Canonic formations and non-canonic positionings: The case of post-millennium Danish popular music

This article investigates ways in which canonic discourses form part of the everyday popular music culture among both audiences and music critics in the early twenty-first century. By analysing reviews in which artists and albums of the so-called New Danish Wave are juxtaposed with Danish canonic artists and albums from the 1960s to the 1980s, it is argued that canonic discourse forms an important, yet unreflected or even unnoticed vehicle for the reception of the music in question. Even though a canonical fragmentation during the turn of the millennium may be identified on a global scale, the incident shows how national agendas and positions are able to go against this trend in a small-scale nation like Denmark.