My project "'Keep up the good work': Gestures of Hope in Contemporary Danish Popular Music" investigates how Danish pop artists in different ways thematise and explore hope.
Hope for a better future is a common theme in much art and espescially popular music since the 1950'ies have in differnet ways tried to imagine and embody alternatives to how the world could be, how to acheive whats missing. In the 60'ies rock music should lead towards the revolution, in the 70'ies disco opend new spaces and ways of relating, in the 80'ies the music turned digital and transported us into the future and in the 90'ies/00'oes poptimism gave us new tools to understand and appreciate music where the political was not apparent.
My research attempts to find out whats going on and whats at stake in Danish popular music since 2019.
