Berlin without Borders? Urban Anthems in Twenty-First-Century Popular Music

Authors

Patricia Anne Simpson

Publication

Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies

Abstract

Popular Berlin “anthems” both attest and contribute to the social, political, and cultural tensions that accompany the complex process of identity formation in the urban capital and the projection of its global image. An integral aspect of its cosmopolitan identity, Berlin hosts an international party scene that incorporates the city's history of divisions and borders into a discourse about its own brand of “hipness.” This article analyzes several Berlin-based musicians and the songs that reflect a process of deterritorialization, recoding, and reterritorialization, consciously inserting Berlin-specific signifiers into the syntax of cultural globalization. These contemporary anthems acknowledge social realities while recoding musical genres in the service of a more multicultural, creative, and tolerant metropolis. The marketing and mainstreaming of edgy, urban soundscapes include the dislocations characteristic of a globalizing capital. Increasingly, songs about Berlin engage in remapping the local, provincial, and subcultural onto Berlin as a world media city.

Links

 

How is this information collected?

This collection of Montana State authored publications is collected by the Library to highlight the achievements of Montana State researchers and more fully understand the research output of the University. They use a number of resources to pull together as complete a list as possible and understand that there may be publications that are missed. If you note the omission of a current publication or want to know more about the collection and display of this information email Leila Sterman.