This paper focuses on the issue of geopolitics in the pop culture interpretation as illustrated by the Polish pop music after the year 1989. Songs selected from various trends of the Polish popular music made the source material of the text. The primary study method involved the analysis of the lyrics discourse. The Polish geopolitical imaginations used to revolve around the basis axis of better West and worse East, symbolized mainly by Russia, but its image was transferred over entire Asia. Asia, including China, was scarcely present in the geopolitical imaginations contained in the pop music, which, at the same time, reflected the irrelevant interest of Polish elites in global problems. The discourses in the musical texts about China frequently adopted the West’s perspective, where Poland made part of as seen by our elites. The rhetoric strategy concerning China in popular music featured two essential views, which references Orientalism as specified by E. Said. It explains the frequent use of the postcolonial discourse by the Polish elites, also the music ones, which promoted the supremacy of the West over the rest of the world and the universal nature of the Western world values which were meant to be implemented into other civilizations and nations for their own sake. China was presented as a growing threat for the dominance of the West, the USA in the first place, as an alternative model of globalization and international deal putting offthe world by its cultural and geopolitical alienation, as well as indicating negative effects for Poland.

The category of nostalgia is the element of artistic message frequently used in popular music, which influences the reception of a particular song. In their activity musicians refer to the musical past by employing cultural references and utilise fashions present in a certain environment for their own benefit. This category is present in lyrics and music, in the stage shows (performing live, festivals, TV shows) and promotional activities (interviews, promotional video clips for the songs). Such referring to tradition became a constant element of artistic communication, anchoring the music in the past and taking into account the cultural specificities. Definitional capturing of nostalgia is not entirely possible: research into this category require approaches which take into account the aspects of context important for decoding the cultural content. Interpretive tools used by semiology or cultural studies allow to depict the elements included in the form and content of music and lyrics. They indicate the presence of nostalgia as a category determining the reception of artistic work.

In Defense of Identity – an Interpretation of Camp Stylization in the Selected K-pop Songs of the First Decades of the 21st Century

The paper presents partial results of my research on Korean popular music (K-pop) in the first decades of the 21st century, with a particular emphasis on the analysis and interpretation of the work of BigBang and the solo work of Kwon JiYong (G-Dragon). The aim of my research was to identify the source of a certain stylistic exaggeration and grotesque as well as to find a possible interpretation of that phenomenon. I will start with presenting the complexity of socio-cultural structures in South Korea. Despite the common belief in the Korean society being ‘modern’ and liberal, they are still deeply rooted in traditional Confucian, patriarchal values. As a consequence, issues such as feminism and gender are considered taboo topics. Approaching those aspects from the perspective of music studies is important not only because of the geo-cultural contexts but also due to an impact of social conditions on the analysis of works through the prism of camp stylistics. In spite of widely emphasized high complexity of the notion of camp, I attempt to explain its definition and provide characteristics of that phenomenon. As its universalization was unfair and unjust, camp sparked a great number of disputes referring especially to the contextual location and unambiguous definition. Camp has spread all over the world along with the works of western popular culture, leaving behind non-obvious, sometimes highly surprising traces which I decided to identify on the South Korean scene of popular music. As Korean pop is a phenomenon that results from a certain adaptation of western popular culture, I assumed that it must have been using its tools and stylizations, though sometimes in new versions, as ‘distorted reflections’ leading to absurdity that often results from cultural contexts. While drawing conclusions, I was constantly accompanied by the thought that I was dealing with a different cultural circle and therefore it was not valid to apply the usual patterns and definitions to the phenomena under study. That led me to use camp as a kind of ‘optical apparatus’ and a suggestion for a possible interpretation. The analyses included selected songs and music videos created in the first decades of the 21st century, available on streaming platforms such as YouTube or Spotify. I relied heavily on the literature on popular music, mainly by Roy Shuker, and articles on American pop, especially the songs of Lady Gaga and Gwen Stefani, studied from the perspective of camp works.