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‘I Need More of You’: Popular Music, Public Space and Political Mobilization

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Populist actors in Austria have long since recognized that popular music is a powerful medium in political practice. The Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) especially has a long history of playing ‘good-time music’ at campaign events, most notably folksy Schlager. This is a field of music that has been mostly neglected in popular music research and has thus been underestimated regarding its power to mobilize. The question here is how music as cheerful and seemingly innocuous as this can be applicable to populist politics. Here, it is vital to not look for fixed musical ‘qualities’ but to focus instead on ‘affordances’ in situations of the music's performance and reception. My ethnographic approach deals with popular music in the context of political campaign events and based on this, examines the same music in other, less explicitly political situations. My paper offers an “evocative ethnography” with the aim of making explicit what usually remains implicit concerning popular music and the potential to use it in political contexts. The paper covers research from the international project “Popular Music and the Rise of Populism in Europe” (Volkswagen Foundation, 2019-2022, cf. Dunkel et al. 2018).

Keywords: affordances ; campaign events ; evocative ethnography ; Freedom Party of Austria ; live music ; party politics ; popular music ; right-wing populism ; schlager ; tacit knowledge

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References

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References

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  2. Botsch, Gideon (2020), ‘“Wann i’ denk wie's früher war” – Nationalismus in der “postnationalen Konstellation”’, in R. v. Appen and T. Hindrichs (eds), One Nation Under a Groove: ‘Nation’ als Kategorie populärer Musik, Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 15–30.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. DeNora, Tia (2004), Music in Everyday Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Doehring, André and Ginkel, Kai (2022), ‘Songs of tractors and submission: On the assembled politicity of popular music and its material spaces in Austria’, in M. Dunkel and M. Schiller (eds), Popular Music, Special Issue: ‘Popular Music and Populism’, 41:3, pp. 354–69.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Doehring, André, Ginkel, Kai and Krisper, Eva (2019), ‘Remixe. Remixen. Popularmusikforschung: Potentiale für methodologische Neugestaltungen’, in R. von Appen and M. Dunkel (eds), (Dis-)Orienting Sounds: Machtkritische Perspektiven auf populäre Musik, Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 283–304.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Dunkel, Mario, Barna, Emilia, Caiani, Manuela, Doehring, André, Niederauer, Martin and Schiller, Melanie (2018), Popular Music and the Mainstreaming of Populist Ideologies in Europe, research proposal (unpublished).
  7. Förster, Till (2022), ‘Bodily ethnography: Some epistemological challenges of participation’, Ethnography, online first, pp. 1–15.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Frith, Simon (1996), Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music, Harvard: Harvard University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Gergen, Kenneth J. and Gergen, Mary M. (2018), ‘Doing things with words: Toward evocative ethnography’, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 15:2&3, pp. 272–86.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Ginkel, Kai (2017), Noise – Klang zwischen Musik und Lärm. Zu einer Praxeologie des Auditiven, Bielefeld: Transcript.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Ginkel, Kai, Schwenck, Anna, Schiller, Melanie, Doehring, André and Dunkel, Mario (2023), ‘Populäre Musik als nationalistische Ressource? Vergleichende Schlaglichter auf AfD, FPÖ und die Schwedendemokraten’, in M. Spiritova and M. Trummer (eds), ‘Pop the Nation!’: Das Nationale als Ressource und Argument in Kulturen populärer Unterhaltung und Vergnügung, pp. 93–112.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Hirschauer, Stefan (2006), ‘Putting things into words: Ethnographic description and the silence of the social’, Human Studies, 29:4, pp. 413–41.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Kurier (2019), ‘Grazer Maifeier: SPÖ soll Gabalier-Lieder untersagt haben’, Kurier, 2 May, https://kurier.at/chronik/oesterreich/grazer-maifeier-spoe-soll-gabalier-lieder-untersagt-haben/400482592. Accessed 17 January 2022.
  14. Maanen, John van ([1988] 2011), Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography, 2nd ed., Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Meyer, Christian and Wedelstaedt, Ulrich von (2015), ‘Teamsubjekte: Rituelle Körpertechniken und Formen der Vergemeinschaftung im Spitzensport’, in R. Gugutzer and M. Staack (eds), Körper und Ritual: Sozialwissenschaftliche Zugänge und Analysen, Wiesbaden: VS Springer, pp. 97–124.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Mudde, Cas and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira (2017), Populism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press.182
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Pilkington, H. (2016), Loud and Proud: Passion and Politics in the English Defence League, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Rösing, Helmut (2004), ‘Wie politisch kann Musik sein?’, in D. Helms (ed.), 9/11: The World's All Out of Tune, Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 155–68.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Schatzki, Theodorore (2019), Social Change in a Material World, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Schoenebeck, Mechthild von (1994), ‘“Wenn die Heidschnucken sich in die Äuglein gucken …”: Politische Inhalte des volkstümlichen Schlagers’, in H. Rösing (ed.), Musik der Skinheads und ein Gegenpart: Beiträge zur Popularmusikforschung 13, Hamburg: CODA-Verlag, pp. 6–24.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Schütz, Alfred (1951), ‘Making music together: A study in social relationship’, Social Research, 18:1&4, pp. 76–97.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Shotter, John (2010), Social Construction on the Edgitnessess: Thinking and Embodiment, Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Taggart, Paul (2000), Populism, Maidenhead and Berkshire: Open University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Alabama (1982), ‘Mountain Music’, Mountain Music, LP, Nashville: RCA.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Bellamy Brothers (1984), ‘I Need More of You’, Restless, LP, Nashville: Curb Records.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Die Draufgänger (2018), ‘Cordula Grün’, #Hektarparty, CD, Munich: Electrola.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Die Paldauer (2016), ‘3.000 Jahre’, 3.000 Jahre, CD, Ötztal-Bahnhof: MCP Sound and Media.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Disturbed (2015), ‘The Sound of Silence’, Immortalized, CD, Burbank/New York: Reprise.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Gabalier, Andreas (2015), ‘Hulapalu’, Mountain Man, CD, Hilversum: Universal.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Josh (2018), ‘Cordula Grün’, Von Mädchen und Farben (2019), CD, Hamburg: Warner Music.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Simon & Garfunkel (1968), ‘The Sound of Silence’, The Graduate (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), LP, New York: Columbia Masterworks.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Strauss, Johann II (1866), ‘The Blue Danube’, Op. 314.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Strauss, Johann Sr. (1848), ‘Radetzky March’, Op. 228.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Tyler, Bonnie (1984), ‘Holding Out for a Hero’, Footloose (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), LP, New York: Columbia.
     [Google Scholar]

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