"Maktens musik, Svensktoppens och hitlistornas eländiga dravel". Om progg, kommersiell musik och hegemoni i Musikens Makt 1973-1977

Abstract

This essay examines the Swedish magazine Musikens Makt (The Power of Music) between the years of 1973 and 1977. This magazine was the dominant pop-music magazine during the 70s, and defined itself as a nexus for the so-called ”progressive movement” in Sweden. By applying the cultural theories of Raymond Williams to articles in this magazine, this essay aims to discover how the magazine motivated its cultural and political position. I examine what mechanisms and rhetoric the progressive movement used to distance itself from its proposed counterpart: commercial music and culture. During the 1970’s, hegemonic culture worked for the dominance of commercial culture, regulating and controlling the market for music and other types of culture. The progressive movement meant to take a stand against this, arguing for a culture free from economical and societal pressures, and the movement tried to find different ways of achieving this. Intertwined with the question of commercialism were the confrontation between capitalism and socialism, and thus many articles in Musikens Makt focused heavily on a socialist revolution as a method of crushing commercialism. Through a hermeneutical dialogue with the material, and with the analytical aid of Williams theories on hegemony, I reach the conclusion that internal division was the reason for the movement’s downfall. Trying to unite disparate cultural expressions and opinions (ranging from socialist to liberal views) under the abstract banner of anti-commercialism only created further division and a loss of vision for the movement. Thus the progressive movement was in the end incorporated within capitalist hegemony, as a residual formation, to this day available for legitimization of contemporary hegemony.