and the traditional
folk music in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The complexity of this phenomenon conditioned multiaspectual approach i.e. sociological, psychological,
culturological and ethnomusicological,
in the course of the further research. Two main methods, comparative and descriptive,
were used parallel with the field work. All components of the descriptive
method were used too - systematic observation of the audience behaviour, content
analysis and survey method. As a part of the survey method, the techniques
of data gathering, such as questionnaire with the opened questions and interview with the combined questions, as very
trustful techniquein the field
work, were used with the informants of different vocations. Many important data were
gained from the public research agencies as well.
Per-Erik Brolinson,
The Swedish popular ballad (”visan”) has widely been regarded as an exponent
of national identity and national cultural heritage. Yet the influence of
foreign styles has been prominent in the development of the genre. Before
World War II, most of these impulses came from continental Europe and Latin
America, but since then the most important new style elements have come from
Anglo-American music.
The early instances of the use of American styles in the Swedish ballad
were often deliberately formed as cultural clashes between the tradition and
novelty, often with a comical twist. Gradually, however, the new elements
have become more integrated in the musical language of the modern ballad.
This development has been concurrent with another. Most Swedish rock and pop
artists stared out more or less as imitators of American or British models.
From the late 1960s, many of these developed more individual styles. At the
same time, the use of the Swedish language in Swedish rock became more frequent.
In connection with this development, a marked influence from the Swedish ballad
tradition is discernable. This influence is perhaps most tangible in the lyrics,
but can also be traced in the music. Many of the Swedish singer-songwriters
have more or less explicitly regarded themselves as inheritors of the ballad
tradition.
The aim of this paper is to elucidate these concurrent developments, both
of which have led to an assimilation of features from international rock and
pop into the Swedish popular ballad. Still, the genre has maintained its aura
as typically Swedish brand of popular music.
Xin
Minyue and Min’ge as Contrasting Expressions of National Identity: Two Approaches
to the Creation of New Music in Contemporary
An indigenous music
industry was re-established in mainland
Using the analysis
of selected examples, this paper focuses on the exploiting of local linguistic
elements, musical style and even traditional dramatic factors in order to
probe into the social and musical function of this crossover music. In doing
so, I will make comparison with the min’ge
(literally, national song) performances of conservatory-trained singers, a
genre which is now heavily influenced by popular music performance practice.
These two genres, min’ge and xin minyue, offer partially contrasting
perspectives on the hybridization of popular music in contemporary China,
and each activates a somewhat contrasting set of elements that suggest the
qualities of Chinese national identity in the present-day.
Thomas George Caracas
Garcia, Dr. Ph.D., ethnomusicology and Latin American music, Miami University of Ohio
Defining the boundary between music composed within the Western art music
idiom and popular music can be difficult in many instances. Stylistic differences are not the only factor:
social issues such as class associations, intent and meaning often
play a defining role. In
Just as Brazilians were confronted with the task of building a nation from
the remnants of colonialism, so Brazilian composers imposed upon themselves
the task of breaking away from European models, and creating a musical voice
that was distinct to
Global/local
Interactions at the Edge of Western Cultural Gravitation:
Popular Music and National Culture
in
Ingemar Grandin, Ph.D., Linköpings
universitet,
In this contribution, I follow the local/translocal processes in the constitution
of new, popular musical genres in
While Western popular music conventions can certainly be heard in the local
Nepali genres, this is much a question of superficial adaptations of such
things as the electric and base guitar and the drum kit. In fact, though well
connected to transnational cultural networks, the foundational popular genres
in
In the end, these processes of adaptation – where local and national identities
creatively make use of ”global” cultural goods – may seem familiar enough.
What has happened at the Himalayan fringes of
Aspects
of Identity and Place in the Popular Music of the Post-Soviet Era -
David-Emil Wickström,
doctoral student, Musikwissenschaftliches Seminar, Humboldt-Universität zu
Berlin, Germany
In my talk I will examine the popular music scene in
Important issues pursued are which values and new meanings the music incorporates
for the musicians and recipients, and what dynamics and power relations are
present in the music itself, the band and within the music scene (e.g. how
the actors interact and what modes of communication are used).
This paper is part of research I am conducting for my PhD. The information
is being gathered during 2004 and 2005 through interviewing musicians in
Religion
and Politics in Comparative Popular Musical Cultures
Patricia Anne Simpson,
"What would happen if we prayed [.] Then maybe kids
in school could pray, and unborn children see the light of day."
– Casting Crowns
Driving on a rural road from
Finally, if we turn to
A Good Concert – some Perspectives
Lars Kaijser, Ethnology,
The aim of my paper is to discuss and elaborate some issues raised when
discussing the work done by promoters organising live concerts. I base my
arguments on a fieldwork done in a northern part of
I will discuss how their work could be described as a result or effect
of a set of ordering devices or principles that made the promoters handle
their work in specific ways. The first one being the promoters’ ambitions
and view of a good organisation. This principle works mainly in a local area.
The second principle could be linked to the Swedish field of cultural politics
and policies, concerning the importance of the work done by local associations
and organisations and how they value of music, both popular and classical.
The third principle is linked to the music in itself. Here I focus on the
specifics of genres that could be related to different categories of music.
These specifics consist of musical conventions and questions of style, aesthetics,
body praxis and different ways of showing approval. These issues are not local
matters, instead they connect the local with musical scenes in both other
times and places.
Dave Laing, independent scholar,
London is a city of seven million people, one third of whom are classified
as ‘ethnic minorities’, and of multiple musical practices, cultures, industries
and networks. The paper presents the musical spaces of
The title of the paper is taken from a calypso composed in 1948 by Lord
Kitchener, a
Authenticity
and the Local – some Thoughts on the Sound of Identities
Dietmar
Elflein, free-lancing ethnomusicologist, composer, musician and engineer,
Authenticity can be seen as a means to construct something local in the
regional and/or global field of popular music. Sound is something which helps
to construct your personal (musical) identity. I'd like to discuss the relations
of authenticty and sound as constructions in the 'local/global dichotomy'
with a focus on the increasing use of (cheap) synthesizer preset sounds in
some styles of popular music by means of some examples like:
– the saxonian based
folklore band “Die Randfichten“, which was one of the biggest German pop successes
in 2004, mixes an authentic image of a folk band with the professional stage
and light show of a rock band (including fireworks, air-guitar...) . Musically
they don't mix styles, they divide between folksongs and c&w or r'n'r
songs. In concert the folksongs are mostly played live, while there is a lot
of obvious playback in the other songs. What is the local in this phenomena
or what kind of authenticity do they need to construct to be successful. Are
the preset synthesizer sounds which they use recognized as authentic?
