Alternative Globalization in Southern France: Minority Language as a Creative Tool in Occitan Popular Music

Abstract

Paris has often been considered the cultural centre of France, especially as it is the home of many major recording companies. But during the 1970s, a significant number of folk music scenes appeared in other parts of France.The major attribute of these local scenes (in Brittany or Southern France for instance) was the lyrical emphasis on their regional cultural heritage and the use of traditional instruments or/and a regional language (Tenaille 2008;Hennion 2011). In Occitania, folk musicians' work was highly influenced by the rediscovery of Occitan melodies, tales and traditional instruments such as the cabrette or the hurdy-gurdy. The use of the Occitan language was also a significant characteristic of their music. Occitan is a Romance language that has existed for more than a thousand years. It was the troubadours' language from which chivalric romance emerged (Nelli 1989). For instance, the word »love« in French (amour) comes from Occitan. Occitan continues to be a challenge for the new generation of popular musicians, whether they find inspiration in the folk repertoire or not. Nowadays, new popular musicians hardly eke out a living; they are stuck between the purist Occitan folk scene receiving public or regional subsidies and the popular music market that has very little interest in regional/local expressions. I will try to demonstrate how this specific local context has created a hierarchy of authenticity that plays an important role in popular musicians'practices. More specifically, this hierarchy often relies on a series of discourses claiming to preserve the Occitan identity, which has forced popular artists to find strategies to resist this »identity confinement«. This article is based on eighteen interviews I conducted with artists and bookers between

The consumption of live music in different languages: a quantitative approach

“…6. But other foreign or regional languages (Spanu, 2015) and even invented languages (Mansion-Vaquié, 2020) or “yaourt” (Cutler, 2000) could be considered to explore these asemantical dimensions of music (although as a minor phenomenon).…”

Pour une approche critique de la diversité des langues chantées dans les musiques populaires à l’ère de la mondialisation numérique

“…Ici, le « transfert » se situe davantage du côté des esthétiques musicales que l'on adapte à la langue dite « traditionnelle », bien que la problématique linguistique reste centrale, du fait du tiraillement entre défense de la langue communautaire et volonté de faire passer un message au reste du monde. En France, la question se pose de la même manière pour les chanteurs issus des différentes cultures régionales, citons à ce titre le cas occitan (Spanu, 2015 ;Cestor, 2005).…”