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"Popular music Political aspects Europe History 20th century."
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Postwar Europe and the Eurovision song contest
Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest examines how the Eurovision Song Contest has reflected and become intertwined with the history of postwar Europe from a political perspective. Established in 1956, the Eurovision Song Contest is the world's largest popular music event and one of the most popular television programmes in Europe, currently attracting a global audience of around 200 million people. Eurovision is often mocked as cultural kitsch because of its over-the-top performances and frivolous song lyrics. Yet there is no cultural medium that connects Europeans more than popular music, the development of which has always been tied to cultural, economic, political, social and technological change - making Eurovision the ideal tool to explain the history of Europe in the last sixty years. This book uses Eurovision as a vehicle to address topics ranging from the Cold War, liberal democracy and communism to nationalism, European integration, economic prosperity and human rights. It analyses these subjects through their cultural, political and social relationships with Eurovision entries as expressed through lyrics and music, as well as by examining public debates that have accompanied the selection of the entries and the organisation of the contest itself. Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest also considers how states have used Eurovision to define their identities in a European context, be it to assert their national distinctiveness, highlight political issues or affirm their Europeanism or Euroscepticism in the context of European integration.
Book
Youth and rock in the soviet bloc
Youth and Rock in the Soviet Bloc explores the rise of youth as consumers of popular culture and the globalization of popular music in Russia and Eastern Europe. This collection of essays challenges assumptions that Communist leaders and Western-influenced youth cultures were inimically hostile to one another. While initially banning Western cultural trends like jazz and rock-and-roll, Communist leaders accommodated elements of rock and pop music to develop their own socialist popular music. They promoted organized forms of leisure to turn young people away from excesses of style perceived to be Western. Popular song and officially sponsored rock and pop bands formed a socialist beat that young people listened and danced to. Young people attracted to the music and subcultures of the capitalist West still shared the values and behaviors of their peers in Communist youth organizations. Despite problems providing youth with consumer goods, leaders of Soviet bloc states fostered a socialist alternative to the modernity the capitalist West promised. Underground rock musicians thus shared assumptions about culture that Communist leaders had instilled. Still, competing with influences from the capitalist West had its limits. State-sponsored rock festivals and rock bands encouraged a spirit of rebellion among young people. Official perceptions of what constituted culture limited options for accommodating rock and pop music and Western youth cultures. Youth countercultures that originated in the capitalist West, like hippies and punks, challenged the legitimacy of Communist youth organizations and their sponsors. Government media and police organs wound up creating oppositional identities among youth gangs. Failing to provide enough Western cultural goods to provincial cities helped fuel resentment over the Soviet Union's capital, Moscow, and encourage support for breakaway nationalist movements that led to the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. Despite the Cold War, in both the Soviet bloc and in the capitalist West, political elites responded to perceived threats posed by youth cultures and music in similar manners. Young people participated in a global youth culture while expressing their own local views of the world.
eBook
A Social History of Early Rock 'n' Roll in Germany
A Social History of Early Rock 'n' Roll in Germany explores the people and spaces of St.Pauli's rock'n'roll scene in the 1960s.Starting in 1960, young British rockers were hired to entertain tourists in Hamburg's red-light district around the Reeperbahn in the area of St.Pauli.
eBook
Dissonant Landscapes
During the past three decades, Iceland has attained a strong presence in the world through its musical culture, with images of the nation being packaged and shipped out in melodies, harmonies, and rhythms. What 'Iceland' means for people, both at home and abroad, is conditioned by music and its ability to animate notions of nature and nationality. In six chapters that range from discussions of indie rock ballads to 'Nordic noir' television music, Dissonant Landscapes describes the capacity of musical expression to transform ideas about nature and nationality on the northern edges of Europe.
eBook
Crisis music
Marching to the beat of punk rock and reggae, Rock Against Racism was a mass movement built in opposition to racism and fascism in 1970s Britain. At a time of severe economic and social crises, RAR, alongside the Anti-Nazi League, organised one of the biggest and most effective political and cultural mobilisations of the post-war period. Expressing itself through spectacular carnivals, concerts, marches and innovative forms of design and communication, RAR combined hard-headed political organisation with the optimism and energy of radical youth culture. Drawing on interviews with activists, supporters and critics, and based on the latest research, Crisis music explores the nature of this ground-breaking politico-cultural phenomenon. The author explains why RAR seized upon the power and passion of punk and reggae, and how this has helped to shape the boundaries of modern popular music. He also offers, for the first time, a clear picture of the relationship between RAR and its main political sponsor, the Socialist Workers Party. Crisis music discusses RAR's place within the left's often-troubled encounters with popular culture, and draws comparisons with other music-based movements and campaigns, such as the post-war folk revival and Live 8. This book casts light on numerous current debates: about 'celebrity politics' and the role of musicians as political spokespeople, for instance, and the links between ethnicity, popular culture and politics. It will be of value to students and researchers in cultural studies, politics and labour history, and to anyone interested in the role of culture in political activity.
eBook
The BBC and national identity in Britain, 1922-53
Examining the ways in which the BBC constructed and disseminated British national identity during the second quarter of the twentieth century, this book is the first study that focuses in a comprehensive way on how the BBC, through its radio programs, tried to represent what it meant to be British. The BBC and national identity in Britain offers a revision of histories of regional broadcasting in Britain that interpret it as a form of cultural imperialism. The regional organization of the BBC, and the news and creative programming designed specifically for regional listeners, reinforced the cultural and historical distinctiveness of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The BBC anticipated, and perhaps encouraged, the development of the hybrid \"dual identities\" characteristic of contemporary Britain. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of nationalism and national identity, British imperialism, mass media and media history, and the \"four nations\" approach to British history.
eBook