I'm not sure how many of you've got Spotify, but if you do it might interest you to hear this playlist I put together of distinctly non-Balkan Beatsy Balkan music, from every interesting country except Albania/Kosovo whose Spotify presence is disturbingly non-existent. Lots of great material is not on Spotify of course, but I think I still managed to bring together a fair deal. Balkan not Beats (Spotify playlist)
Blogging return planned soon, on a semi-regular basis.
I know, I know, these things are supposed to be announced on the blog before hand, but now I'm here and loving it.
As you may know, I'm doing my master's thesis on Romanian manele music, one of my favourite genres of contemporary Balkan music, and I'm super-excited to finally be down doing field research in the awesome metropolis of Bucharest, the megalomaniac new Rome imagined and executed by this guy. So far it's been going great - in fact one of my contacts just texted me saying I might be getting an interview with the biggest producer in the business, which would be awesome. Other than that I've talked a bit to fans and to fellow ethno-/musicologists, including the awesome Marin Marian-Balasa, whose own research and outlook perfectly complements a lot of the stuff I was hoping to get out of the trip.
I've got masses of great stuff already spinning around my head, and I'll start dropping the cooler angles and anecdotes on this blog as I go along. Meanwhile, to demonstrate that manele really does take inspiration from EVERYWHERE - it' standout feature to me and the focus of my research - here's a manele track that copies... Fitness craze Zumba!?
What is it with the continual association of the Balkans with brass bands, klezmer and "gypsy" breakbeats? For the past 20 years, the Balkans have been the site of an almost Caribbean-like explosion of different styles in the wake of the fall of communism, and for those of you who're not really into this stuff I thought it'd be worth it to put together a very brief primer, a few sentences per genre and one or two Youtube vids. The social context is super-interesting too but I'll leave that for another time.
Generally, all the genres of Balkan pop exist in a continuum where they're more or less synth-driven, more or less associated with the Roma or other ethnic minorities and more or less take their musical cues from what happens in Istanbul. Other influences felt across the board are Arabic and Indian music, commercial pop, European dance music, hip-hop and, to a surprising extent, reggaeton.
Here's some of the major genres developed in the past 20 years, roughly in a sweep from the south-west to the north-east:
Turbo-Folk The occasionally controversial pop music of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia used to have less Eastern influence than the rest (and still does in Slovenia to horrendous result) but now it's right there on Istanbul's heels as well, or sometimes up in space. Often, this stuff is touted as what should eventually heal the old enmities of the former Yugoslavia.
The brassiest thing you'll see on here today:
Tallava Tallava is music from Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia, to varying degrees the music of the Roma, the Albanians themselves and of the Ashkali. It values weird synth equilibrism and has this drone-like quality which lends well to being mixed with dub and psychedelic sounds. At another end it's got a whole hip-hop remix culture set up, and can be some of the more funky music of the Balkans.
Endless, rambling tracks like this one are de rigeur, don't miss the invitation to "dansu reggu" near the end:
Oh, and in case you're missing the Dembow, it's alive and kicking in Macedonia:
Skyládiko Greece has more continuity to its music scene than the former communist countries, and more connection to the west, so the Balkan pop scene here tends to be a tad ill-kempt (Skyládiko means "doghouse"). On the other hand it's close enough to the very commercial and very successful greek pop scene that it sometimes hard to tell the difference.
I mean, stuff like this is good but more Eurovision than dancefloor:
Chalga I posted a whole mix-tape's worth of Bulgarian music a year ago, which I could re-upload if anyone wants it. In any case, Chalga, or Popfolk, is probably the most commercially successful and well-balanced music of the lot and very much mainstream music in Bulgaria. At its best it's totally at the level of quality commercial hip-hop, and well worth listening to.
It's also unusually house-club-remix friendly:
Kyuchek As it's used today in Bulgaria, this is Chalga's low-production-value Turk-Bulgarian cousin. Cheezy synth and/or clarinets set to belly dance rhythms by various funnily-named Orkestars, this can be topical, silly or dancey and is certainly more fun than some of its straight-laced cousins.
I mean, look at the dude ass-dancing in this video:
Manele Okay, this is my favourite genre in the area and it's going to be the topic of my master's thesis, so you'll hear lots more about this in the winter and spring. Nevertheless, Romania's contribution to the spectrum is the most compelling to me - it's super-diverse, it's got the most wide-reaching influence set, the most heart-felt vocals and just the right mix between rough-hewn and interesting. Some songs are achingly beautiful, some are about butts and feature a reggaeton rapper or something. How can you not love this stuff?
Here's both a dancehall toaster and diva tragedy in one package:
RnBesk The only reason I'm including this is because it appears on Wikipedia's bare-bones Balkan Pop page. That and the great portmanteau name. It's Balkan in the sense that it's Turkish-influenced European music, but the origin of the genre is Germany, which I admit is a bit of a stretch. Still, it's fairly cool as a decidedly lo-fi example of how interesting diasporadic music can be.
Apparently this guy is a huge star:
Well, there you go. Diversity, depth and more involvement is just around the corner if you do some digging!
Wow. I just watched the first semi-final of this year's Eurovision Song Contest and I was really drawn back into it all. What an amazing stage set up! I'm starting to regret not spending several months analysing every single entry like I did last year.
Because there's plenty to analyse I think. Some of the things happening are quite fascinating, and some even have real-world impact. I'm thinking, for instance, of the balkanisation of Romania.
No, not that kind of balkanisation. I'm talking about how Romania has finally succumbed to using imagery, music and lyrics reflecting its place in the Balkans, something they've never done in Eurovision before.
This may not sound like much, but it runs totally anathema to what for many years was Romania's national image. Romania used to be occupied by the Ottoman empire, and its nationalist movement was very clear in emphasising its Western, romance heritage, in strong contrast with anything vaguely Turkish. The Balkan, eastern aspect of its culture was relegated to an "other" - the culture of gypsies, the poor, immigrants. That's part of the explanation why manele music is so despised in Romania.
Similar stories can be found in just about every country whose modernism stands in contrast to the Ottoman empire. But in the past decades, the hate for all things Balkan-sounding has slowly seeped out of Eurovision in most countries. Greece and Turkey let up early, and in recent years even Slavic stalwart Bulgaria has gone nearly full-on Balkanic. But this year must be some kind of record. From Azerbaijan to Spain to Moldova, the pop and folk sounds of the Balkans have spread everywhere, and obviously that now includes Romania. In a rather weak and slightly R&B-inspired way, but still.
What does this mean? Is Romania losing its antipathy to manele, and by extension the Roma? Is Balkan pop softening and becoming mainstream like rock'n'roll once did? Well, I'm waiting for the full-on manele entry to arrive first before I'm totally convinced. But it's an interesting trend nonetheless.
PS. As a fan and staunch supporter of minorities, it's fascinating to me that Elena Gheoghe is Arumanian, one of the most oppressed minorities in Greece and Albania. Update: I found a Romanian blog post which suggests manele can be seen as nationally distinctive music, something that's immediately hacked down on by commenters.
Geez, I've not checked up on the Albanian/Kosovar/Kosovar diaspora music scene for ages and it's suddenly involved into this awesome hip-hop-remixing thing. I'll be acquiring material off some sharing sites but the Youtube stuff is very promising indeed, some of the best and most fresh Balkan material I've heard for ages.
That horrible girlfriend-battering fiend - Gimme That (DJ Suat Tallava Remix)
Fat Joe - Make It Rain (DJ Buligang Tallava Remix)
This shit is hot. Fun that they put Tallava drums on American pop instead of the other way around.
