ABSTRACT
For the post-Soviet music industry, the transition from socialist-state monopoly to free-market economy offered new and unprecedented opportunities for international collaboration and exchange. Global record labels established themselves in the country, and Russian artists sought assistance from internationally renowned songwriters and producers in the US, the UK, and Sweden. However, although the fall of communism enabled musical interactions within a shared free market, such collaborations continue to face challenges and difficulties in a post-socialist context. This chapter explores whether such difficulties can be related to the fact that these collaborations unfold at the intersection of musical contexts brought forth and differentiated by specific historical trajectories, which continue to shape the ways in which music is produced, distributed, and listened to. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of a production company specializing in Swedish – Russian musical mediation, the chapter traces and compares the historical trajectories of the Russian and Swedish music industries. Providing thick ethnographic descriptions of Swedish – Russian studio interactions, discrepancies in music-making practices and preferences are mapped out and analysed, with an emphasis on how such practices are continually shaped by and embodied in the ongoing histories of the music industries the individuals operate within.
