Review | Made in France: Studies in Popular Music

Abstract

Composed of several studies on popular music "made in France" since 1945, the volume co-directed by the sociologist Gérôme Guibert and the musicologist Catherine Rudent offers an overview of a field of study that is growing outside the English-speaking academic world, particularly in France. In doing so, it highlights and unifies in a particularly stimulating way a coherent multidisciplinary field of research focusing on the history, aesthetics and sociology of French popular music. In search of a French specificity, the eighteen contributors from various disciplinary backgrounds challenge common ground on different genres, from chanson française to jazz, punk, rap or French Touch, and propose a plurality of approaches to a rich contemporary musical landscape, better understood thanks to a historical perspective going back to the decisive Trente Glorieuses (1945-1973) and a consideration of the cultural, technological and political contexts in which these musics have since been produced. Abstract translated by Line Grenier.