B. Kutschke: Protest Music, Urban Contexts IRASM 46 (2015) 2: 321-354 and Global Perspectives Beate Kutschke TU Dresden Institut für Kunst- und Musikwissenschaft August-Bebel-Str. 20 01219 Dresden Protest Music, Urban Germany Contexts and Global E-mail:
[email protected] UDC: 78.067 Perspectives Original Scholarly Paper Izvorni znanstveni rad Received: February 13, 2015 Primljeno: 13. veljače 2015. Accepted: May 26, 2015 Prihvaćeno: 26. svibnja 2015. Abstract - Résumé This article argues that urban environments in the 1960s and 1970s provided excellent music-cultural and political conditions that stimulated not only protest, but also the crea- I. 1968 – Urbanism and Globalization tion and performance of protest music. It demonstrates this by means of two case studies. The It is evident that urban environments are good music of the Krautrock band CAN in Cologne and the Volks- cradles for protest. Urban environments are marked ambulanz Concert in West by densification and, therefore, offer what protesters Berlin can be considered as emerging from both cities’ and activists need most: the physical presence of unique political and cultural many people – crowds, masses – who express their situations. These were, para- doxically enough, the long-term dissent and forcefully demand change. These densely results of the reorganization of populated urban areas permit the mobilization not Germany after 1945. Both cities possessed lively avant-garde only of protesters, activists, and sympathizers, but music scenes with musicians also journalists and mass media that disseminate the from all over the world, as well as communal grievances that protesters’ message. Furthermore, compact urban triggered protest and protest neighbourhoods compress diverse, heterogeneous music; West Berlin was addi- tionally marked by its specific lifestyles, opinions and value systems opposed to status as a demilitarized zone each other and, thus, catalyze conflicts into protest and immured city.