For this article the authors analysed thirty-eight lists of ‘The 100 greatest albums of all time’ type. As the findings demonstrate, a canon of popular music has evolved which shows strong tendencies towards stability in featuring albums from the late 1960s (especially those by The Beatles), while only a few albums from the 1990s have gained ‘classic’ status. The canon's contents and exclusions are explained by the social dispositions of the participants, predominantly white males aged twenty to forty. Influenced by efforts of the cultural industries, these actors also evaluate certain albums for the purposes of distinguishing themselves from the ‘mainstream’. Furthermore, aesthetic and artistic criteria underlying the esteem of the ‘masterworks’ are identified by analysing reviews. The authors suggest that future research on canonisation should interlock sociological and aesthetic perspectives. Findings from such an approach might initiate reflection among music fans about their own exclusions, and result in an opening up of the meaning and significance of the canon.

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Obwohl Popmusikzeitschriften unsere Vorstellungen von Popmusik wesentlich prägen, ist ihr Entstehungsprozess bisher kaum wissenschaftlich erfasst. André Doehring stellt die Musikredakteure deutscher Musikzeitschriften in den Mittelpunkt und beleuchtet die Sicht dieser Medienakteure auf die eigene Rolle inmitten der handlungsleitenden sowie -begrenzenden Strukturen und Produktionsverhältnisse. In einer Zusammenführung von Perspektiven der Musiksoziologie und der Journalistik wirft die materialreiche und interessante Studie einen Blick hinter die Kulissen des gegenwärtigen Popmusikjournalismus, der durch das immense persönliche Engagement der Musikkommunikatoren überhaupt erst ermöglicht und aufrechterhalten wird.

Our article addresses the connection between popular music and far-right populism, as exemplified by the Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ). We discuss the specific mainstreaming and normalizing potential of popular music for far-right populist politics, by means of songs that do not qualify as political or politicized music in the sense of carrying a clear political message. We introduce a multi-step methodology that addresses performative aspects of actual situations of reception (fieldwork) and in-depth analyses of the music and its affordances (group analysis). Based on this approach, we argue that these ambivalent, sometimes even contradictory musical performances take on a life of their own within a specific arrangement that we will term an assembled politicity, in the sense of a political potential activated through situational arrangements. In this way, the FPÖ's musical programme affords far-right populist interpretations through music that appears to be unsuspicious.

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