Musical and Social Structures: Marxist Interpretations of Popular Music in the 1960s and early 1970s in Hungary and the UK

Authors

  • Emília Barna IASPM Hungary // Budapest University of Technology and Economics
  • Ádám Ignácz IASPM Hungary // Institute of Musicology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Keywords:

Popular Music Studies, Marxism, Eastern Europe, New Left, Maróthy

Abstract

Popular music studies as a field has been criticised 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.

Author Biography

Emília Barna, IASPM Hungary // Budapest University of Technology and Economics

Róza Emília Barna, PhD, Assistant Professor, sociologist and popular music studies scholar acquired her doctoral degree at the University of Liverpool Institute of Popular Music in 2011. Her thesis examined the relationship between music scenes, networks and the internet through a case study of contemporary Liverpool indie rock bands. Her main areas of research include the study of music scenes and genres, media representations and discourses of popular music, as well as the sociological study of music communities and music making. She also teaches as part of the ‘University of Music’ programme of the University of Pécs. She is a founding member and current Chair of the Hungarian branch of the International Association of the Study of Popular Music, a member of the editors’ Advisory Board of IASPM@Journal, and editor of the Hungarian-language Music Networks Journal.

References

Bibliography

Appen, R. von. 2007. Der Wert der Musik. Zur Ästhetik des Populären [On the

value of music. Aesthetics of the popular]. Bielefeld: Transcript.

Barna, E. 2017. Introduction: The Study of Popular Music in Hungary. In E. Barna and T. Tófalvy Eds. Made in Hungary: Studies in Popular Music. London and New York: Routledge: 1-12.

Böröcz, J. 2006. Goodness is Elsewhere: The Rule of European Difference. Comparative Studies in Society and History 48(1): 110-138.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417506000053

Bounds, P. 2012. From Folk to Jazz: Eric Hobsbawm, British Communism and Cultural Studies. Critique 40(4): 575-593.

https://doi.org/10.1080/03017605.2012.735875

Chester, A., –

a. For a Rock Aesthetic. New Left Review 59: 83-96.

b. Second Thoughts on a Rock Aesthetic: The Band. New Left Review 62: 75-82.

Chounara, I. 1974. Trends in Youth Culture. Marxism Today October: 317-319.

Cohen, P. 1972. Sub-cultural Conflict and Working Class Community. Working Papers in Cultural Studies. No.2. Birmingham: University of Birmingham.

Eagleton, T. 1964. New Bearings: The Beatles. Blackfriars 45: 175-78.

Frith, S. –

The Sociology of Rock. London: Constable.

Sound Effects: Youth, Leisure, and the Politics of Rock. London: Constable.

[1987]. Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music. In S. Frith Ed. Taking Popular Music Seriously. Selected Essays. Burlington: Ashgate: 257-275.

Gould, J. 2008. Can’t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America. New York: Three Rivers.

Hall, S. and T. Jefferson, Eds. 1993. Resistance through Rituals: Youth subcultures in post-war Britain. London: Routledge.

Hebdige, D. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge.

Heilbronner, O. 2011. ‘Helter-Skelter’?: The Beatles, the British New Left, and the Question of Hegemony. Interdisciplinary Literary Studies 13(1): 87-107.

Higgins, L. –

Growths, Pathways and Groundwork: Community Music in the United Kingdom. International Journal of Community Music 1(1): 23-37.

Community Music in the UK: Historical Perspectives. Mayday Group, 28 September. http://www.maydaygroup.org/2011/09/community-music-in-the-uk-historical-perspectives/#.WwkWCS-B2fX. Accessed: 26 May 2018.

Hobsbawm, E. 1959. The Jazz Scene. London: Faber and Faber.

Ignácz, Á. 2018. A Musical Inquisition? Soviet ‘Deputies’ of Musical Entertainment in Hungary during the Early 1950s. In Dunkel M. and Nietzsche, S. Eds. Popular Music and Public Diplomacy. Bielefeld: Transcript: 131-149.

Maróthy, J. –

Az európai népdal születése [Birth of the European folk song]. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó

Kinek a zenéje és meddig? A jazz körüli vitákhoz [Whose music and how long? A contribution to the debates on jazz]. Élet és Irodalom 12 August: 5-7.

Az élő politikai dal [Living political song]. Kritika (2): 22-31.

Még egyszer a ‘pol-beat’-ről [Once more on ‘pol-beat’]. Rádió és Televízió Újság July: 17-23.

A beat ürügyén – a művelődésről [On the pretext of beat music – regarding education]. Muzsika 12: 1-5.

