Papers by Maria Kouvarou
International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2024
In the contemporary Greek Cypriot popular music scape, we witness various and varying instances t... more In the contemporary Greek Cypriot popular music scape, we witness various and varying instances that feature cultural heritage elements: the frontman of a hard rock band performing in a vraka, the traditional male trousers; a trap song making references to lefkaritiko, a traditional lace; a metal band opening their album with an acapella tsiattisto, a traditional oral poetic style. This paper discusses these and other instances by placing them in the wider
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The inaugural production of Collectiva Inanna, the 70 minute multimedia and staged performance in... more The inaugural production of Collectiva Inanna, the 70 minute multimedia and staged performance includes dialogue and dance, music and magic, through which we sought to decolonize our psyches and reclaim that which has been looted from us as women. The production was co-written/produced and performed by Bahriye Kemal, Maria Kouvarou, Reem Maghribi, and Mavromichalis; and benefited from the invaluable support of Arjen Barel, a ‘thinking partner’ assigned by IMPACT, a platform run by Brandeis University, to support us during the development of our production. The multimedia multi sensory piece was first performed in December 2020 in Nicosia, on both sides of the divide, as part of the Buffer Fringe Festival, produced by Home4Cooperation. http://collectivainanna.com/taking-back-the-booty
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Popular Music and Society, 2022
This article discusses hip-hop with lyrics in the Greek Cypriot Dialect as an underground voice o... more This article discusses hip-hop with lyrics in the Greek Cypriot Dialect as an underground voice of implicit dissent that becomes gradually noticeable in the Republic of Cyprus. By providing an overview of the complex linguistic situation of the country, it argues that the insistence of the hip-hop artists to “say it” in the linguistic idiom of their everyday communication can be seen as a (re)claiming of the public sphere. Habermas’ public sphere, and communication theories, along with ideas from language ideologies, provide the conceptual lenses by which hip-hop in the Greek Cypriot Dialect is looked at here.
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Popular Music, 2018
This article discusses the development of a live music network in Larnaca, Cyprus. It is the resu... more This article discusses the development of a live music network in Larnaca, Cyprus. It is the result of a 9 month field research project centred on a specific music venue and it is based on interviews with members of four local prominent rock bands and the venue manager. These interviews were further informed by several discussions with numerous audience members, the result of the author's participatory involvement in this network. The emphasis of the discussion lies in the experiences of the performers and their views concerning the growth of this live music network, which in itself is an indicator of the dynamic relationship between underground musical tastes and the presence of mainstream currents in the city. The purpose of this research is to highlight that the development and preservation of such live music networks depend on various factors and to argue that the study of transformations of a locality's musical life can lead to sociological readings regarding its music-...
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Historia Crítica No.40, 2015
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Popular Music and Society, 2015
The Sex Pistols were much more than music; they were all about image, style, and offensive attitu... more The Sex Pistols were much more than music; they were all about image, style, and offensive attitude and behavior. In the light of a stereotypically masculine image that was originally attributed to the band, this article explores some of the covers of the Sex Pistols’ songs by female vocalists (Veruca Salt, Lady Sovereign, Nouvelle Vague) and talks about issues of musical translation in gender norms. Drawing on Irigaray's “parler femme” theories, this article suggested that through these covers the Sex Pistols’ masculinity is being challenged, subverted, complemented, and reconstructed as an expressive tool for a feminine approach.
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This dissertation examines the historical process of assimilation of rock musical idioms in five ... more This dissertation examines the historical process of assimilation of rock musical idioms in five European countries: Britain, France, Germany (East and West), Greece, and Italy in the period between 1955 and 1985. Taking a comparative approach, it is argued that the process of assimilation unfolds in a number of distinct stages that can be clearly identified in each of these five countries, albeit with differences due to the particularities of each country’s pre-existing popular music culture, political conditions, and media structure. I propose that there are four main stages that can be identified: (1) a period of reception when rock’n’roll was largely enjoyed and copied as a fad of foreign origin; (2) a period of more creative imitation where an imitative rock idiom arose within each country, partly in response to media efforts to institutionalize and domesticate it, and partly in response to the influence of the ‘British Invasion’; (3) a period of development characterized by a ...