– Global hip hop needs
to be “real“. Recent Berlin hip hop is successfully sporting a misogynist
and homophobic gangster style (all the releases on Aggro Berlin and Optik
Records for example) whose protagonists are mostly second or third generation
immigrants trying to provoke with a pornographic heterosexual image. What
does “real“ mean in
Another
Music Experiment Project - The
Olav Harsløf, Roskilde University,
Denmark
The
The
Starnet: Changing Discourses of Popular Music Stardom
Kari Kallioniemi
(
The main questions of the project are: How is popular
stardom constructed at specific historical moments? What kind of meanings
popular music stars incorporate? Stardom is characterised by different media-oriented
public actions which form a web-like texture. The project calls this discursion
the starnet.
In order to understand traditions and changes in this discursion, as well
as the triumph of stardom in the twentieth century, the project produces three
studies. Docent Kari Kallioniemi examines the democratization of eccentricism
in terms of popular music stardom. Does the transformation of eccentricity
from the privileged trait to commodified quotidian celebrity culture also
mean the radical renegotiation of our experience and understanding of stardom?
MA Kimi Kärki investigates a phenomenon that he calls “audiovisual stadium
stardom”. Focussing on influential and multifaceted bonds between modern culture,
aesthetics, and technology, Kärki analyses various rock groups’ (e.g. Pink
Floyd, The Rolling Stones, and U2) stadium-size stage performances and their
contributions to rock stardom. Dr Janne Mäkelä examines how the pursuit of
international popular music stardom in late twentieth-century
The
Global and the Local on the Early Scandinavian Record Market
Pekka Gronow, Adjunct professor of ethnomusicology,
University of Helsinki, Finland
The record industry became firmly established in Scandinavia before the
First World War. In the early 1920s, about a million records were sold annually
in the region. Between 1900 and 1925, about 30,000 different sides (tracks
of music) were recorded in
The structure of the industry already resembled the current
pattern. The market was dominated by two multinational firms, Gramophone (today's
EMI) and Lindström, but there were also several smaller firms, which were
usually short-lived. However, there was one major difference. Before 1919,
no records were actually manufactured in
In this situation, one would expect that multinational companies to market
their international products in
Another idiom which could to some extend be marketed
internationally was the music of military bands. Wind bands were quite popular
at the time, and records by German, French and British military bands were
obviously in some demand in
The Sound of Reason – Web Communities of Music
Software Users as Small Scale Technocultures
Ano
Sirppiniemi, doctoral student, University of Helsinki,
Propellerhead Reason is a commercial music production software that is
used by tens of thousands of musicians all over the world. The software has
given rise to an international, web-based sub-culture, with a number of music-making
related activities. In my dissertation project, I’ve studied two large web
communities maintained by the users of Reason (www.reasonstation.net , www.reasonfreaks.com ), using mainly web
surveys and interviews.
Following Lysloff and Gay’s (2003) use of the term “technoculture” by Andrew
Ross, I propose that the users of one music production software, that communicate
with each other using mediated texts and share music over the Internet, can
be viewed as a small-scale musical technoculture. In other words, I’m interested
in the ways that the users of music software use media and music technology
for their own needs, the meanings they attach to the technology, and the roles
that the user web communities play in structuring and producing these meanings.
According to Théberge (1997), music making practices have since the 1980’s
become more and more aligned with the consumption practices of music technology.
In my project, I’ve studied online sites of consumption and music making,
consisting of the tools, media and active human agents
that together form these sites. The users of Propellerhead Reason are actively
producing music culture, but at the same time also consuming music and media
technology. The fact that web communities like the ones I’ve studied can function
globally, with no restrictions of time and place, also gives them some distinct
characteristics compared to traditional local music communities.
In this paper I will outline my theoretical background for studying online technocultures of music and present some preliminary conclusions about the web communities of users of Propellerhead Reason, based on several web surveys and interviews with Reason users around the world.
The Problem of Shaping a Musical Past: Musical Stuff, Dialogues, and Discursive Positions in Norwegian Rock
Odd Skårberg, post
doctor, dr. art., Department of Musicology,
The point of departure for the paper is my dissertation from 2003: When Elvis came to
The author argues for the following theoretical and methodological positions: a stylistic comparison that sorts out the differences and similarities between Anglo-American and Norwegian rock music. Also, theories about ethnic boundaries as well as hermeneutic-inspired readings of music, lyrics and the discourses surrounding music practice must be employed. This is aimed at sorting out different positions and dialogues that formed rock and roll in the Norwegian context. In this way such a project generates findings from systematic research with a musical tendency in our not so distant cultural past.
The Images of
Lars Lilliestam, professor of musicology, Göteborg University,
Sweden
If you want to understand the
effect of music and its roll at a certain time in history it is not enough
to study the music and the lyrics. A field where there is too little research
is the discourse about music: what people say about music, how they say it,
what stories they tell. The narratives about an artist load the music with
values, ideas and ideals. Once told it is impossible to disregard this narration
which, true or not, colours and influences the experience of music. I have
just finished a deep investigation of what was written in the Swedish press
about the rock group Kent and their album Vapen
& ammunition (‘Guns and ammo’)
from 2002.
It
is striking how similar and stereotyped this narration in interviews, reports,
reviews about
I
will give examples of how this mythology of authentic music looks and manifests
itself as well as discuss its origin and function. This mythology may be ever
so stereotyped but it reflects a dream that in our media saturated society
and times there really exists concepts like honesty, truth and authentic feelings.
Besides it supplies motives for why the music is important for both musicians
and people in the music business as well as for the audience, and it also
promotes a feeling of cultural community around the music.
