Reflections on Popular Music Studies in Turkey

Abstract

This article reviews the state of popular music studies in Turkey in comparison to IASPM's Anglo-American history of popular music studies. The main focus is on the similarities and dissimilarities in studies based on shifts in paradigms: firstly the shift from the sociology of arabesk music in Turkey and sociology of rock music in the Anglo-American popular music studies, to the sociology of popular music; secondly, a parallel shift in theoretical premises, from Marxism to postmodern theories. Mapping the achievements of popular music studies in Turkey in relation to the study of popular musics that have dominated specific eras, it is shown that despite earlier divergences from the 1990s onwards, Turkish popular music studies gradually converged with international popular music studies.

Keywords

• turkey
• arabesk music
• popular music publications
• popular music scholars