Journal of European Popular Culture - Current Issue

The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) was initiated as a means to create a collaborative climate among the (western) European countries after the Second World War. Still, the ESC is about competing among countries. Furthermore, it has been used to foster a national spirit and communicate about specific cultures and styles, and the bloc voting indicates a continuous alliancing rather than a shared European collaboration. This article discusses the paradoxes of ESC through elaborating on its love and hate, peace and war paradoxes. It makes an important account on the ESC as an initiative filled with paradoxes that may strongly challenge its initial intentions. The theorizing on paradoxes structures these and helps capture several dimensions of the ESC as interdependent and contradictory.

Recent research has examined the ways in which Spain and Spanishness have been construed by foreigners from the Middle Ages to the end of the twentieth century. Varela Ortega identifies four main Spanish stereotypes. Two are positive: the brave Spaniard and the passionate Spaniard. The other two are negative: the idle Spaniard and the degenerate Spaniard. This article analyses how Spain and Spanishness were portrayed in six promotional videos by six of the most successful anglophone music artists of the 1980s, the decade when music videos became a crucial element in the music industry and in popular culture. These artists are Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Nik Kershaw, Madonna, The Pogues and Simple Minds. This research shows that, in the last part of the twentieth century, Spaniards were mainly perceived in English-speaking popular cultures according to the two positive stereotypes identified by Varela Ortega. In those videos, Spanish bravery and passion are recurrently embodied by bullfighters and flamenco female dancers, and on one occasion by Don Quixote. Some of these artists embrace those stereotypes that characterized Spanishness. One video portrays Spain as a ‘Romantic’ land. Only one video projects the negative stereotype of an underdeveloped Spain.

During the past two decades, the Republic of Cyprus (RoC) witnessed an intense music activity, specifically in the realm of its independent popular music production, that has produced and keeps producing an extensive output. This development appears to not be reflected in the country’s cultural public sphere, leading to the common misconception that RoC lacks a music industry and does not produce music. As a result, two parallel music realities exist: music for the consumers, informed by the media and the music industry of Greece, and music of the creators, developed and experienced by the musicians. This article explores this paradox by examining recent music production in RoC through song releases, surveys and interviews with active musicians. It contextualizes the independent popular musicscape of RoC within the context of postcolonial Cyprus, addressing how historical and political factors have hindered the country’s ability to claim a popular music heritage. This situation places local music creators in a precarious position, in times when the European Union seeks to support local music creation in response to technological developments like AI and music recommendation systems.