Popular Music In Contemporary Bulgaria

On the crossroads between the cultural influences of perceived global models and local specificity, entangled in webs of post-communist complexity, Bulgarian popular music has evolved as a space of change and creativity on the edge of Europe. An ethnographic exploration, this book accesses insight from music figures from a spectrum of styles.

On the crossroads between the cultural influences of perceived global models and local specificity, entangled in webs of post-communist complexity, Bulgarian popular music has evolved as a space of change and creativity on the edge of Europe. An ethnographic exploration, this book accesses insight from music figures from a spectrum of styles.

The term 'Canterbury sound' emerged in the late 60s and early 70s to refer to a signature style within psychedelic and progressive rock. Canterbury Sound in Popular Music:Scene, Identity and Myth explores Canterbury as a metaphor and reality, a symbolic space of music inspiration which has produced its distinctive 'sound'.

The Routledge Handbook of Popular Music and Politics of the Balkans is a comprehensive overview of major topics, established debates and new directions in the study of popular music and politics in this region. The vibrant growth of this subject area since the 1990s has been intertwined with the region’s political and socio-economic transformations, including the collapse of state socialism in much of the region, the break-up of Yugoslavia, the advent of neoliberal capitalism, the rise of Romani activism, the complex politics of ‘Europeanization’ before and after the global financial crisis, and the region’s relationship to the European Union border regime. The handbook illustrates the wide range of disciplines and methods that contribute to this field’s interdisciplinary dialogue and highlights emerging approaches such as the study of Black diasporas in the region, popular music’s links with LGBTQ+ communities, and the impact of digital technologies on musical cultures. This volume will benefit specialist researchers, tutors creating or refreshing courses on popular music in the region, and students interested in these topics, especially those who are at the point of developing their own independent research projects.

Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe is the first collection to discuss the ways in which popular music has been used cinematically, from musicals to music videos to documentary film, in Eastern Europe from 1945 to the present day. It argues that during the period of state socialism, moving image was an important tool of promoting music in the respective countries and creating popular cinema. Yet despite this importance, filmmakers who specialized in musicals lacked the social prestige of leading 'auteurs' and received little critical attention. The resulting scholarly prejudice towards pop culture created a severe shortage of critical studies of the genre. With the fall of state socialism - and with it, the need for economically viable film and media industries - brought about an unprecedented upsurge of films utilizing popular music, and a greater recognition of popular cinema as a legitimate object of study. Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe fills the gap and demonstrates why the popular music-cinema interface needs to be theorized with respect to the political, ideological, and social forces invested in popular culture.

Offering a series of case studies of recent media controversies, this collection draws on new perspectives in cultural studies to consider a wide variety of images. The book suggest how we might achieve a more subtle understanding of controversial images and negotiate the difficult terrain of the new media landscape.

Flourished despite the social changes brought about by the post-WWII era of industrialization, modernization, and urbanization.

Music, Space and Place examines the urban and rural spaces in which music is experienced, produced and consumed. The editors of this collection have brought together new and exciting perspectives by international researchers and scholars working in the field of popular music studies. Underpinning all of the contributions is the recognition that musical processes take place within a particular space and place, where these processes are shaped both by specific musical practices and by the pressures and dynamics of political and economic circumstances. Important discourses are explored concerning national culture and identity, as well as how identity is constructed through the exchanges that occur between displaced peoples of the world's many diasporas. Music helps to articulate a shared sense of community among these dispersed people, carving out spaces of freedom which are integral to personal and group consciousness. A specific focal point is the rap and hip hop music that has contributed towards a particular sense of identity as indigenous resistance vernaculars for otherwise socially marginalized minorities in Cuba, France, Italy, New Zealand and South Africa. New research is also presented on the authorial presence in production within the domain of the commercially driven Anglo-American music industry. The issue of authorship and creativity is tackled alongside matters relating to the production of musical texts themselves, and demonstrates the gender politics in pop. Underlying Music, Space and Place, is the question of how the disciplines informing popular music studies - sociology, musicology, cultural studies, media studies and feminism - have developed within a changing intellectual climate. The book therefore covers a wide range of subject matter in relation to space and place, including community and identity, gender, race, 'vernaculars', power, performance and production.