Musically mapped: Czech popular music as a second ‘world sound’

Abstract

This article broadly considers the developments and contemporary dynamics within Czech popular music culture since that country’s post-communist transition, specifically exploring the relationships between local musicians, the local music culture industries and the dimensions and operations of the global music industry. The interests and objectives of these entities and the complexities of their interconnectivity is explored, especially as it relates to integrating Czech popular music culture into the global realm, the transnational articulation of cultural identity through popular music and the musical geopolitics surrounding transnational distribution policies and practices. Utilizing ethnographic insights, it seeks to contribute to the understanding of global corporate music production processes and the complexities present at the intersections of corporate and music cultures in historically specific contexts.

Keywords

cultural production Czech Republic global music industry identity musicians popular music post-communism world music

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bennett A , Frith S , Grossberg L , Sheperd J and Turner G (eds) (1993) Rock and Popular Music: Politics, Policies, Institutions. London : Routledge.

Bloustien G , Peters M and Luckman S (eds) (2008) Sonic Synergies: Music, Technology, Community, Identity. Aldershot : Ashgate.

Born G. and Hesmondhalgh D. ( 2000) Western Music and its Others: Difference, Representation and Appropriation in Music. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Burnett R. ( 1996) The Global Jukebox: The International Music Industry. London: Routledge.

Du Gay P (ed) (1998) Production of Culture/Cultures of Production. London: Sage/Open University.

Du Gay P , Hall S , Janes L , Mackay H and Negus K (eds) (1997) Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Walkmen . London: Sage/ Open University.

Gebesmair A and Smudits A (eds) (2001) Global Repertoires: Popular Music within and beyond the Transnational Music Industry. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

Geertz C. ( 1977) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.

Hesmondhalgh D. ( 2006) The Cultural Industries (2nd edn). London: Sage.

10.

Holy L. ( 1996) The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

11.

Johnson R. ( 1986) What is cultural studies anyway? Social Text 16: 38-80.

12.

Knopper S. ( 2009) Appetite for Self-destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age. New York: Free Press.

13.

Merriam A. and Merriam V. ( 1964) The Anthropology of Music. Chicago, IL: Northwestern University Press.

14.

Negus K. ( 1999) Music Genres and Corporate Cultures. London: Routledge.

15.

Pynsent R. ( 1994) Questions of Identity: Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality and Personality. Budapest: Central European University Press.

16.

Rutten P. ( 1991) Local popular music on the national and international markets. Cultural Studies 5(33): 294-305.

17.

Ryback T. ( 1990) Rock around the Bloc: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

18.

Slobin M. ( 1993) Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press/ University Press of New England.

19.

Stojaspal J. ( 2002) A Roma pop diva. Time Magazine 159, p. 79.

20.

Stokes M. ( 2004) Music and the Global Order. Annual Review of Anthropology, 33: 47-72.

21.

Taylor T. ( 1997) Global Pop: World Music, World Markets. London: Routledge.

22.

Wallis R. and Malm R. ( 1984) Big Sounds from Small Peoples: The Music Industry in Small Countries. London: Constable.