DOI: 10.1515/irsr-2012-0013 IRSR INTERNATIONAL REVIEW of SOCIAL RESEARCH Volume 2, Issue 2, June 2012, 1-20 International Review of Social Research ‘Catalanism Only Will Win by the Force of Songs’, Revisited 100 Years After. The Role of Catalan(ist) Pop-Rock Music in Socially Sanitizing Working-Class Neighborhoods of Barcelona (1976–2000) Jordi NOFRE• Centro de Estudos de Sociologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (CESNOVA) Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities New Lisbon University Abstract: During the last years of the Spanish fascist regime, two politically contrary music scenes emerged in Barcelona. While Catalanist folk music emerged for political freedom, Spanished rock’n’roll, punk, and heavy scenes emerged in the working-class suburbs of Barcelona, denouncing bad conditions of everyday urban life. The great success of this last music scene in Barcelona in the 1980s led to the then nationalist, conservative government of Catalonia to promote a new socially and politically sanitized music scene in response to such class-based contestation. This study aims to explore how a new Catalan(ist) pop-rock scene was created to socially and culturally sanitize the working-class suburbs of Barcelona along the decades of the 1980s and 1990s. Keywords: music, cultural consumption, social and political dualization, youth, Barcelona. Introduction then bourgeois city, which had to be one of the most important industrial ‘Catalanism only will win by the force cities of all Europe (Marfany, 1995; of songs’ is what some conservative Duarte, 1999; Ucelay-DaCal, 2003). Catalanists such as Santiago Rusiñol Largely due to the fact that a very claimed against the popularity of significant part of social practices of flamenco in the first years of the working classes of Barcelona sheltered twentieth century in Barcelona.1 In the social contestations against political- crucial moment of industrialization cultural hegemony (re)produced by of the Catalan capital, its ruling the Catalanist ruling classes from the classes aimed to socially sanitize the inner city, together with the explicit •e-mail: [email protected]. This research was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia de Portugal (FCT) and the Centro de Estudos de Sociologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (CesNova-FCSH/UNL). © University of Bucharest, June 2012 2 | IRSR Volume 2, Issue 2, June 2012 aim of putting an end to the quasi- studying Barcelona and Catalunya as daily social conflicts that took place well as their societies is that the so- in Barcelona during the first decade called ‘national vector’ must be added of the twentieth century, the dominant to the classical ideological positioning classes began to strongly denounce of the individual should not be what they pejoratively called as overlooked. In fact, even after 300 ‘Spanished’ working-class culture. years, Catalonia still continues to be More in detail, the term ‘Spanished’ militarily occupied by Spain at a time refers to any social practice belonging which is the most important industrial to the Spanish-rooted culture (e.g. engine not only in Spain, but also in flamenco music), and the term Southern Europe. Such unresolved flamenquism – already used in the political tensions between Spain and following text – embraces the whole of Catalonia still continue to feature in flamenco-based art (music, dance, art, daily life in Catalonia. For example, etc.), which was strongly denounced the last Barcelona Youth Survey (2003) by the then nationalist ruling classes incorporated the following question: from Barcelona as the evidence of the ‘Do you feel only Catalan? Or more ‘Spanishization’ of Catalan culture. Catalan than Spanish? Or as Catalan In fact, the problem of the so-called as Spanish? Or more Spanish than flamenquism – or also known as ‘the Catalan? Or only Spanish? Or N/A?’ working-class question’ (Marfany, Certainly, it would be unthinkable 1995; Ucelay-DaCal, 2003) – was to ask the Californians if they feel the main challenge that the Catalanist more Californians than Americans, conservative political-cultural project or vice versa. In Catalonia, this dual called Noucentism (1906–1923) positioning of individuals plays a key faced. The result of many decades role in shaping youth identities and, (1880–1930) of promoting the cultural consequently, cultural consumption as colonization of working-class suburbs well (Nofre, 2009a, 2011). According to of Barcelona was the achievement the Catalan Government (CEO, 2007), of a reinforced Catalonia faced with while the working classes feel more the second wave of the European Spanish than Catalan or as Catalan industrialization, the revolution of as Spanish, upper-middle classes feel transports, and the so-called first