Searching for Gainsbourg – Insights from an Outsider’s Perspective (Research Project)

Jardin Serge Gainsbourg. Foto: André Rottgeri

Jardin Serge Gainsbourg. Foto: André Rottgeri

As a German with a French first name, I had dedicated my PhD thesis to the intercultural mix of the French band Mano Negra. Consequently, I always got excited, when I could share my outsider’s perspective on popular music in France with French colleagues. Yet, when I was asked to hand in an application for the IReMus conference on Serge Gainsbourg in 2018, I was challenged, as Gainsbourg did not stand at the centre of my research.

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Rock im Osten (Neuerscheinung und Buchpremiere: Berlin, 17.9.2025)

Tom Koltermann: Rock im Osten. Die Erfindung der DDR-Rockmusik und ihr Weg in das vereinte Deutschland, Berlin: 2025. Foto: Ch. Links Verlag.

Tom Koltermann: Rock im Osten. Foto: Ch. Links Verlag.

Die Rockmusikszene der DDR stand mit dem Ende des Staats vor dem Kollaps. Das Publikum blieb weg, die staatlichen Subventionen entfielen und zahlreiche Bands lösten sich auf. Überraschenderweise verkauften sich die Aufnahmen aus der DDR nach wenigen Jahren erneut und auch die Veranstaltungssäle füllten sich wieder, als Rockbands mit DDR-Vergangenheit auftraten. “Rock im Osten” spürt diesem Niedergang und der darauffolgenden Renaissance des DDR-Rocks nach. Continue reading

Mark Reeder: The Man who Punked the Iron Curtain

Figure 1. Mark Reeder in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Divided Berlin (1980s). Source: B Book: Lust and Sound in West Berlin 1979-1989, 2017, Archiv der Jugendkulturen. Photo used with permission from Mark Reeder.

The punk connection between East and West Germany was largely due to the actions of one man: Mark Reeder. Born in Manchester in 1958, the musical scene of this English industrial hub captivated Reeder. In 1979, Reeder left Britain for West Berlin to chase the sound emanating from this divided city.[1] Once in West Berlin, he became entranced by the rawness of the former capital, prompting a desire to learn more about its people and the music they played on this walled-off island. His journey led him to enter the Berlin music scene and become not only a part of it, but a leading figure of sound and culture. He worked with prominent bands and artists like Die Toten Hosen, Nena, and Joy Division/New Order among others. During the 1980s, Reeder enabled East Germans to experience western punk rock music. Upon the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany in 1990, he helped support the genre of techno by pioneering trance techno music and playing gigs in abandoned factories in former East Berlin (Figure 1). Continue reading

Pop History of Deindustrialisation: Narratives, Economies, Identities. “The West” in Global Perspective (1970s-today) — Conference Report

Conference Room at Trinity Hall.

As the visiting scholars gathered under the gothic arches of Trinity Hall, whose timeless walls appeared seemingly unchanged since their medieval foundations, perhaps the topic at hand felt rather anachronistic: the Pop History of Deindustrialisation. It was in Cambridge where a joint conference of the Cambridge DAAD Research Hub for German Studies and the Confronting Decline (CONDE) Project at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (Munich-Berlin) commenced on 14 November, 2024. Across three panels, nine presentations, a keynote lecture, and a performative talk, the conference explored various angles of rethinking deindustrialisation’s traditional narratives of decline and loss—instead uncovering moments of creation amidst destruction, cultural rebirth amidst socioeconomic decline, and the production of new spaces for artistic creativity among the ruins of postindustrial wastelands. Continue reading

Entretien sur « Histoire de la pop. Quand la culture jeune dépasse les frontièrs » (video)

Interview de Bodo Mrozek, dans le cadre de la sortie de son ouvrage Histoire de la pop. Quand la culture jeune dépasse les frontières (années 1950-1960), publié le 25 janvier aux Éditions de la MSH. Plus d’informations sur l’ouvrage en cliquant ici.

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Conference: Pop History of Deindustrialization: Narratives, Economies, Identities. “The West” in Global Perspective (Cambridge, 14-16 November 24)

Dimoni Industrial/Industrial Devil. (Idranx from Badalona, SPAIN, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons).

Since the 1970s, deindustrialization – or the massive reduction in industrial production, facilities, and jobs – has fundamentally changed Western societies. This history has tended to be narrated in terms of decline and loss, usually within a local or national locus. Recently, scholars have challenged the isolated directionality of these narratives by bringing global and cross-industrial perspectives to the fore. Deindustrialization instigated an uneven set of experiences in different spaces, and forms of rupture and continuity. Those experiences have been reflected in various forms of pop culture. As examples from Germany and Great Britain demonstrate, Western deindustrialization unfolded in the midst of global, and particularly Asian, industrialization, reinforcing each other, as the example of South Korea illustrates.

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Histoire de la pop. Quand la jeunesse dépasse les frontières (présentations du livre, Paris, 27.6. et 2.7.24)

Dans les années 1950 et 1960, la culture jeune connaît un véritable bouleversement qui ébranle et scandalise la société. De nouveaux codes et pratiques de musique ou de mode ainsi que de nouveaux comportements voient le jour, déclenchant des débats houleux sur la prétendue délinquance juvénile. La culture pop naissante est interprétée comme une dégradation des mœurs et de la morale, et il convient donc de discipliner cette jeunesse « déviante » par la censure, les interdictions et les sanctions. Parallèlement, des modes de dévalorisation racistes, genrés ou reposant sur des préjugés sociaux imprègnent profondément l’opposition à ce changement culturel.