The Changing Face of Popular Music in
James Flolu, senior lecturer in music education, University of Education,
Winneba (UEW),
At no other time
has
Carnivalesque
Laughter: Humorous Tradition in Russian Nationalist Rock
Mark Yoffe, Ph. D.
Gelman Library of the
In today’s Russian rock music we find two main trends: 1. suave cosmopitan
rock (a Westernized tradition) that produces mostly mediocre works of music,
though elegantly produced well polished, and 2. ironic nationalist tradition,
where music is often played sloppily, punk idiom rules, but in the same time
this is where we find the most sincere, authentic and creatively daring and
original works of Russian rock.
In this paper I will examine peculiarity of Russian rock’s nationalist tradition,
its Russophile and anti-Western tendencies manifested both in musical form
and in ideology. I will pay a particular attention to how Michail Bakhtin’s
theory of carnival and Medieval humor applies to a tradition of Russian rock,
and what makes nationalist rock so different from more West-oriented forms
of rock music in Russia and from its Western counterpart. I will speak about
how Russian rock has become a very complex and deeply national tradition,
and how it has to a great degree departed from the Western roots of the genre,
how carnivalesque and humorous national traditions as well as traditions of
flamboyant Russian/pan-Slavic conservatism and traditionalism have influenced
development of Russian rock.
I will explore mechanics of humor in Russian nationalist rock, the use of
irony, sarcasm, parody, self-parody, and most of all “double-talk” within
the parameters of works of music, and to what effect these devices are used.
I will also speak about strong ideological alliance between Russian rock community
and forces of Russian political nationalism, such as flamboyant Russian New
Right.
Polish
Jazz or Polished Jazz? Study of Yass Phenomenon.
Patryk
Galuszka, doctoral student, Faculty of Management, University of Lodz,
The paper deals with the music
phenomenon called yass. In
The paper analyzes two opposite
views on the phenomenon of yass. On one hand yass may be seen as a result
of exchange between local and global cultures: new music genre, which reflects
Polish social and cultural reality. On the other hand it may be argued that
yass is nothing new – just a clever marketing term – a sort of brand name
that helps to sell the music by labeling it.
Methodologically the project
may be located within research traditions of media studies, cultural studies
and marketing. The first part of the research contains detailed analysis of
artists' biographies and their social and cultural environment. Careful attention
is paid to the relationship between yass and rock artists and their attitudes
towards older generation of jazz musicians. The second part of the research
concentrates on analyzing the presence and meaning of the word „yass” in the
media (most of all opinion forming press). The main question here is what
meaning was attributed to the word „yass” and whether it evolved within years.
The results of the study may
be interesting in terms of academic debate on popular music, as well as marketing
guidelines for promoting new music genres.
African American
Musics in
Fabian Holt, Ph.D., Research Assistant,
Department of Music,
This paper examines fundamental questions about cultures of African American
musics in
The Issue
of Local Identity in the Construction of Björk's Author-image
Laura Ahonen, doctoral student, Musicology, University of Helsinki,
The focus of my paper lies in the author-image of Björk. The point of departure
for the analysis is the assumption according to which the author-image of
each artist consists of a group of ideas that are repeated in different media.
By repeating the narratives, a certain image is linked to each artist and
further shared by musicians, media, and the public.
When thinking of Björk, one of the most essential features in Björk's public
image is her geographical background as an Icelander. In my paper, I wish
to clarify the role of Björk's local identity in the construction of her author-image.
The examination will happen through the analysis of different media texts,
such as record reviews and interviews concerning Björk and her public image.
Based on the media texts, Björk's music is seen to reflect her life and experiences
as an Icelander. In fact, Björk's geographical background is believed to mark
nearly everything she does.
From this, one may notice the essentiality of Björk's local roots in the construction
of her public image as a mythical and eccentric figure. Accordingly, the Icelandic
background becomes one of the narratives of which her author-image consists
of. In the media texts, Björk's local identity is also seen as a characteristic
that further strengthens her image as a prodigy for whom the music is a way
of expressing her feelings and artistic visions.
It is probable that Björk's nationality would not play such a central role
if she was born in some better-known country. However, in Björk's case, her
local identity is, besides her distinct voice and personal visual style, a
central element in the construction of her celebrity image and artistic persona
that are seen to represent something unique and different in comparison with
other artists of popular music.
From the viewpoint of the music industry, Björk's Icelandic background is
used as a marketing strategy as the issue of locality becomes an important
part of the artist's public image. By emphasizing the issue of Björk's local
identity it is easier for Björk to be discerned in today's global (and homogenous)
world of popular music.
Shaping
Hybrid Identities: a Linguistic Analysis of Bhangra Lyrics
Maria Cristina Paganoni, Ph.D.,
lecturer in English, Faculty of Political Science, State University of Milan,
Once the folk music of rural
The syncretic musicality of
References:
Fairclough,
Norman, Analysing Discourse: Text Analysis
for Social Research, London: Routledge,
2003; Fairclough, Norman, “Critical Discourse Analysis in Researching Language
in the New Capitalism: Overdetermination, Transdisciplinarity and Textual
Analysis”, in Harrison, Claire and Young, Lynne (eds.), Systemic
Functional Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis, London: Continuum,
2004, available online at http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/lnc/LNC.htm.;
Hall, Stuart, “New Ethnicities”, in Black
Film/British Cinema, ICA Documents 7, London, Institute of Contemporary
Arts, 1988, pp. 27-31; here quoted from Baker, Houston A., Diawara, Mantia
and Lindenborg, Ruth H. (eds.), Black British Cultural Studies: A Reader,
Black Literature and Culture Series, Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1996, pp. 163-172; Pilkington, Hilary and Johnson, Richard, “Peripheral
Youth: Relations of Identity and Power in Global/Local Context”, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 6, 3, 2003, pp. 259-283; Sharma,
Sanjay, Hutnik, John and Sharma, Ashwani (eds.), Dis-Orienting Rhythms: The Politics of the New Asian Dance Music,
London: Zed Books, 1996.