more Catalan than Spanish, or solely globalization. All this helped to Catalan. Thus, ‘If you have money, you situate Catalonia as one of the most are Catalanist’ were the provocative industrialized regions in Europe in the headline that the Spanish newspaper El beginning of the twentieth century. País released on 20 April 2007. This However, economic, social, cultural, brief sociopolitical contextualization and political challenges owing to the of contemporary Catalonia should instauration of democracy in Spain allow easy comprehension of the after the fascist regime have many following text. similarities with those aforementioned This study intends to explore how, for the first decades of the twentieth from the field of music consumption, century. the nationalist and conservative On the other hand, the fact that one Catalan Government elected after the of the most important particularities in Spanish fascist regime aimed at socially JORDI NOFRE The Role of Catalan(ist) Pop-Rock Music | 3 homogenizing the Catalan society. By depicted to better understand how examining the period of 1976–2000, political-cultural hegemonies and this study shows how the creation resistances emerged in Barcelona, of a new Catalan(ist) music scene in especially in the field of music Barcelona by the nationalist Catalan production and consumption. Government aimed at combating those Spanished music – mainly punk and rock’n’roll – whose lyrics usually Introduction. Situating rock’n’roll denounced bad daily living conditions and punk as politicized in Barcelona working-class suburbs. ‘contestations’ As conclusion, this study suggests that the creation of this new Catalan(ist) Music and its consumption have played music scene may be considered as the an important role in the configuration continuation of the Noucentist project of Western youth cultures during the interrupted since the end of the first last half century, but more particularly, quarter of the twentieth century by a in those so-called ‘subcultures’ convulse Republican period as well as (Murdock and McCrone, 1975; a fascist dictatorship. Willis, 1990; Machado Pais, 2004). In this study, primary and Lawrence Grossberg (1992) argued secondary sources, especially recently that rock music is not considered as published oral histories referring to the a youth cultural expression, but as a underground scene in Barcelona during depoliticized, disposable, reminiscent the past three decades, have been used. commodity, and a false ‘escape’ from Largely owing to the inexistence of the real world (Brake,1973; Laughey, qualitative surveys on young music 2006), whereas Lily Kong (1995) consumption, this study has employed argued that music could express some qualitative information from the resistance or even hegemony. author’s doctoral thesis (Nofre, 2009a) Teds, mods, rockers, beats, on suburban nightscapes and music and hippies – subcultures of noise consumption, such as some direct (Hedbidge, 1979:90), as a metaphor interviews – carried out in April 2007 that ‘possesses a deep, romantic, and – with young consumers aged between poetic resonance for many scholars’ 13 and 34 years. Thus, this study is (Stahl, 2003:27). Many over-excited about a spatial qualitative analysis, Marxists social scientists, and thinkers, although the readers are encouraged to mostly born in May 1968, considered construct their own mental analysis. subcultural styles as utopian resistances The following text aims to remark because they took objects from the the importance of considering punks dominant culture and transformed and rockers as two Western youth their everyday naturalized meanings politicized subcultures to better into something spectacular and alien understand their local-scaled role (Stahl, 2003:27); however, this could in claiming for better daily living be largely discussed. For example, conditions in their cities. Subsequently, many authors observed the emergence underground music scenes in Catalonia of counterculture in the United States since the end of the 1970s will be in the mid-1960s as a social, cultural, 4 | IRSR Volume 2, Issue 2, June 2012 and political issue created by young under the earlier postmodern pretext/ US-bohemian middle classes (Wilson, context of the society of the spectacle 1970, Clarke et al., 1975, Murdock and (Debord, 1967). For example, mass McCrone, 1975; Cusset, 2005). For media was the creator of mods and most of these authors, counterculture rockers, following societal reaction to was linked to the general radicalization their reporting of disturbances between and politicization (and later, de- two groups in Britain (Cohen, 1980). politicization) of some middle-class In line with this, Sara Thornton (1996) youth strata belonging to a thinly suggested that media is integral to the disguised