Asya Draganova

Do we really understand what it means to be 'alternative'? In contemporary society, alternative music scenes such as heavy metal, goth and punk have spread around the world; and alternative fashions and embodiment practices are now adopted by footballers and fashion models. Alternativity delineates those spaces, scenes, sub-cultures, objects and practices in modern society that are actively designed to be counter or resistive to mainstream popular culture.However, there is a lack of understanding of the challenges faced by those who embrace alternative lifestyles and what it means to be alternative in globalised society. What 'alternative' looks like is explored in these titles, providing unique home for research that will expand our understanding of sub-cultures, scenes and practices defined as alternative. Titles included in this set: Childbirth and Parenting in Horror Texts:The Marginalized and the Monstrous;The Evolution of Goth Culture:The Origins and Deeds of the New Goths;Popular Music in Contemporary Bulgaria:At the Crossroads;Revolutionary Nostalgia:Retromania, Neo-Burlesque, and Consumer Culture;Subcultures, Bodies and Spaces:Essays on Alternativity and Marginalization;The Use and Abuse of Music:Criminal Records;

Bulgarian popular music, the meanings it articulates, and the infrastructures of its creation, operates within a web of inter-dependencies with changing social and political contexts. Positioned on the edge of Europe, between the cultural constructs of the 'East' and 'West', Bulgarian popular music negotiates the complexities of perceived 'global' values and specificities of the 'local'. This book takes an ethnographic approach to qualitative methodologies to create a mosaic of perspectives through the participation of music artists, critics, business figures, copyright specialists, and young audiences. It employs the metaphor of the 'crossroads' to describe the realities of the contemporary Bulgarian popular music field, developed amidst the prolonged transitions that followed the communist era. In the context of struggles for social change, popular music has participated in the creation of rituals and symbols of protest and resistance. At the same time, the new market environment created opportunities for popular music to formulate a business approach to producing standardised content. The Balkans, are a melting pot of music traditions, but are also framed as pathologically different from the rest of Europe. This book suggests that an internalised negative stereotype adds tacit complexities to Bulgarian popular music, while at the same time, expressive markers of identity, such as folklore and language, are celebrated.