In Their Own Words:
A Socioeconomic History of Italian-American Vocal Groups in
Stuart Rosenberg, Assistant Professor
of Management at
This paper examines some of the forces that shaped American popular music
from the mid-1950s, at the advent of rock and roll, through the mid-1960s,
when the Beatles arrived from
The first vocal groups to become prominent in the early years of rock and
roll consisted of young black singers who began by performing on street corners
in large cities, mostly in the urban centers of the Northeast, and especially
throughout the different neighbourhoods of New York City. These vocal groups
performed a style of music that was known as doo wop because, unlike the other
genres of rock and roll that were thriving in other parts of the country,
this form of music compensated for its lack of electric guitars and heavy
backbeat by having each of the singers in the groups take on a distinctive
rhythmic chant to attract talent scouts who were searching for new artists.
As the record companies determined that they might be able to sell more records
by signing white performers to record black-influenced records, this phenomenon
soon became an opportunity for white vocal groups who lived in other neighbourhoods
of the city. This was now clearly a multicultural phenomenon; the white vocal
groups incorporated the key elements of the black vocal groups while simultaneously
making new contributions to rock and roll, which allowed the music to continue
to grow as an art form. A significant number of these groups were from Italian-American
families, and many of the group members were first generation Americans, who
seized their opportunity to try to break away from the ethnic niche of their
parents.
The author conducted interviews during 2004 with the lead singers of several
Italian-American vocal groups from the
The Global,
the National, and the Regional in the History of the Finnish Tango
Yrjö Heinonen, Academy Research
Fellow,
National and regional identities are claimed to be overwhelmed by cultural
homogenization. But, as Stuart Hall has suggested, national and other particularistic
identities may also be reinforced as a consequence of resistance towards globalization
or be substituted for new, hybrid identities. The 92-year old history of the
Finnish tango shows features of all these three attitudes.
The tango arrived in
The tango booms seem to coincide with times of insecurity and/or a threat
of cultural homogenization while the declines seem to coincide with times
of welfare and openness to cross-cultural influences. In any case, the Finnish
tango, both in its “traditional” and “new” form, is a hybrid genre comprising
features from several international sources.
Anchoring
Rock in Local Tradition: Rock and Literature in
Yngvar B. Steinholt,
Dr., senior lecture, Department of Russian Studies, Bergen University, Norway
In 1981 a rock club opened in
The
Material Culture of Popular Music Consumption
George Brock-Nannestad, independent
researcher,
Early popular music was frequently disseminated by military bands playing
outdoors for the general public (and indoors for wealthy dancers). This was
music requested by those who needed the propaganda and who could afford to
pay live musicians. Widespread commercial sound recording from ca. 1900 provided
music at less cost by means of gramophones and records. Dance music became
available as a separate category, and portable gramophones enabled a dance
party to be set up anywhere by means of a stack of records, a wind-up gramophone,
and persons eager to wind it and change the needle. This scenario was quite
stable from ca. 1915 to 1945. Radio provided an alternative source. After
1945, electrical reproduction, even for portable gramophones, became the norm,
and from ca. 1950 portable gramophones had 3-speed turntables that would cater
for the "standard" 78 rpm record, its modern replacement, the 7
inch single, and the new format, the Long Playing record. At the same time,
the age and social class of owners of such gramophones were reduced. The record
companies responded by adapting the technical manipulation of the music to
the medium, causing a difference in sound quality between a single and the
same selection on an LP. The paper explores the interplay between records
and gramophones and distinguishes between juke-boxes for public places, console
models with record changers for the home and the portable models as evidenced
by technical performance and advertising. In later years, the DJ phenomenon
has created a live event out of dancing to records.
“The
Japanese Sawai Koto Institute and Its Performers: Confluence of local and
global transmission systems and music trends in their school.”
Liv Lande, Ph.D. Candidate in Ethnomusicology,UCLA, USA/Norway
The paper examines
how the performers of Sawai Koto Institute create their own musical reality
in musical transmission and creation practices by using elements from both
local and globalized music traditions. The Sawai Koto Institute is a relatively
new school for Japanese traditional music, famous for their focus on contemporary
new-traditional Japanese music, often called the gendai hôgaku music
trend. Indirectly, paradoxical influences and interactions between different
traditions can be witnessed within the musical activities of Sawai Koto Institute,
both in music and their socio-cultural organization. The paper studies the
mutual interaction between the performers of Sawai Koto Institute and their
surrounding socio-cultural structure.
Theoretically, the paper uses theories drawn from the globalization debate,
as well as Gidden’s theories on the interaction between agency and structure
in society, and Turner’s notion of thesis and antithesis. I will examine
how the actors of socio-culture generate and create the reality in which they
live, and simultaneously adjust to it and recreate reality, by interacting
and combining several different local and global traditions that are present
in the postmodern world.
Popular Islamic music
in
Dr. Songul Karahasanoglu Ata, the Turkish
Music Conservatory,
In contemporary Turkish
society, aspects of global popular musical culture resonate in a variety of
Western-influenced (pop arabesk, techno pop and high-tech electronic music),
Arab mainstream music-influenced (arabesk), and traditional Turkish
folk (halk müzigi) and classical (sanat müzigi) genres that
have begun to borrow features from one another. This dissolution of boundaries
that were more fixed in the past has led to new blends of Western and Eastern
musical forms. Globalization has also affected Turkish culture through its
interfacing with Islam resulting in the emergence of "green pop,"
an "alternative" form of Islamic popular music that in turn
has been influenced by pop/arabesk, techno pop, and high tech electronic music.
The resulting fusion of sacred and secular not only adds another dimension
to
In the paper, I will
discuss the origins of "green pop," its musical characteristics
and performers, and its place in Turkish society. Audio and video clips will
accompany the presentation
Queered Marginality?
- the Staging of Regional Identity in Norwegian Rap
Anne Danielsen, Dr.
Art.,
Characteristic of the music of Public Enemy and Ice Cube from the late 1980s and early 1990s was the use of cinematic elements and reality effects, such as fragments of contemporary urban soundscapes. Such rhetoric strategies, it may be argued, work on two levels: they add musical and timbral qualities to the musical production and they work to locate the music in time and space. As a consequence, many tracks from this era come forward as highly twofold utterances. They deal with both musical and societal matters. Many of these rhetoric strategies have been appropriated by Norwegian rap groups, and in this paper, I will address issues of marginality, identity and rhetorics in Norwegian rap, focusing on the use of stereotypes, cinematic elements and reality effects in Tungtvann's music.