(Hungarian version:1966). Music and Bourgeois, Music and Proletarian. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.

Zene és ember [Music and human]. Budapest: Zeneműkiadó.

McKay, G. and B. Higham. 2011. Community Music: History and Current Practice, its Constructions of ‘Community’, Digital Turns and Future Soundings. Connected Communities. https://ahrc.ukri.org/documents/project-reports-and-reviews/connected-communities/community-music-history-and-current-practice-its-constructions-of-community-digital-turns-and-future-soundings/. Accessed: 26 May 2018.

Merton, R. 1970. Comment on Chester’s ‘For a Rock Aesthetic’. New Left Review 1(59): 88-96.

Miles, B. 1998. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now. London: Secker and Warburg.

MSZMP 1969: Az MSZMP Központi Bizottságának tudománypolitikai irányelvei [Directions of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party regarding the politics of science]. Társadalmi Szemle (24): 47–70.

Nowack, N. 2006. Grauzone einer Wissenschaft. Musiksoziologie in der DDR unter Berücksichtigung der UdSSR [A grey area of scholarship: Music sociology in the GDR under the scrutiny of the USSR]. Weimar: VDG.

Pernye, A. 1962. Bevezető [Introduction]. In: B. Aszafjev. Az orosz zene mesterei [Masters of Russian music]. Budapest: Zeneműkiadó: 5-26.

Rathert, W. 2016. ‘Neue Musik‘ im Spannungsfeld der politischen Ideologien [‘New music’ in the tension of political ideologies]. XVI.Internationaler Kongress der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung – 16th International Conference of the GfM. Wege der Musikwissenschaft. 14-17 September, 2016, Mainz, Germany.

Schmidt, D. 2016. Musikwissenschaft in Deutschland zwischen Vergangenheitspolitik und Internationalisierung [Musicology in Germany between politics of the past and internationalisation]. XVI. Internationaler Kongress der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung – 16th International Conference of the GfM. Wege der Musikwissenschaft. 14-17 September, 2016, Mainz, Germany.

Shepherd, J., Ed. 1977. Whose Music? A Sociology of Musical Languages. London: Transaction Publishers.

Shepherd, J. and K. Devine, Eds. 2015. The Routledge Reader on the Sociology of Music. New York and London: Routledge.

Szabolcsi, B. –

Népzene és történelem [Folk music and history]. Budapest: Zeneműkiadó.

A zenei köznyelv problémái [On matters of musical vernacular]. Magyar Zene (5): 451–468.

Stroh, W. and G. Mayer, Eds., 2000. Musikwissenschaftlichen Paradigmenwechsel? Zur Stellenwert marxistischer Ansätze in der Musikforschung [Musicological paradigm shift? On the state of Marxist approaches to music research]. Oldenburg: Bibliotheks- und Informationssystem der Universität Oldenburg.

Tagg, P. 2001. Music analysis for ’non-musos’. Popular perception as a basis for understanding musical structure and signification. Conference on Popular Music Analysis, University of Cardiff, 17 November 2001. http://www.tagg.org/articles/cardiff01.html. Accessed: 17 November 2018.

Vitányi, I. –

A népművészet - a vélemények tükrében: Vázlatok a népművészetről alkotott vélemények történetéhez [Folk art in light of opinions: Notes on the history of opinions formulated on folk art]. Magyar Zene (6): 614-635.

A társadalmi formációk elmélete és a művészetszociológia [Theory of social formations and the sociology of art]. Valóság 7: 10-23.

Walker, D. 1974. Trends in Youth Culture. Marxism Today July: 215-217.

Willis, P. 1978. Profane Culture. London: Routledge and K. Paul.

Worley, M. 2016. Marx–Lenin–Rotten–Strummer: British Marxism and Youth Culture in the 1970s. Contemporary British History 30(4): 505-521.

https://doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2016.1206820

Web Sources

NIMIMS – Network for the Inclusion of Music in Music Studies. 2015. NIMIMS. http://nimims.net. Accessed: 26 May 2018.

Discography

The Beatles –

A Hard Day’s Night, Parlophone, 10 July, UK.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Parlophone, 1 June, UK.

“Revolution”, Hey Jude, Apple, 26 August, UK.

The Rolling Stones –

Their Satanic Majesties Request, Decca, 8 December, UK.

“Street Fighting Man”, Street Fighting Man, Decca, August, UK.

Downloads

Published

10-12-2018

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 2 (2018): Open Issue

Section

Articles – Open Section

License

Authors retain copyright, while licensing their work under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.