A Different Kind of Tension: Portuguese Musical Creation and Identitary Narratives

In this paper, we propose a discussion around the relationship between music and society. Considering that the core object of the Sociology of Arts is, at last, the musical oeuvre itself in its derivation of meanings and world visions, we look to analyze of the identity features present in the Portuguese music editions of the years 2011 and 2012. It is important to understand the established relations between music and society: how far music expresses themes, subjects, emotions? How far those themes, subjects and emotions, as well as the social reality, reflect themselves in music? Reckoning music as a social phenomenon, sociology must accept the sound world autonomy, with its own symbols and norms without neglecting the importance of external factors that come in line with it. In this sense, this paper intends to make a plural balance of the sociological reflection on the sounds and “noises” of the musical field. In the recreation of the contexts of discourse and practices production around music, the following dimensions will be concerned: center/periphery, past/contemporaneity, tradition/modernity, unity/diversity, local/global, endogenous/exogenous, heritage/cosmopolitism, emigration/immigration, power/contestation. This approach will be done through the documental analysis of content coming from approximately 100 phonographic registers within the popular music (pop rock, metal, punk, folk, indie rock, reggae, rap, hip hop).