Rock concerts in Hungary in the 1980s.

This article explores an underresearched topic in popular musical studies, the changes in the Hungarian popular music scene since the collapse of the Ber--lin Wall in 1989, and situates that research in a comparative perspective. It highlights some of the more obvious and less recognized developments: in particular, special attention is given to the ways in which the new "national rock" developed and was ideologized in the past two decades. The relationship of this new music and the socioeconomic and political changes that have taken place since the establishment of democracy and multi---party politics is also considered.

2001

Culture Wars Papers, 2023

The culture war of Fidesz governments can be understood as a permanently changing constellation, a dynamic field rather than a well-designed machine of manipulation or a well-managed cultural factory. With contradictory structural changes that do not address or ignore social problems, right-wing populist discourses reinforce the image of a Christian conservative society and make it self-evident to ordinary people through the state constitution, the new role of the church in educational system and popular culture. Popular music, as I have shown in the discussed cases, can easily provide political messages because it can engage audiences who are not reached by political messages, it can generate emotions in listeners who reject or avoid political content.

Surfaces

Marxism and nationalism. The political form and meaning of the discourse of national identity in Hungary as it appears in popular culture. Hungarian rock and shamanpunk. The debate over the national flag. RÉSUMÉ Marxisme et nationalisme. La forme et la signification du discours d'identité nationale en Hongrie tel qu'il apparait dans la culture populaire. Rock hongrois et "shamanpunk". Le débat autour du drapeau national.

Forum Historiae, 2020

The history of rock in Communist Europe has been viewed by a number of domestic and foreign authors as a series of events with a dominant political content, either in the form of a general youth revolt or directly in the spirit of anti-communist opposition. In this regard, the present study extends the current simplifying concept with an emphasis on the reception history, including relevant issues related to the typology of listeners and aesthetics. The primary subject of this paper is the reception of two of the most influential representatives of Anglo-American popular music in Communist Czechoslovakia, these being the Beatles and Frank Zappa. The reception of both artistic subjects is reflected in the specific space of the Brno scene of the 1980s, within the framework of the artist fan clubs which had no parallel anywhere else in the country. The study demonstrates the specifics of American and British rock fandom in the given time and space and challenges the long-held narrative about the supremacy of the political functions of rock behind the Iron Curtain.

2022

IASPM@Journal, 2018

Popular music studies as a field has been criticized from within for still predominantly favouring sociological approaches, as opposed to offering an analysis of the musical text that incorporates the social. What is missing from such debates, however, is that writings calling for a popular music aesthetic are almost as old as the scholarly study of popular music. Andrew Chester's " For a Rock Aesthetic " , published in New Left Review in 1970 is an example. Popular music studies, however, also produced works in Eastern Europe at around the same time, building on the results of a new Marxist musicology and sociology of music that drew on both musical and sociological aspects in music analysis. We compare British leftist and Marxist analyses of popular music phenomena of the 1960s and early 1970s with the work of Hungarian scholars such as János Maróthy looking at trends in popular music from a Marxist perspective.

Eastbound, 2012

IASPM@Journal, 2018

Popular music studies as a field has been criticized from within for still predominantly favouring sociological approaches, as opposed to offering an analysis of the musical text that incorporates the social. What is missing from such debates, however, is that writings calling for a popular music aesthetic are almost as old as the scholarly study of popular music. Andrew Chester's "For a Rock Aesthetic", published in New Left Review in 1970 is an example. Popular music studies, however, also produced works in Eastern Europe at around the same time, building on the results of a new Marxist musicology and sociology of music that drew on both musical and sociological aspects in music analysis. We compare British leftist and Marxist analyses of popular music phenomena of the 1960s and early 1970s with the work of Hungarian scholars such as János Maróthy looking at trends in popular music from a Marxist perspective.

Populismus kritisieren: Kunst – Politik – Geschlecht, 2024

Hungary and the post-2010 Fidesz-led governments are often cited as an emblematic case in the rise of right-wing populism in Europe, or even globally. In our chapter, we build on a sociocultural theoretical approach to populism (Ostiguy 2017; Westheuser 2020) in order to analyse the example of the popular musician Ákos in Hungary, focusing on particular aspects of his career in relation to the respective political context, as well as on his performances, public persona, and communication with his audience. We argue that Ákos's music, performances, and public persona contribute to the spreading and affective embedding of certain hegemonic populist discourses in Hungarian society. At the same time, instead of addressing "the people" through low cultural markers and promising emancipation, as described in Ostiguy's sociocultural approach to populism, his performances and public persona aim "higher" in the social and cultural hierarchy. The dominant cultural markers he performs can be considered to be aligned with the government's class and gender politics, which are aimed at the creation of a loyal "national bourgeoisie" (Éber et al. 2019; Scheiring 2021) and favouring an imagined middle class. This finding also points towards the limitations of the populism approach which is frequently used to describe the relation between politics and popular culture in post-2010 Hungary.