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Kälte-Pop 1978-1983 (Neuerscheinung & Buchpremiere: Berlin, 26.3.24)

Gegen Ende der 1970er Jahre entstand ein ästhetisch-subjektkulturelles Konzept in der deutschsprachigen Pop-Musik, das alles ‚Kalte‘ affirmierte: ‚Kälte-Pop‘. Bands wie Kraftwerk, DAF und Einstürzende Neubauten entwickelten als Gegenentwurf zum pop- wie gegenkulturell hegemonialen Wärme-Kult ein System von Motiven und Strategien, das all jene Zeichen und Prozesse der (Post-)Moderne ästhetisierte und glorifizierte. Die bundesdeutsche Gesellschaft und vor allem das linksalternative Milieu wurden darin als negative Aspekte einer vermeintlich kalten Welt interpretiert: Gefühlslosigkeit und Dehumanisierung, Industrie und Großstadt, Künstlichkeit und Entfremdung, Disziplin und körperliche Funktionalität, Schnee und Eis, Beton und Stahl sowie Computer, Maschinen und Roboter. Dabei schlugen die ‚Kälte‘-Akteur:innen eine Brücke zu den Historischen Avantgarden der 1920er Jahre und inszenierten sich stereotypisch als ‚kalte Deutsche‘. Continue reading

Heavy Metal in the GDR: Exhibition in Berlin (19.03.2024 – 09.02.2025)

The Iron Curtain did not prevent the spread of heavy metal. In the second half of the 1980s,  Stasi and youth sociologists considered metalheads to be the largest subcultural group among GDR youth.

The Museum in der Kulturbrauerei in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg is dedicating an exhibition to this often-overlooked youth culture between March 19, 2024 and February 9, 2025.

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Between ‘Auschwitz Rules’ and ‘Never Again’: Holocaust Representation in Metal (Project sketch)

In current memory studies, it has become possible to explore previously tabooed representations of the Holocaust, which has been summarized under the term of ‘holocaust impiety’ (Boswell 2012). Metal has already been looked at as remembrance culture in its own right (Philipps 2012) and the use of historical themes is at the centre of manifold studies in the field. However, the Holocaust specifically has only been a marginal subject so far – either being categorized as a downright ‘problem’ (Kahn-Harris 2020), limited to exemplary case studies, or analysed as problematic part of National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM).

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Workshop “Popkultur und die Historizität der Gegenwart” (Berlin, 29.11.2023)

After three semesters of looking into the medial premises and sociological dynamics of audiovisual cultures, our research focus of the winter term of 2023/24 will be on their historiographical implications. With this shift we take up discussions of previous semesters on topics such as the Cinematic Image and Historical Experience, as well as Material and Method. The notion of a historical phenomenology aims at the historicity of concrete forms of appearance and perception: To what extent can we think of audiovisual images as themselves bringing forth the  spheres in which they emerge by shaping the possibilities of communal experience at a given point in time and space? Continue reading

Club, Bühne, Mauer: Populäre Musik und Politik im geteilten Berlin (Workshop: Berlin, 28.11.23)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_B_145_Bild-F078996-0032,_Berlin,_Michael_Jackson-Konzert,_Wartende.jpg

Juni 1988 Berlin (West), Warteschlangen Jugendlicher vor dem Konzert von Kichael Jackson vor dem Reichstag (Quelle: Bundesarchiv)

Veranstalter: Berliner Beauftragter zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur
Stiftung Ernst-Reuter-Archiv
Organisation: Dr. Michael C. Bienert, Konstantin Krieter, Dr. Jens Schöne

Ein Workshop in Berlin widmet sich der Pop-Kultur im geteilten Berlin.

Die Anmeldung ist bereits geschlossen.

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Popular Cultures of Conservatism in Western Europe since the 1960s (new publication)

The most recent volume of the German Yearbook of Contemporary History focuses on cultures of conservatism in Western Europe, particularly the United Kingdom. It is especially interested in the transnational and transatlantic traffic in ideas, culture, and lifestyles between Europe and the United States in the final decades of the twentieth century. The first two contributions, “‘Abolish Economists!’: The Britcom Yes Minister and the Transformation of British Conservatism in the Thatcher Era” and “Thatcherism and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Musicals” by Nikolai Wehrs and Amanda Eubanks Winker explore the relationship between Thatcherism and culture. Continue reading

100 Jahre Radio in Deutschland (Neuerscheinung)

Im Oktober 1923 ging das erste offizielle deutsche Rundfunkprogramm auf Sendung und feiert damit dieser Tage 100. Geburtstag. Auch 100 Jahre später ist das Radio nicht aus der Medienwelt wegzudenken, ob als Informationsquelle, Kulturproduzent oder musikalischer Tagesbegleiter. Stets im Zeichen politischer, gesellschaftlicher und technischer Entwicklungen stehend, hat es immer wieder seine Wandlungsfähigkeit und Relevanz unter Beweis stellen können. Ein von Diemut Roether, Hans Sarkowicz und Clemens Zimmermann herausgegebener, umfangreicher Band wirft Schlaglichter auf die verschiedenen Facetten der deutschen Radiogeschichte und wagt zugleich einen Ausblick in die Zukunft des ebenso langlebigen wie vielseitigen Mediums. Continue reading

“Pop after Communism. The Transformation of Popular Culture after 1989/90” (conference program, Nov. 15-17, 2023)

Picture: Wikimedia Commons, Author: Ignat Ignev; Poster: Dovilė Vičkačkaitė

The social changes that went along with the political upheaval of 1989/90 in the countries of state socialism were not limited to the political system, economic structures or social conditions. The late phase and the end of state socialism were marked by a far-reaching transformation of popular culture, with global cultural changes becoming an important driver of the post-communist transformation. The conference brings together researchers from the broad field of pop history to examine the overarching trends of fundamental socio-cultural change that followed the political upheaval of 1989/90.

Conference language is English, the book presentation by Jens Balzer on November 15 is in German. Continue reading