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.
Tag Archives: pophistory
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
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
« Une réincarnation de Monsieur Serge » : la mondialisation de Gainsbourg par la culture club (Entretien avec Minimatic)

Pascale Houpert a.ka. Minimatic.
L’artiste Pascal Houpert est musicien, DJ, producteur et arrangeur dans les genres du New Jazz, Minimal et Electro Swing. Né à Paris, il habite actuellement à Cognac. Houpert est connu sous les pseudonymes de Minimatic, Boogalox, Brother Moulinex et Monsieur Sonotone. Pour ses productions il utilise des enregistrements historiques qu’il transforme en club tunes. Ses disques sont connus sur les pistes de danse dans le monde entier. Pour les blogs « Du franco-allemand à l’âge global » et « PopHistory » nous avons parlé avec lui des origines de son remix d’un morceau classique des années soixante, « Chez les Yé-Yé » de Serge Gainsbourg. Continue reading
Pophistory of Decline: Promotions- oder Post-Doc-Stelle am IfZ (d/m/w, Bewerbungsschluss 31.03.2023)
Jeff Hayton: Culture from the Slums. Punk Rock in East and West Germany (Review)
Jeff Hayton’s monograph on punk culture in the Federal Republic and GDR could have become the standard historiographical work were it not for the many small and serious shortcomings and scholarly carelessness that undermine almost every positive aspect of the work. In fact, there is a lack of historical studies on German punk culture: since the early 2000s, only journalistic, cultural and social science works on punk in the Federal Republic have appeared, including publications in English. The steadily growing series of books on punk in the GDR have also lacked historical expertise. The only exception is Florian Lipp’s historical in-depth study on punk and New Wave in the last decade of the GDR, published in 2021, which, as Hayton himself writes, appeared too late to be included in his work. Consequently, the chapters on punk in the GDR do not offer much new information. Continue reading
Popgeschichte auf dem AboutPop-Festival (Stuttgart, 23. Juli 2022)
Auf dem AboutPop-Festival, das nun schon zum vierten Mal im Stuttgarter Wizemann tagt, wird es neben Konzerten, Performances, Praxis-Workshops und Talks im Konferenzprogramm auch mehrere Panels zur Popgeschichte geben.
Conference: “Pop Cultures and Ecstatic States of the Body, 1950s-80s”, Copenhagen, 30.9.-2.10.2021
Moshpit, photo: R0uge 2006. wetwebwork from london, U.K, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
During the 1950s, pop cultures became a phenomenon on a global scale. From the beginning, ecstatic states of the body – caused by the use of substances, by experimenting with different sorts of sexuality, by immersing into music and dancing, by reaching out to religion and spirituality – played an important part in pop cultures. Pop cultures and ecstatic bodies often depended on and referred to each other. States of ecstasy and trance, on the one hand, constituted driving forces in the shaping and the development of pop cultures. On the other hand, pop cultures created and spread new types of ecstasies and new practices of getting ecstatic. Continue reading
