TheMA - Open Access Research Journal for Theatre, Music, Arts : Yugoslavian Disco. Digging into an “Excluded” Musical Culture of Late Socialism, Vol. X/2024

Abstract

This volume explores different aspects of the yet uncanonised disco culture that thrived in Yugoslavia from the late 1970s until the early 1980s. Yugoslav disco culture points to the many issues and dilemmas at the heart of late socialism: With funk pioneers and Estrada emulators, gender transgressors and male chauvinists, affluent clubbers and Roma dancers, mainstream promoters and hostile critics, disco resists the polarizing definitions of conformist or progressive, official or subcultural, repression or dissent. Operating within gray zones, it highlights the inadequacy of the outdated binary matrix typically used for the interpretation of popular culture under socialism.