Music and meaning behind the dykes: the new wave of Dutch rock groups and their audiences

Extract

During the last two or maybe three years, people in the Netherlands have witnessed a big boom in popular songs in their own language: tear-jerkers, evergreens, easy listening and rock songs performed in Dutch have made a conspicuous conquest of the hit charts, usually dominated by Anglo-American songs. Most striking is the breakthrough of Dutch language rock groups, reflected in higher audience figures for specialised radio programmes, an expanding live performance circuit and high record sales (see Table 1).

On a common-sense or proto-sociological level, this phenomenon has been explained by referring to the end of so-called American ‘cultural imperialism’ – the native rock tradition has finally grown mature, as is the case in other countries on the European continent; or by alluding to the crisis of the modern welfare capitalist state – manifested in a range of aspects, from the economic crisis in the record industry to the cultural-ideological problem of modern people longing for a comprehensible world view in an abstract society. In this article I shall not touch upon these matters, but I shall discuss the reception of Dutch rock as such and try to unveil (some aspects of) the social meaning of this type of music.