ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the relationship between populism and popular music in Hungary after the political turn of 2010 that saw the beginning of a new political regime led by the Fidesz party. It combines a focus on song aesthetics, music consumption in various settings, and an analysis of structural transformations that have brought about a new pattern of dependency on the market and the state for artists. Drawing on song analyses, fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, and focus group interviews, the chapter demonstrates that in Hungary, populism has become a central ideological framework and source of legitimation in popular music as much as political speech, shaping not only pro-government but also oppositional, and even anti-establishment, discourses. It argues that mainstream pop-rock may serve to spread hegemonic right-wing populist discourses, and thus shore up the cultural and ideological pillars that support the hegemony-building of the new semi-peripheral accumulation regime. The authors also point to the limited possibilities for counter-hegemonic meaning-making within the mainstream of the popular music field.
