Up from the Underground: The Culture of Rock Music in Postsocialist Hungary (Post-Communist Cultural Studies.)

Rating:
Summary: What's a reader to do? He's happy just to be here.
Review: This excellent study traces Hungary's underground music scence from the time when music functioned as the best available substitute for politics on to the present, when no-longer-underground artists are competing over accounts for the past, the kind of cultural capital they feel their past engagement entitles them to, and a new set of opponents not in the sometimes censorious state but in the multinational music industry. Anna Szemere brings in a nuanced knowledge not only of the postsocialist transformation, but also of aesthetic and sociological theory, to make for a discussion that has implications well beyond Hungary and Eastern Europe. Also, she makes a lot of fascinating lyrics available to non-Hungarian speakers.