With the Top 2000 just around the corner, the end of the year is really in sight. Many music lovers voted for their favorite songs and eagerly await this legendary music program. But why? Pop music influences our mood, evokes memories, provides support… Arno van der Hoeven researched our musical heritage and in his dissertation shows how strongly pop music is linked to our cultural identity.
How do you explain the popularity of programs like Top 2000 based on your research? “The feeling that music evokes is strongly linked to place and time. Music allows you to look back on your own life or childhood, but also collectively. Music is therefore personal and social. The music in the Top 2000 evokes emotions that you can link to your own life, to experiences and feelings that fit a certain period. Nostalgia and fond memories predominate here. In addition, all kinds of things are added to the music, such as fashion and behavioral expressions from the corresponding period. That also fascinates people.”
The Top 2000 is nice, but what is scientific about pop music? “For my dissertation, I looked at identity design and how music brings people together. On a personal level, identity is formed during childhood, when music is often part of a subculture. Think hippies in the 70s, punks in the 80s and gabbers in the 90s. That identity remains important when people look back later in life, when the youthful years are long gone. On a collective level, music gives a sense of belonging, the us-versus-them. Whole generations listened to the same music and still cherish it today.”
“I have not only explored what music means to people personally or collectively, but also looked at music as a heritage for the community. Music is bound to time, place and socio-cultural developments. This includes certain objects, such as the transistor radio. This radio gave access to pop music that the then pirate station Veronica broadcast illegally. People have emotions not only with the music of that time, but also with the associated objects such as that transistor radio. Or the fashion that was typical of the time from which the music originated. Music is also linked to the place where people listened to her, literally experienced her. These concert halls, cafes or legendary festivals like Woodstock play an important role in our history.”
How come I like songs from my teenage years now, when I didn't find them interesting then? “Music from your childhood not only strongly evokes an image of the time, but also your feelings from that period. So it is not only the recognition that makes music fun, but also the feeling of the past that comes back when listening to the music. In addition, memories are distorted. They are dynamic, vulnerable and selective. The connection you feel with a period can also grow over the years. In retrospect, for example, people can identify with the hippies from their youth, while they were not hippies themselves at the time.”
“We look back on the past with a colored view. A good example is the recent exhibition The Sixties at the York Castle Museum. This included looking at how the ideals from those years were spread across society as a whole. The idealistic picture we have of that period had to be nuanced in some respects. Ideas of 'free love' often associated with the 1960s were confined to a small section of society.”
How do cultural and heritage institutions present the musical past? “Fans and collectors play an important role here, they are the pioneers. Heritage institutions only later realized the value of pop music and now draw on fan collections. This collaboration is important, precisely because museums have to be more critical in their purchases due to budget cuts and full depots. Loaning from fans is a good option and the fans enjoy showing their collection to a wider audience.”
“Local identity also plays a role in the perception of musical heritage. In the 1990s, it was thought that local identity would become less important due to globalization and the advent of the Internet. As a result, the world has become smaller and more open, but the local identity has not disappeared. It remains important for people and has even become stronger. It gives them a sense of pride. For this reason, local music archives and museums about the local music culture and associated identity are opened throughout the Netherlands. Take for example the Volendam eel sound with accompanying museum. Such – often private – initiatives put the municipality on the musical map and make the residents proud.”
“Since 2004 we even have a national museum for the history of pop music, Museum Rockart in Hoek van Holland. It is the largest pop music museum in the Netherlands and houses all kinds of stuff from musicians, series of magazines and so on. It was founded by a private individual, Jaap Schut. This music lover started working on plans for a pop music museum as early as 1994 because he felt that too little attention was paid to Dutch pop music heritage. In the end, it took him ten years to build this museum from scratch.”
What do we now know, thanks to your research, that we did not realize (properly) before? “Pop music is no longer just about the youth, but connects several generations. Today's youth also enjoy music from the sixties and make their own memories with it. How we remember music continues to evolve. Interestingly, we now keep what we want generations to remember. For example, music archives, they form a selection of the music on offer. I am very curious what this means for how we will think about music history in the future.”
Arno van der Hoeven, Popular Music Memories. Places and Practices of Popular Music Heritage, Memory and Cultural Identity (November 2014, Erasmus Research Center for Media, Communication and Culture)
The Top 2000, the list of the most popular 2000 songs in music history, can be heard on NPO2 from 25 to 31 December. The accompanying television program, the Top 2000 a gogo with Matthijs van Nieuwkerk and 'pop music professor' Leo Blokhuis, can be seen on NPO3 on the same days, from 7.30 pm.