Czechoslovak Pop Music in Young People’s Lifestyle Magazines in the “Anti-Decade”, 1985–1995
Czechoslovak Pop Music in Young People’s Lifestyle Magazines in the “Anti-Decade”, 1985–1995

Summary/Abstract: This article analyses the coverage of pop music in two magazines for older children and young adults during the transition from late socialism to post-socialism in Czechoslovakia or what has been called the “anti-decade” of 1985–1995. By revisiting Pionýr, a magazine for adolescents aged 12 to 15 and Mladý svět, a magazine for young adults aged 15 to 30, I uncover the gradual transformation of Czechoslovak pop music from a genre for Mladý svět’s broad young audience to one aimed specifically at teenagers after 1989. These teens were the target readers of Pionýr and its post-socialist successors, Filip and Filip pro-náctileté (Filip for Teenagers). Pop music was connected with social capital and incorporated into the lifestyles of Mladý svět’s readers. However, it gradually disappeared from the pages of the magazine and became increasingly visible in Pionýr and its post-socialist counterparts. This study argues that this connection of pop music with teen lifestyles and values had profound social impacts between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s.

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