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Journal of Popular Music Studies, 2021
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Popular Music, 2018
This article discusses the development of a live music network in Larnaca, Cyprus. It is the resu... more This article discusses the development of a live music network in Larnaca, Cyprus. It is the result of a 9 month field research project centred on a specific music venue and it is based on interviews with members of four local prominent rock bands and the venue manager. These interviews were further informed by several discussions with numerous audience members, the result of the author's participatory involvement in this network. The emphasis of the discussion lies in the experiences of the performers and their views concerning the growth of this live music network, which in itself is an indicator of the dynamic relationship between underground musical tastes and the presence of mainstream currents in the city. The purpose of this research is to highlight that the development and preservation of such live music networks depend on various factors and to argue that the study of transformations of a locality's musical life can lead to sociological readings regarding its music-related past and present.
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This paper assesses the practices developed in France, Italy, Greece, and Germany in order to acc... more This paper assesses the practices developed in France, Italy, Greece, and Germany in order to accommodate rock’n’roll music and bring it closer to their own music styles and societal norms, as these are heard in the initial attempts of their music industries to create their own versions of it. The paper deals with these practices as instances of the French, German, Greek and Italian contexts to institutionalize rock’n’roll according to their positions regarding the USA, their historical and political situations, and their cultural and musical past and present.
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Este artículo evalúa las prácticas desarrolladas en Francia, Italia, Grecia y Alemania para adaptar la música rock’n’roll y acercarla más a sus propios estilos de música y normas societales, como se escucha en los primeros intentos de las respectivas industrias de música en crear sus propias versiones de él. El trabajo aborda estas prácticas, como instancias en los contextos francés, alemán, griego e italiano, de institucionalizar el rock’n’roll de acuerdo con sus propias posiciones frente a Estados Unidos, sus situaciones históricas y
políticas y su pasado y presente cultural y musical.
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This paper assesses the practices developed in France, Italy, Greece, and Germany in order to acc... more This paper assesses the practices developed in France, Italy, Greece, and Germany in order to accommodate rock’n’roll music and bring it closer to their own music styles and societal norms, as these are heard in the initial attempts of their music industries to create their own versions of it. The paper deals with these practices as instances of the French, German, Greek and Italian contexts to institutionalize rock’n’roll according to their positions regarding the USA, their historical and political situations, and their cultural and musical past and present.
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The Sex Pistols were much more than music; they were all about image, style, and offensive attitu... more The Sex Pistols were much more than music; they were all about image, style, and offensive attitude and behavior. In the light of a stereotypically masculine image that was originally attributed to the band, this article explores some of the covers of the Sex Pistols’ songs by female vocalists (Veruca Salt, Lady Sovereign, Nouvelle Vague) and talks about issues of musical translation in gender norms. Drawing on Irigaray's “parler femme” theories, this article suggested that through these covers the Sex Pistols’ masculinity is being challenged, subverted, complemented, and reconstructed as an expressive tool for a feminine approach.
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Thesis Chapters by Maria Kouvarou
This dissertation examines the historical process of assimilation of rock musical idioms in five ... more This dissertation examines the historical process of assimilation of rock musical idioms in five European countries: Britain, France, Germany (East and West), Greece, and Italy in the period between 1955 and 1985. Taking a comparative approach, it is argued that the process of assimilation unfolds in a number of distinct stages that can be clearly identified in each of these five countries, albeit with differences due to the particularities of each country’s pre-existing popular music culture, political conditions, and media structure. By taking an overarching socio-cultural approach to popular music and its development which emphasizes both top-down (i.e., institutionalized) as well as bottom-up (e.g., underground) musical activities, this study examines the factors that led to the full assimilation of what was initially American rock’n’roll through tracing the changes that occurred in the popular music contexts of each of these five European countries during these four phases. It is argued that the full assimilation of rock idioms led to the creation of new hybrid musical languages that, despite the features they have in common, nevertheless also carry the particularities of their specific national contexts in which socio-political situations, nation-state policies, economic conditions, and the everyday activities of the people exist with and in relation to an ever-present, shared and, most importantly, imagined historical and cultural past.
