Sounds Icelandic - Essays on Icelandic Music in the 20th and 21st Centuries - Þorbjörg Daphne Hall

Sounds Icelandic - Essays on Icelandic Music in the 20th and 21st Centuries - Þorbjörg Daphne Hall

Beyond Reykjavik 101: Iceland’s Popular Music Mainstream and the Eurovision Song Contest

Sounds Icelandic - Essays on Icelandic Music in the 20th and 21st Centuries - Þorbjörg Daphne Hall

Sarah Baker [+-]
Griffith University
Sarah Baker, PhD, is an associate professor of Cultural Sociology at Griffith University, Australia. She is co-author of Creative Labour: Media Work in Three Cultural Industries (Routledge 2011). Edited collections include Redefining Mainstream Popular Music (Routledge 2013), Youth Cultures and Subcultures (Ashgate 2015), and Preserving Popular Music Heritage (Routledge 2015).

Description

‘Everything changes in Iceland when Eurovision is on, and you don’t understand it but that’s the way it is’ (music documentary producer, 2010). Taking the above comment as a starting point, this chapter explores the place of the Eurovision Song Contest in Iceland’s musical landscape. Drawing on interviews undertaken in the capital of Reykjavik with 36 music industry workers, the chapter sets out to examine how the nation navigates and experiences a competition that is so divergent from the ‘left-field pop music’ for which Iceland is internationally renowned. To come to some understanding of why ‘everything changes in Iceland when Eurovision is on’, the chapter considers two different positions that emerged in the interviews. The first of these relates to what participation in Eurovision offers the Icelandic music industry, while the second concerns the pleasure of participation for viewers. In doing so the chapter highlights a number of ways in which Iceland’s Eurovision entries become a meaningful part of Icelandic culture and social life.

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Citation

Baker, Sarah. Beyond Reykjavik 101: Iceland’s Popular Music Mainstream and the Eurovision Song Contest. Sounds Icelandic - Essays on Icelandic Music in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 86-100 Apr 2019. ISBN 9781781791455. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=24104. Date accessed: 19 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.24104. Apr 2019

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