Glocalization and Authenticity
Discourses of Norwegian Hip Hop
Petter Dyndahl, Dr. Art., professor
of musicology and music education,
Discourses on hip hop often reflect the notion of authenticity. Questions
of race and ethnicity undoubtedly played an important role in the construction
and constitution of hip hop as a major cultural force of ‘otherness’ – or
Black Noise (Rose 1994) – according
to post-colonial perspectives. Hence Russell A. Potter (1995) proposes that
the globalization of African American hip hop might lead to a lack of some
of its black identity or authenticity. When claiming that rap is music about
“where I’m from”, he does in a way tend to exclude other demographic connections
than to black communities as valid localities.
Nevertheless, hip hop has gone through an immense process of dispersal
– becoming the Global Noise (Mitchell
2001) of contemporary culture. According to certain points of view, globalization
carries strong tendencies toward homogenization, i.e. a notion of dominant
media cultures and forms of expression, which locals try to copy or adapt
themselves to. On the other hand, one might also recognize a distinct process
of heterogeneity, where local hip hop and rap artists are making efforts to
situate or signify upon global meaning in local context.
In the paper presentation I will address some perspectives on glocalization
and authenticity discourses of Norwegian hip hop; including certain historical
phases of development, like the copy-catting origins of the eighties, the
late nineties’ discovery of native Norwegian rapping, as well as the vernacular
authenticity of the new millennium.
Intertextuality/Interdiscursivity
in the Introduction of Hip Hop in Danish Popular Music Criticism
Mads Krogh, doctoral student, Department of Musicology,
The introduction of hip hop up through the 1980’s in Danish popular music
criticism was to a large extent driven by contributions from outside the domestic
press. Thus articles on hip hop were bought from American media, produced
by Danish journalists living in the US, or based on either references to American
(and English) popular music press, ‘hip hop-movies’ or interviews with American
hip hop artists and fans. These contributions from outside Danish media exemplify
in different ways what was at the time a tradition of Danish rock and jazz
criticism trying to cope with the rise of a new genre. And the main strategy
in this attempt was ‘reaching for the source’, i.e. importing first hand reports
from American (and later Danish) insiders. Hip hop was, in this way, introduced
in Danish popular music criticism by what can be considered as different ways
of intertextuality, and it is the aim of this presentation to examine the
degree to which these kinds of intertextuality were articulating a corresponding
interdiscursivity – i.e. the introduction of an established American discourse
on hip hop in the emerging Danish hip hop criticism.
Noriko Manabe, doctoral student, Ethnomusicology,
As a genre without a melody but a well-defined beat, rap
offers an opportunity to explore the rhythmic and musical aspects of a language.
An interesting case study is rap in Japanese, which has completely different
syntax, vocabulary, accent patterns, and phonemes from English. Several rap
pioneers initially thought that rapping in Japanese was impossible: while
the most striking aural patterns in American rap are the rhymes and stress
accents, which punctuate the rhythm, Japanese verbal arts have traditionally
not emphasized rhyming, and the language lacks stress accents. Therefore,
Japanese rappers had to find ways of exploiting the grammatical and phonological
resources of their own language to create flow for their raps.
Drawn from interviews with rappers, transcription, and analysis, this paper
explores the problems that Japanese rappers initially faced in rhyming and
rhythm, the solutions they have applied, and the innovations they have made.
To form rhymes, Japanese rappers capitalize on their vocabulary, enriched
from Chinese, Japanese, and Western sources. Rappers also use the pitch accents
of the Japanese language to create a melodious flow and certain syllables
to vary the rhythms. Hence, the rappers have shown that Japanese is unsuitable
for rap only when viewed with the restrictive notion that the sound of the
English language itself, with its stress accents and poetic feet, is the model,
rather than the hip-hop sound. Furthermore, they reflect the culture by employing
such hallmarks of Japanese communication as image-painting, subtle turns of
phrase, and onomatopoeia, creating raps whose sensibility would be lost in
translation.
The paper explores the issue of language in adapting a global genre and the
process in which imitation leads to innovation. As studies of the interaction
of the features of a language and rap remain relatively neglected, I suggest
potential areas for further investigation.
Negotiation of power in Cantopop
cover-versions from the 50s to the 80s
Dr.
Hon-Lun Yang, Associate Professor at Hong
Kong Baptist University & Professor Michael
Saffle, Virginia Tech, USA.
Cantopop, abbreviation for Cantonese pop music, is the major form of popular
music and popular culture in Hong Kong, once a British Colony prior to 1997,
but now the Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China,
with a population over 7 million. Popular music in Hong Kong, where being
the confluence of east and west, a melting pot of Chinese and Western cultures,
has always been the negotiation of local and foreign (Western – US/British
/ global) elements. This paper intends to be a musicological and ethno-musicological
investigation on this particular musical practice -- cover version – the adaptation
of well-known Western pop songs to Cantonese lyrics. Through examining a large
repertoire of Cantonese cover version songs from the 50s to the early 80s,
the presenter would like to propose the following: cover version is not merely
adaptation -- lyrics fitting to pre-existing melodies -- but instead appropriation,
and negotiation, which is an inevitable process of acculturation in the course
of cultural exchange. Socio-musical-textual analyses demonstrate that:
1) Cantopop cover version songs often convey a musical feel and social meaning
that are local, accomplished through musical, textual, and performance means
despite the borrowing; 2) the musical styles of these songs post challenges
to the concurrent local musical styles and cultural practices, thus fostering
a musical and cultural negotiation between the local and the global; 3) covers
are often more popular than the original, and even appear as ‘original’ to
the local audience, making the revisiting of the issue of authenticity necessary.