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Bob Dylan’s work has frequently been the object of discussion, debate and scholarly research. It ... more Bob Dylan’s work has frequently been the object of discussion, debate and scholarly research. It has been commented on in terms of interpretation of the lyrics of his songs, of their musical treatment, and of the distinctiveness of Dylan’s performance style, while Dylan himself has been treated both as an important figure in the world of popular music, and also as an artist, as a significant poet. In his prolific output Dylan deals with a number of recurring themes, which he constantly revisits and develops. One of these themes is the perpetual search for salvation, which runs throughout his entire work, while at the same time taking significantly different forms.
I argue in this dissertation that Dylan’s search for salvation takes place within a distinct range of different contexts, which include the longing for social salvation, the striving towards individual fulfilment, the desire for salvation through romantic relationships, and the constant journey towards an idealized place that will bring about a sense of salvation and redemption, while at the same time the idea of religious salvation in a more general sense can also be seen as hovering over all of these more specific contexts.
I aim to demonstrate that Dylan’s search for salvation has a strongly utopian character, a search for something characterized by hope, but which, however close it might seem to be, is nevertheless not achieved in reality. Drawing on approaches derived in part from the critical theorist Ernst Bloch and also on more recent writers on the concept of Utopia, I argue that it is through this utopian dimension that Dylan’s work also functions as critique. Dylan, in showing the world’s situation as it should be shows us simultaneously the way it actually is, and it is the gulf between these two that functions as critique.
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Other Publications by Maria Kouvarou
Νέα Εποχή, 2018
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Conference Presentations by Maria Kouvarou
My current research is concerned with the assimilation of afro-american musical idioms (as carrie... more My current research is concerned with the assimilation of afro-american musical idioms (as carried through rock’n’roll) in the musics of Britain, France, Germany, Greece, and Italy. For the purposes of musically explaining the findings of this project and the assimilation of foreign musical elements in the indigenous popular music scenes of the countries, I will make some comparative musicological observations between selected songs. The technique used to make this ‘analysis’ will be neither musicological in the traditional sense, and nor directly derived from the analytical approaches of popular musicologists like Tagg, Moore, Everrett, etc. Instead, it will be a personalized effort for understanding the songs in the knowledge of all the above approaches, in combination with the awareness that popular songs are not objects to be musicologically analysed in detail, but rather objects whose elements can reveal certain important aspects of the culture that created them. All in all, I consider this approach to be just an informative addition to the whole argument of my research, an attempt to show by drawing on music itself the sociological and political understandings that I aim to apply with the discussion of the music’s context, which is my main focus. My approach is still counter to the ones that treat individual songs and indulge into in-depth analysis of those, and it is more inclined towards the use of musicological analysis as a comparative tool useful for song groupings and, hence, for facilitating a recognition of the similarities and particularities of them.
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It comes as no surprise nowadays to hear a song of any popular music genre and consider this as a... more It comes as no surprise nowadays to hear a song of any popular music genre and consider this as a product of our indigenous popular music scene. People find it natural to hear, let’s say, a Greek band playing a heavy metal song and consider this as ‘authentic’ Greek popular music production, or a DJ playing a set of techno music of exclusively French production and consider this as a product of the French national popular music scene. And indeed, both of the examples are Greek and French popular music respectively. However, these musical developments are parts of a larger process which needs further discussion; they represent a dialogue between local musical idioms and certain ‘international’ musical idioms (derived primarily from the USA and Britain) that have, through the years, gained a standard place in the popular music repertoire of many countries. Understanding the process requires the observation of the interaction of the local with the international, and the acknowledgment that this interaction does not operate only superficially, but local cultures (for the sake of my argument, nations) assimilate the foreign idioms in ways that express their culture authentically. Thus, their use should be considered in the light of national musical ‘authenticity’.
