ABSTRACT
Welsh popular music is a minority concern, but it symbolizes a larger pattern of resistance. In applying a cultural theory to the history of Welsh popular music it is important to consider the extent to which social arrangement has been reinforced and altered. There are a number of elements at play in the theorizing of Welsh culture in general and Welsh popular culture in particular, and they are all to some extent determined by the relationship between Wales and the Anglo-American dominant culture. A popular culture was nurtured in the struggle for the Welsh language, and was inter-dependent on the survival of the Welsh language. To map the social history of Welsh popular music and to consider social movements on the micro level it is important to bear in mind how the embodiment of Welshness has been expressed differently in the last half of the twentieth century, and how cultural border-crossings have impacted on the 'traditional' ideal of Welshness.