AlieNation is My Nation - On Hip Hop and
Immigrant Youth in Contemporary
Ove Sernhede, senior lecturer, Department for Cultural Studies, University
of Gothenburg,
The paper deals with young male immigrants engaged in
hip hop culture in contemporary
Gothenburg use hip hop culture as a way to build a multi-ethnic
youth community. This community is also elaborated as a 'glocal identity'
– it is rooted in the suburb but at the same time connected with the global,
Hip Hop Nation or the Global tribe of Hip hop. Hip hop is also considered
as a way to get out in public and fight racism and social injustice.-"The
microphones are our shot guns, the words are our bullets". Research in
the tradition of cultural studies has shown that cultures developed by the
young often make visible antagonisms and conflicts that exist below the surface
of society. The immigrant youth grow up in a society where ethnic boundaries
are inflicted and where social inequality is transformed into and explained
as cultural differences. The social and cultural logic at work under these
conditions leads to a situation in which young people's sub-cultural resistance
also adopts ethnified forms of appearance. The poses, attitudes and jargons
of the Northern American ghetto culture tend to offer an exclusive counter-identity
- for "Blackheads" only. The paper will also focus on how the informal
learning processes in this collective are related to religion, historical
mythical sources, different aspects of popular culture, political ideologies
etc.
Johan Söderman, doctoral student, Malmö Academy of Music, Lund University,
Sweden
The aim of the present study is to investigate a Bourdieuian cultural field with hip-hop musicians, so called emcees
(rappers), and how they construct their professional identities. The theoretical
point of departure is that reality is socially constructed. This supposition has methodological implications;
the analysis is carried out according to a form of discourse analysis called
discourse psychology, originating
in social psychology.
The informants, aged between 19 and 31, are four men and two women. All
of them are professional emcees with public personas, meaning that they are
used to appear in different Swedish media. Two of the informants have their
own radio shows; one of them is working as a journalist; another one has performed
in a documentary film, and yet another is one of the most successful artists
in
Individual interviews, which lasted for approximately 60 minutes, were carried out with
each single informant.
The results show how the informants use three, sometimes contradictory, discourses in order to construct their identity as hip-hop musicians: (a) The rapper as a businessman, (b) the rapper as a specialist, and (c) the rapper as an artist. They also use three narratives: (a) a success story, (b) a hard working story (c) a no choice story. Finally, it seems like liberal free market discourse collaborates with modern bourgeois artistic discourse in the fabrication of a professional hip-hop musician.
Afronauts and Interstellar Space
Erik Steinskog, associate professor
of music, the Grieg-Academy, Department of Music,
The question of the global in relation to popular music studies is not
least a question of place. The localities of the popular and the flows of
communication interrelate in an ongoing process between concrete musical expressions
and different musical styles. One place of importance, however, is a non-place;
a place where the localities are unknown, a futural place – a utopia. In this
paper I will discuss a version of utopia found within African-American musical
culture, a place Graham Lock calls “Blutopia.” This “Blutopia” also refers
to historical dimensions, where the “now” is located between a mythical past
– often localized in
Hans Weisethaunet,
How do we understand popular music as history and histories? This paper
questions why music to such a large extent is still understood to be "national".
Some recent research has focused on this question. But at the same time, music
historiography often seems to take the validity of the "national"
category for granted. There is a difference, I argue, between studying the
discourse of music (amongst musicians, critics, consumers, fans,
etc.) and scholarly constructions of a national narrative.
Innovation and Place in Popular
Music Economy–what is the „Hamburger Schule“?
One of the most important trends in german popular music in the 1990s was
the development of the “Hamburger Schule“. The innovation of Bands like Blumfeld,
Tocotronic or Die Sterne was not so much their musical style, a kind of indie-post-punk,
but the use of German language in a different, intellectual way. Their influence
is remarkable as nowadays the success of several German singing bands might
be impossible without the work of the
First the item “Hamburger Schule” conceals a production network or a cluster, that consists of musicians as well as producers and Music-Entrepreneurs. Second the notion refers to a new genre of popular music that can be seen as an innovation that is created by the very actors. The connection between these two processes, innovation and clusterprocess, is knowledge. The creation of knowledge through “learning by interacting” leads to the development of a new genre as well as it results in a local cluster. In my contribution I try to show how the specific demands on innovators leads to spatial concentration of economic and artistic actors. But as a further result it can also be shown that in the course of the development of network and genre the local scale disappears. The more the actors “know” the less they are reliant on trustful local relationships.
SHOULD’VE BEEN A COWBOY – Country & Western as a National Dialog
Minna Haapio, doctoral student, English and Linguistics, University
of Joensuu,
American Country & Western (C&W) is a multimillion Nashville-based
business concentrated on songs about love, life and loneliness, accompanied
with a simple melody. Roots deep in the Christian Southern soil, it caters
a nationwide audience with music that mixes conservative blue collar tradition
and modern influences. In the
This paper explores the national and traditional, even patriotic character
of modern C&W. Via the production of culture perspective and critical
discourse analysis, the paper investigates genre characteristics, performer
images and the choice of traditional song topics as well as the audience demographics,
and attempts to define reasons for why the genre is both loved and ridiculed
in the USA, and why it has never gained more than a handful of audiences abroad.
The paper suggests that history, familiarity, specific marketing strategies
and unique styles (e.g. the recent inclusion of rap and hip hop styles) all
influence the popularity of C&W. The paper claims that instead of merely
offering fun and entertainment for the public, C&W also idealizes, justifies
and questions the prevailing values in the American society and thus, in spite
of occasional crossovers, it remains a solid national pastime.
Selected References: Fairclough, Norman 1995: Media Discourse. Polity Press,
`Run away, free child`: music
and ideology in Estonian film ´The last relic´
Heli Reimann,
doctoral student, Musicology, University of Helsinki, Finland
“The last relic” is the most
popular feature film produced by Tallinnfilm studio in 1969. During the first
year of screening in the former
In spite of the fact that the
last relic was based on entertainment literature and meant to be pure adventure
film, it became a carrier of profound ideological and socio-cultural meaning
for several generations of Estonians.
The seven popular songs of “The last relic” form an independent story line within the film: by conveying the message of freedom and overall human values they bring a new dimension to the film’s simplistic and adventurous story. The study investigates from one side the socio-cultural reasons why the seven songs of the film gained immense popularity in Estonian society. From other side the study demonstrates how in the society burden with soviet ideological culture and in the conditions of prevailing double mental standards the songs became carriers of ideas of freedom and national identity. Finally the analysis of music will be presented in terms of style and structure.