Music, as many argue, is a cultural force that defines and is defined by ‘localities’, or, for my purposes, ‘nationalities’. My aim in this paper is to demonstrate Greek popular music’s gradual transformation from the time of being a (debatably) ‘pure’ Greek popular music, to its current state, after almost sixty years of influence from and constant dialogue with rock musical idioms. The observation that a major factor for this process had been the technological development and the advancements of the communications media will lead to some assumptions about where the popular music of Greece might be heading to now, a time when the Internet revolution and the excessive availabilities of information defy any kind of geographical boundaries on the one hand, while on the other hand the current state of the world nurtures growing nationalistic sentiments.
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In taking a critical approach on the work of Bob Dylan every scholar faces one major difficulty: ... more In taking a critical approach on the work of Bob Dylan every scholar faces one major difficulty: the consideration of his song lyrics as poetry. There are many instances in studies on Dylan where the commentary on his work is confined entirely to literary analysis of the song lyrics. However, I argue that Dylan is a songwriter and not a poet; thus, the words of his songs are only one of a number of elements to be considered.
The paper treats lyrics as one of the many elements that contribute to a song’s final effect; it speaks of the actual role (if any) that the words play in the formation of the song’s meaning; and the relationship of song lyrics to poetry as an art form. It then turns to consider the work of Dylan himself and to argue that his lyrics – whatever their poetic qualities – should not be regarded as poems. It is argued that the lyrics cannot be isolated and treated independently; that the meaning of the words can be altered by the musical treatment; and that lyrics are not written as words to be read but as words to be performed.
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Papers by Maria Kouvarou
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Este artículo evalúa las prácticas desarrolladas en Francia, Italia, Grecia y Alemania para adaptar la música rock’n’roll y acercarla más a sus propios estilos de música y normas societales, como se escucha en los primeros intentos de las respectivas industrias de música en crear sus propias versiones de él. El trabajo aborda estas prácticas, como instancias en los contextos francés, alemán, griego e italiano, de institucionalizar el rock’n’roll de acuerdo con sus propias posiciones frente a Estados Unidos, sus situaciones históricas y
políticas y su pasado y presente cultural y musical.
Thesis Chapters by Maria Kouvarou
I argue in this dissertation that Dylan’s search for salvation takes place within a distinct range of different contexts, which include the longing for social salvation, the striving towards individual fulfilment, the desire for salvation through romantic relationships, and the constant journey towards an idealized place that will bring about a sense of salvation and redemption, while at the same time the idea of religious salvation in a more general sense can also be seen as hovering over all of these more specific contexts.
I aim to demonstrate that Dylan’s search for salvation has a strongly utopian character, a search for something characterized by hope, but which, however close it might seem to be, is nevertheless not achieved in reality. Drawing on approaches derived in part from the critical theorist Ernst Bloch and also on more recent writers on the concept of Utopia, I argue that it is through this utopian dimension that Dylan’s work also functions as critique. Dylan, in showing the world’s situation as it should be shows us simultaneously the way it actually is, and it is the gulf between these two that functions as critique.
Other Publications by Maria Kouvarou
Conference Presentations by Maria Kouvarou
Music, as many argue, is a cultural force that defines and is defined by ‘localities’, or, for my purposes, ‘nationalities’. My aim in this paper is to demonstrate Greek popular music’s gradual transformation from the time of being a (debatably) ‘pure’ Greek popular music, to its current state, after almost sixty years of influence from and constant dialogue with rock musical idioms. The observation that a major factor for this process had been the technological development and the advancements of the communications media will lead to some assumptions about where the popular music of Greece might be heading to now, a time when the Internet revolution and the excessive availabilities of information defy any kind of geographical boundaries on the one hand, while on the other hand the current state of the world nurtures growing nationalistic sentiments.
