Rocking The State : Rock Music And Politics In Eastern Europe And Russia

This book analyzes the rise of specific rock groups throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, examining the broader social culture in which they operated and evaluating the political ramifications of their popularity.

Most readers of this book will have had at most a fleeting acquaintancewith the music of some of the groups described in this book. Groupssuch as Laibach (from Slovenia), Borghesia (Slovenia), Pankow (theGDR), and Gorky Park (USSR) have concentrated on the Western marketand have acquired followings in the United States and Western Europe.Other artists and groups, such as Boris Grebenshikov and Aquarium(USSR), Sergei Kuryokhin (USSR), Goran Bregovic and White Button(Yugoslavia), and Plastic People of the Universe (Czechoslovakia), havealso seen some Western exposure. But for the most part, the rock musicof that part of the world is terra incognita to Westerners. So too is thestory of their uneasy coexistence with communist authorities from thetime that rock first ~ppeared until the collapse of communism in 1989.This book aims to fill that vacuum.