World
Me Project: Singing the Same Song: Music Preference of International Students
in Rural University Towns (
Phylis Johnson, Southern Illinois University,
This presentation reports on radio and Internet usage
associated with music preference among international students since/before
coming to the
Rockin' on the Couch? - Popular
Music on Danish Television from the 1950s to the 1980s
Anja Mølle Lindelof, Doctoral Student, Department
of Music, University of Copenhagen.
Television and rock music in Denmark were born at the same time, and television
has played an active role in the establishment, the development, and the definition
of Danish Rock culture. My research sets out to investigate the history of
rock and popular music as it is manifested in the programming policy of the
Danish license-funded, public service Broadcasting Corporation (Danmarks Radio)
focusing on its years of national monopoly (1951-1988).
Following the overall idea that transmission through the media is influenced
by the technology and the organizational structure of the media system, it
is my assumption the this influence takes place and can be read at two different
levels: a general socio-cultural level (television's promotion of rock as
an institution on the musical scene), and a textual level (a thorough analysis
of selected programs). This assumption leads me to an investigation of the
institutional framework, due to which Danish cultural politics, the institutional
organization, and the actual production practices have influenced the gate-keeping
processes. Apart from making individuals famous, television programs at the
same time help to define what it implies to be a rock star. Conventions arise
about musicians’ appearances, performances, and expressions through visualization
of musical sequences, and the changing combinations of music and moving pictures
in this pre-MTV everyday life presentation and dissemination of popular music
raise the question of how different understandings of musical value are represented
visually and which discourses are at stake in the negotiations of how to visualize
music.
The latter aspect, visual impressions of musical sequences in different program
formats, serves as this paper's starting point. I will investigate the way
in which meaning under different historical circumstances and changing cultural
contexts has been assigned to popular music, focusing on a basic (high-low)-tension
between popular music as entertainment and popular music as art.
"And the rest is history":
The Rock Band as Narrative Community
Henrik Bødker, associate professor, Department of Language
and Business Communication, Aarhus School of Business
As a band develops, narratives of development are continuously (re-)adjusted
as different interests intersect, e.g. those of individual band members, those
of a fan community, those of a broader audience, those of the press, those
of the record label etc. The band is thus constantly engaged in processes
through which their situation is given meaning and direction. Yet, some bands
seem more closely associated with a particular narrative than do others; and
most often such narratives delineate the particularities leading to success
and its maintenance - "and the rest is history". Long-lasting bands
thus come to embody a narrative continuity, which situates itself in the wider
and more general history of the genre and/or field. The Danish rock band Gnags,
which started in the mid-1960s and still is around is a good example of this.
Through notions of community and narrative identity, this paper seeks to unravel
some of the processes through which the band has shaped itself and been shaped
through narratives of development and success. One aspect here concerns how
narrative continuity has been shaped through a dialectical and oppositional
process in relation to wider discourses within cultures of rock which focuses
on the inevitability of disjuncture, i.e. the "sell-out".
As Beautiful as in the Old Days?
Nostalgia Related to the Notion of Danishness in Popular Music Culture around
the Turn of the Millenium
Henrik Marstal, doctoral student, Department of Music, University
of Copenhagen, Denmark
Late modern tendencies in the Danish society around the turn of the millenium
have resulted in an immense tendency to focus on the notion of Danishness
– in the media, in the Ministry of Cultural Affairs as well as among
scholars within music and literature. One characteristic trend since the late
1990s consists of popular household names within rock and pop who interpret
songs from older, pre-late modern song traditions and thus recontextualise
them within the frame of popular music practices – a fact which seems
to fit very well with, among others, sociologist Anthony Giddens’ concept
of detraditionalisation as a main feature of late modern society. In my paper,
however, I will concentrate on the nostalgic aspects of the trend. Nostalgia
is a product of modernity, and my concern is to investigate how this notion
has been intensified in the mentioned musical trend. So: How is Danishness-related
nostagia produced here, and how and why do the current albums evoke images
of an older and idyllic Danish society ‘before it all went wrong’,
i. e. before the days of rock ’n’ roll, globalisation, EU and islamisation?
Rock as a field: The application
of Bourdieuan sociology to the study of rock
Gestur Gudmundsson, associate professor, Department of Educational
Sociology, The Danish University of Education
Since the early 1990s scholars like Keith Roe, Sara Thornton, Motti Regev
and Erling Bjurström have applied Bourdieu’s theory of cultural
fields and cultural capital to rock studies. The paper argues that these applications
still remain a sketch and that theoretical and methodological developments
are needed to turn Bourdieu’s approach into an appropriate tool for the
study of rock. Some steps of this development are outlined in the paper, with
the main empirical reference to Danish rock culture and, to a lesser degree,
to other Nordic countries.
Bourdieu’s contribution is no grand theory but rather a theory of the
middle range, based on empirical studies in France. In order to make this
contribution fruitful for studies of other geographical and cultural areas,
Bourdieu’s own insistence on empirical and historical approach should
be taken seriously, and some reconsideration of concepts of capital and field
is also needed.
The paper does not contest Motti Regev’s suggestion that rock culture
developed some characteristics of a cultural field from the late 1960s and
finds such development also in Denmark. However, to avoid that the field appears
as a projection of other cultural fields, attention is drawn to the previous
development of the late 1950s and early 1960s with emphasis on:
• the genesis of the field in the social and economic field of entertainment
• the relation of the embryonic field of rock culture to the field of
power and the established cultural fields
• the values and doxa of the social fields, where rock culture has its
roots
• the habitus of the agents forming the embryonic field
• the relations between production and consumption in the emerging rock
field
A historical exploration of the emergence of a rock field with emphasis on
these aspects leads to the suggestion of some rethinking of Bourdieu’s
central concepts, mainly his concept of capital.
Representations of fandom
in Danish pop music magazines
Lisbeth Ihlemann, lecturer, Department of Musicology, University
of Copenhagen
A recurring theme in academic writings on fandom is the question of stigmatisation
as it appears in various contemporary public daily life discourses as fans
are often thought of and presented as excessive fanatics. Connected to the
stigmatisation lies complex high-low distinctions that are related to e.g.
gender, to class, to musical genres, and obviously it has strong precedents
in Western culture as well.
