Authors

Discussion

Working on our book War of Songs (Ibidem 2019) we were struck by how swiftly popular music responded to social and geopolitical upheaval. Popular music was literally omnipresent during this turn in Russia-Ukraine relations.

Shifting our attention to the comparatively still and deep waters of Belarus, we are faced with some fundamental challenges. As well as being an under-studied field (despite a few, very prominent exceptions), Belarusian popular music has established itself and developed along very different socio-political trajectories, in a socio-political climate of “stability” envisioned by Europe’s longest-serving head of state. Beneath this surface, what positions, currents, and movements are represented by bands and artists, and how are they articulated? Music and societal change have occupied scholars since Plato, but thus far academic research has chiefly dealt with such dynamics after the fact. What can popular music tell us about what is brewing in Belarus, and how? For answers, the current paper looks to the perspectives of Jaques Attali, as presented in his book Bruits: essai sur l’economie politique de la musique (1977). Attali argues that societal change first manifests itself culturally – and specifically in music.