East-West Transfers in Popular Music (Three Case Studies from the Yugoslav Disco Repertoire)

Abstract

Mostly interpreted and judged using binary patterns, popular music in the former socialist countries was simplistically labelled either as politically conformist, if aligned to the cultural political doctrines, or received as transgressive, when adopting imported models from the “West”. This interpretation grounds on a basic ideological assumption which considers the “East” as official and regressive and the “West” as unofficial and progressive, and makes it therefore rather difficult to reflect on one of the main issues of popular music history, namely the roles of emulation or imitation and originality. By considering the importance of transfer processes between “East” and “West”, this paper deals with three case studies from the former Yugoslav disco repertoire. By combining theories of intertextuality developed in the field of literary studies by Gérard Genette and its reception in popular music studies through Serge Lacasse with Isabelle Marc’s seminal article on musical transfer in popular music, we show some processes of adaptation and transformation of special models of Western music.