In this paper I will look into both the stigmatisation of fans and to the
distinctions mentioned above in a historical perspective, as my aim is to
investigate the development of these in a period from the late 50’ies
to the mid-70’ies. During this period the term fan and the related term
idol increasingly seems to be connected to a low stigmatised position, but
it is highly questionable whether this connection actually was apparent or
even made from the beginning.
My empirical point of departure is a close reading of the Danish pop music
magazines from this period.
The Local and the Global
in the Music of Savage Rose: Globalisation and Emergent Post-Colonialist Attitudes
in Danish Rock in the Late 1960s and Early 1970s
Annemette Kirkegaard, associate professor, Department of Musicology,
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
The Danish rock group Savage Rose had their debut in 1968 and
by transgressing “traditional borders” in musical life they immediately
drew attention to both their music and their appearance. One half of the group
was classically trained in music while the other had a background in popular
music, and the band became a target for both critique and appraisal. However,
the group instantly became very popular and the only real successful Danish
act abroad at that time. In spite of the constant mixture of scorn and admiration
in the reception, even today the group stands out as a much loved and respected
musical phenomenon.
The music and the lyrics of Savage Rose, which combined their strong interest
in political and ideological topics such as the race question in the USA and
the commercialism of the music business, at times radicalised their artistic
choices and made them part of the emergent post-colonial movement of youth
culture.
Through a critical presentation of The Savage Rose I will examine how the
“world” became a part of the mood of the time and how this was in
many ways a move determined by the dismissal by the youth culture of the localised
nationality of the post-war parent generation which was in many ways oblivious
to the politics and cultural events of the word.
By making use of the texts and teachings of political figures in their music
and culture Savage Rose made an important contribution to the “making
sense of the changing times” to audiences in Denmark and abroad. Both
in music, in text and in political attitudes the group epitomises the discourse
on locality and globalisation.
Let me be something – Negotiations between the
local and the (local) global in the case of a Danish cover version.
Henrik Smith-Sivertsen, doctoral student, Department
of Music, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Based on a case study of the song “Lad mig blive noget”
(Dissing/Beefeaters 1967) I will focus on the practice of translating rock
and pop songs as negotiations between the local and the global concerning
genre, style and cultural identity.
In 1967 the Danish folk singer Povl Dissing joined up with The Beefeaters,
one of the leading rock bands who had turned psychedelic earlier the same
year. Together they recorded a single consisting of two Danish language cover
versions of songs written, performed and recorded by American folk singer
and comic writer Shel Silverstein. The Danish version was written by Thøger
Olesen and produced by Gustav Winckler. Both were central representatives
for the Danish version of Tin Pan Alley. The single went to the top of the
Danish pop charts as the first of its kind in Danish. The style of the song
was Rhythm and Blues clearly inspired by Jimmy Hendrix, Pink Floyd and The
Cream, who all played in Denmark the same year with The Beefeaters as warm
up.
All through the second half of the twentieth century a huge number of mostly
English and German language songs were recorded in Danish versions. During
the fifties the import of songs was highly institutionalized through international
networks of music publishers and until beginning of the sixties new genres
were simultaneously introduced in original and Danish versions. From then
on and until the mid sixties, the language of both rock and folk was English.
Most of the songs were imported covers as well, but performed in the original
language.
When both rock and folk turned Danish in the mid sixties it happened by either
refreshing old popular songs or translating international hits like “A
well Respected Man” (Kinks) or “Eve of Destruction” (Barry
McGuire). “Lad mig blive noget” is of the latter kind, and due to
the mix of popular music cultures represented in the production of the recorded
performance it is a perfect object for studying negotiations between the local
and the global concerning genre, style and cultural identity.
The Trivial, the Popular and
the Artistic. Danish Rock at the Crossroads 1965-1975.
Niels Erik Wille, Senior Lecturer, Dept. Of Communication, Journalism
and Computer Science, Roskilde University
It is a well documented fact that Danish rock music and rock lyrics went through
a major transformation in the late sixties and the early seventies. In the
local terminology a change of name marked the advent of the new: From
Rock n Roll , just Rock or pigtr d (barbed wire) to
Beat Music og just Beat .
The change was of course in many ways a reflection of international trends
and very much inspired by the electrified Bob Dylan (High-way 61 Revisited,
65), The Beatles s of Rubber Soul (65), Revolver (66) and not least Sgt. Pepper
s Lonely Hearts Club Band (67), Rol-ling Stones (I can get no satisfaction,
65), The Who (My Genera-tion, 65), Cream (66ff, in Copenhagen 68), The Doors
(67ff), Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention (in Copenhagen 68), Velvet
Underground (67ff), Jimi Hendrix (67ff in Copenhagen 68, 69 and 70) etc. etc.
And the cultural backdrop for the musical innovations: The Beat Generation,
the hippies, the youth movement, the sexual revolution, the Vietnam war ...
The domestic factors were just as important for the way the inter-national
trends were received and developed. The driving forces were a generation of
young intellectuals born during or just after WWII, and influenced by a specific
Danish cultural movement of the twen-ties and thirties, called the Cultural
Radicals (Kulturradikale).
On a broad front new ideas were developed concerning popular cul-ture and
the dichotomy of art and trash (= pop): In music, literature, film, theater,
comics, pictorial art. Literary genres that had up till then been scorned
by the intellectuals (at least officially) such as science fiction, fantasy,
horror stories, detective and crime stories, spy stories were to be acknowledged
as acceptable literary forms, to be included in public libraries, studied
at universities, criticised in serious newspapers etc. And similarly with
the other
Acceptance of the potential qualities of various forms of popular culture,
paved the way for creative uses and developments of these forms, as witnessed
by e.g. the blossoming of Danish beat music as the music of intelletuals in
the late sixties and early seventies. This also resulted in a clear division
in Danish rock between 1) a con-tinuation of rock as a mainstream
musical idiom, but increasingly trivialised, 2) an experimental and vital,
but still popular strain, and 3) some groups with decidedly artistic ambitions
(rock as a new Art Form).
Some historiographs of Danish rock view the changes in this period as the
take over by the middle classes of rock music from the working classes
the were the main actors till then. Others see the Beat music as one part
of a general development in the Art Instituion itself on par with the Fluxus
movement, experimental poetry, happenings, pop-art, op-art and all the others.
While the latter view seems closer to my position, neither seem entirely satisfactory