Iluminace 2017, 29(3):65-86 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1531

Charting Post-Underground Nostalgia. Anachronistic Practices of the Post-Velvet Revolution Rock Scene

Tomáš Jirsa
Univerzita Palackého

The 1990s music scene in East-Central Europe has often been described as a melting pot of various genres wherein different official and unofficial musicians from the socialist era merged with all kinds of contemporary Western impulses. This begs the question: did all those new influences necessarily lead to a change of taste and expectations among audiences or even to a change in the music industry's policies? In contrast to the popular narrative of the dynamic post-Velvet Revolution transformation of culture and society, this essay offers a contrasting view of a particularly anachronistic tendency that unfolded during the transition, the mover of which was a conservative post-underground audience that longed much less for novelty than for continuity and survival of the cultural and aesthetic patterns of the normalization period. Following a case study of the Czech alternative rock band Psí vojáci (Dog Soldiers) and pointing out several paradoxes that framed and determined its musical production and reception, the goal of the essay is to examine the socio-cultural mechanisms underlying the anachronistic and nostalgic stance that substantially shaped the post-socialist musical landscape. In doing so, it also explains the role of the audience, the music industry, and journalists whose attitude led to a stereotypical branding of the band as an 'underground legend,' a reduction that was only intensified by the business strategy of the band's leading label, Indies Records. Drawing on the sociological approach to rock music and music industry studies, this study exposes the contradictory nature of the anti-commercialism myth of alternative music culture.

Keywords: music industry politics, music scene, post-underground audience, rock music

Published: September 1, 2017  Show citation

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Jirsa, T. (2017). Charting Post-Underground Nostalgia. Anachronistic Practices of the Post-Velvet Revolution Rock Scene. Iluminace, 29(3), 65-86. doi: 10.58193/ilu.1531
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