IRISH SCENE AND SOUND IRISH SCENE AND SOUND Identity, Authenticity and Transnationality among Young Musicians Virva Basegmez Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology, 57 2005 IRISH SCENE AND SOUND Identity, Authenticity and Transnationality among Young Musicians Doctoral dissertation © Virva Basegmez 2005 Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology, 57 Cover design by Helen Åsman and Virva Basegmez Cover photo by Virva Basegmez Department of Social Anthropology Stockholm University S-106 91 Stockholm Sweden All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author. ISBN 91-7155-084-4 Printed by Elanders Gotab, Stockholm 2005 This book is distributed by Almqvist & Wiksell International P.O. Box 76 34 S-103 94 Stockholm Sweden E-mail:
[email protected] To Tilda and Murat CONTENTS Acknowledgements x 1 INTRODUCTION: SCENES IN THE SCENE 1 Irish national identity: past and present dislocation 5 Anthropology of Ireland, rural and urban 14 Fields in the field 16 Media contexts, return visits and extended ethnography 20 The Celtic Tiger and the Irish international music industry 22 Outline of the chapters 28 2 GENRE, SOUND AND PATHWAYS 31 Studies of popular music and some theoretical orientations 31 The concept of genre: flux, usage, context 34 Genre, style and canonisation 37 Music genres in Ireland 39 Irish traditional music and its revival 39 Irish rock music and indies 44 Showbands, cover bands and tribute bands 45 Folk rock and Celtic music 47 Fusions, world music,