Abstract
'Cry, cry, cry, cry just a little bit...'
With a tight rock beat and a backing group including choir and brass, the familiar sound of Shaky Steven comes out of the Copenhagen Channel of the Danish Radio on a warm summer afternoon in 1996. News items and short interviews alternate with music-easy-listening, Anglo-American, mainstream pop music. As Shaky Steven fades out the speaker says: 'Well, that was a pop song like pop songs are mostly. Like we are used to hearing them. Now you will hear an Arab love song'.
The sound of a string instrument, probably a lotar, a four-string lure, takes over. In the background, one can hear the sounds of an informal gathering-this is not a real concert. A musician plays a simple melody a couple of times, then vocally joins in unison with the melody instrument. Another singer with a rough but relaxed voice takes over. The two singers alternate for a while, then the music fades out and the speaker re-enters, introducing the subsequent interview.
This last piece of music creates a striking contrast in the soundscape. After hours of modern mainstream pop, a 20-year-old recording of traditional Moroccan folk music from the Southern part of the country really sounds strange. Without being rude, two words probably come into mind of the listener; folkloric and exotic.
Why did the soundscape change so radically? The subsequent interview was about immigrants or more correctly about youngsters in Copenhagen with immigrant background. What made the speaker choose this kind of music as introduction to an interview about young people? When asked afterwards, she answered that 'she hadn't thought about it that way'.