Popular Music in Communist and Post-Communist Europe

The book presents a comprehensive view of the popular music of communist and post-communist Europe. It brings new sources as well as discussion on the politics, aesthetics, sociocultural and institutional background of the given subject. This is being done with respect to the genres such as jazz, rock, pop, singer-songwriters, or hip-hop.

Through selected topics, the book presents an up-to-date and comprehensive view of the popular music of communist and post-communist Europe. The studies introduce new sources, discuss transformations of the institutional background of popular music of the given geopolitical sphere, its social, cultural-political, or artistic conditions. Thanks to the time span of nearly thirty years since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the authors have in many ways revised or supplemented traditional post-communist perceptions of the issues in question. This is being done with respect to the genres such as jazz, rock, pop, singer-songwriters, hip-hop, or White Power Music, as well as across the whole region from the former Yugoslavia through Central European states to the countries of the former Soviet Union.

Autorentext

Jan Blüml has been working in the position of assistant professor at the Department of Musicology, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic since 2014. His main academic interest lies in the history of popular music in Central Europe with special emphasis on music in the former Czechoslovakia. Yvetta Kajanová is a Professor of Musicology at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. She is the author of ten monographs about jazz, rock, pop, and gospel music. Rüdiger Ritter is a historian of East Central Europe and musicologist. His scholarly interests include the role of jazz radio broadcasting in the Cold War, music history as cultural history in the 19th and 20th centuries, collective identity and politics related to the history in East Central Europe.

Inhalt

Jazz and popular music studies Cultural policies, institutions and media Popular music during state repression and war Soviet and post-Soviet Union territories: history and identity Textual and discourse analyses Music theory and aesthetics