The paper treats lyrics as one of the many elements that contribute to a song’s final effect; it speaks of the actual role (if any) that the words play in the formation of the song’s meaning; and the relationship of song lyrics to poetry as an art form. It then turns to consider the work of Dylan himself and to argue that his lyrics – whatever their poetic qualities – should not be regarded as poems. It is argued that the lyrics cannot be isolated and treated independently; that the meaning of the words can be altered by the musical treatment; and that lyrics are not written as words to be read but as words to be performed.
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Este artículo evalúa las prácticas desarrolladas en Francia, Italia, Grecia y Alemania para adaptar la música rock’n’roll y acercarla más a sus propios estilos de música y normas societales, como se escucha en los primeros intentos de las respectivas industrias de música en crear sus propias versiones de él. El trabajo aborda estas prácticas, como instancias en los contextos francés, alemán, griego e italiano, de institucionalizar el rock’n’roll de acuerdo con sus propias posiciones frente a Estados Unidos, sus situaciones históricas y
políticas y su pasado y presente cultural y musical.
I argue in this dissertation that Dylan’s search for salvation takes place within a distinct range of different contexts, which include the longing for social salvation, the striving towards individual fulfilment, the desire for salvation through romantic relationships, and the constant journey towards an idealized place that will bring about a sense of salvation and redemption, while at the same time the idea of religious salvation in a more general sense can also be seen as hovering over all of these more specific contexts.
I aim to demonstrate that Dylan’s search for salvation has a strongly utopian character, a search for something characterized by hope, but which, however close it might seem to be, is nevertheless not achieved in reality. Drawing on approaches derived in part from the critical theorist Ernst Bloch and also on more recent writers on the concept of Utopia, I argue that it is through this utopian dimension that Dylan’s work also functions as critique. Dylan, in showing the world’s situation as it should be shows us simultaneously the way it actually is, and it is the gulf between these two that functions as critique.
Music, as many argue, is a cultural force that defines and is defined by ‘localities’, or, for my purposes, ‘nationalities’. My aim in this paper is to demonstrate Greek popular music’s gradual transformation from the time of being a (debatably) ‘pure’ Greek popular music, to its current state, after almost sixty years of influence from and constant dialogue with rock musical idioms. The observation that a major factor for this process had been the technological development and the advancements of the communications media will lead to some assumptions about where the popular music of Greece might be heading to now, a time when the Internet revolution and the excessive availabilities of information defy any kind of geographical boundaries on the one hand, while on the other hand the current state of the world nurtures growing nationalistic sentiments.
The paper treats lyrics as one of the many elements that contribute to a song’s final effect; it speaks of the actual role (if any) that the words play in the formation of the song’s meaning; and the relationship of song lyrics to poetry as an art form. It then turns to consider the work of Dylan himself and to argue that his lyrics – whatever their poetic qualities – should not be regarded as poems. It is argued that the lyrics cannot be isolated and treated independently; that the meaning of the words can be altered by the musical treatment; and that lyrics are not written as words to be read but as words to be performed.
The fact that popular music today in countries other than Britain and USA seems to be based on borrowings of musical idioms derived from a different culture (and, most particularly, the afro-american musical idioms developed in the USA) cannot be argued against. However, using specifically rock music as a reference point and focusing on the cases of France, Italy, Germany, and Greece, I suggest that the musicʼs situation today does not comprise an imitative use of stolen musical idioms but an actual appropriation of these. What is meant with this statement is that, while the musical idioms used might be derivatives of a different and distant culture, this does not mean that these same idioms cannot be used by representatives of another culture in a manner that would authentically represent the latter as well, even if in different ways. To support this argument I will present discussions on issues of authenticity, identity, and cultural appropriation, while I will complement the above with music examples from various countries.
In doing this I aim to critically reflect on a phenomenon which is often taken for granted: the ʽcommon internationalʼ popular music of today which, instead, could be seen as many ʽdifferent nationalʼ appropriations of the same musical idioms, used differently in each country, both musically and also ideologically. I believe that such a discussion would be of interest for people of various backgrounds and interests, as popular music is something that we constantly live our lives in.