Part II of: European Music Office, Music in Europe. Brussels, 1996. Edited by Paul Rutten
Foreword
1 Global sounds and local brews. Musical developments and music industry in Europe — Paul Rutten
2 Popular music and processes of social transformation. The case of rock music in former East Germany — Peter Wicke
3 Music and identity among European youth. Music as communication — Keith Roe
4 Popular music policy and the articulation of regional identities. The case of Scotland and Ireland — Simon Frith
5 Latin lovers: salsa musicians and their audience in London. A small dance boom, or in defence of the trivial — Vincenzo Perna
6 Music industry and music lovers, beyond Benjamin. The return of the amateur — Antoine Hennion
7 La Friche Belle de Mai. A centre for cultural and artistic activities in Marseille — Myriam Tekaïa
8 Hip Hop and Rap in Europe. The culture of the urban ghetto's — Marie-Agnès Beau
9 The charm of activity as the essence of musical expression. An interview with Henk Hofstede — Paul Rutten
10 The non-profit music organization in partnership with the commercial field. The Finnish Music Information Centre (MIC) — Jari Muikku
11 The traditional musics in Europe. The modernity of traditional music — Jany Rouger and Jean-François Dutertre
Acknowledgements
1999 © Soundscapes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
cf. Local Music and the International Marketplace*
von
Paul Rutten (Catholic University, Nijmegen)
This article is mainly concerned with discussing the position of local popular music within national and international markets, taking the Dutch situation as a starting point. »Position« refers here to the economic viability of local music in the context of structures for the production and distribution of music operating on the national and international levels. The use of the concept 'local popular music' presupposes a specific relationship between a certain spatial context described as local and a certain kind of popular music. The relationship between the local and the music is very often conceived of in terms of notions of the indigenous, such that local music is seen as a static cultural-musical form said to be historically rooted in a specific local context. This prescriptive definition robs popular music of two of its main characteristics: its dynamism and its intertextuality. The concept of a local, popular music used here refers to a dynamic cultural practice through which people living in a specific spatial context engage in the production and reproduction of popular music. This cultural practice encompasses musical composition, the playing of music and its live performance on stage, and getting music recorded on phonograms, played over the radio, and, finally, into shops. Conceiving of the politics of local, popular music in this way links it to issues having to do with mass communication, culture and democracy, and away from the politics of a narrow-minded cultural nationalism.