Music of the Others. Locating the (Turbo-) Folk Critique

Marina Simić

Contemporary Southeastern Europe

Special Issue

2019

6(2

Music of the Others. Locating the (Turbo-) Folk Critique

By:

Marina Simić

In this paper I address dominant critical discourses of turbo-folk music in Serbia. I suggest that we see music and music related practices as constitutive rather than reflective of identification in order to find a more nuanced ways to understand common discourses of (turbo-) folk critiques and its roles. To that aim, I draw from my long-term fieldwork research in the northern Serbian town of Novi Sad to show how public discourses are played out in private spheres, and also how they are created in and through everyday life. I identify the “anti-folk scene” based on univocal aesthetic exclusion that encompasses people from various social backgrounds and social strata. In conclusion, it could be said that despite its huge popularity and public visibility, turbo-folk remains one of the most important examples of aesthetics of others/other aesthetics in contemporary Serbia.

Themes:

Areas:

Serbia

simic_music_of_the_others.pdf

sci_ostalo

Author(s)

Marina Simić

University of Belgrade

Marina Simić graduate from the University of Belgrade obtaining degrees from the Faculty of Philosophy and the Faculty of Philology and received her Master and PhD degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Manchester, UK. She is currently a Professor of Theories of Culture at Belgrade University.

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Related Readings

Archer, Rory. 2012. Western, Eastern and Modern: Balkan Pop-folk Music and Transnationalism, in 1989 - Young People and Social Change after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, edited by Carmen Leccardi, Carlos Feixa, Siyka Kovacheva, Herwig Reiter and Tatjana Sekulic. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 187-204.
Baker, Catherine. 2005. Myth, War Memory, and Popular Music in Croatia: the Case of Marko Perković Thompson. Slovo 17(1): 19–32.
Baker, Catherine. 2007. The Concept of Turbofolk in Croatia: Inclusion/Exclusion in the Construction of National Musical Identity, in Nation in Formation: Inclusion and Exclusion in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Catherine Baker, Christopher J. Gerry, Barbara Madaj, Liz Mellish & Jana Nahodilova. London: SSEES Occasional Papers, 139-58.
Beissinger, Margaret. 2008. Muzicǎ Orientalǎ: Identity and Popular Culture in Postcommunist Romania, in Balkan Popular Culture and the Ottoman Ecumene: Music, Image and Regional Political Discourse, edited by Donna Buchanan. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 95-142.
Čvoro, Uroš. 2014. Turbo-Folk Music and Cultural Representations of National Identity in Former Yugoslavia. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Hofman, Ana. 2010. Kafana Singers: Popular Music, Gender and Subjectivity in the Cultural Space of Socialist Yugoslavia. Narodna umjetnost 47(1): 141–61.
Hofman, Ana. 2014. Balkan Music Awards: Popular Music Industries in the Balkans between Already-Europe and Europe-to-Be, in Mirroring Europe: Idea of Europe and Europeanization in Balkan Societies, edited by Tanja Petrović. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 41-63.
Levy, Claire. 2002. Who Is the ‘Other’ in the Balkans? Local Ethnic Music as a Different Source of Identities in Bulgaria, in Music, Popular Culture, Identities, edited by Richard Young. New York, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 215-230.
Silverman, Carol. 2012. Romani Routes: Cultural Politics and Balkan Music in a Diaspora. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
Volčič, Zala, and Karmen Erjavec. 2010. The Paradox of Ceca and the Turbo-folk Audience. Popular Communication 8 (1): 103-119.
Vuletić, Dean. 2007. The Socialist Star: Yugoslavia, Cold War Politics and the Eurovision Song Contest, in A Song for Europe: Popular Music and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest, edited by Ivan Raykoff and Robert Deam Tobin. Aldershot: Ashgate, 83-97.

Questions for Classroom Discussions

1. What is turbo-folk music and how can we locate it (in terms of space/place, genre, etc.)?
2. How can we understand the idea that music and music related practices are constitutive rather than reflective of identification?
3. What can we learn about the connection between popular music and politics from the example of turbo-folk?

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Music of the Others. Locating the (Turbo-) Folk Critique

sci_ostalo

Marina Simić