Music of the French Counterculture: 1966-1975

Abstract

The French counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s developed in connection to a network of countercultures across the globe. This thesis studies the role that these relationships had in the development of French countercultural music and musical discourses. To conduct this research, this study principally relies on analysis of three central thencontemporary music magazines: Actuel, Rock & Folk, and Best. The analysis of these magazines is complimented by musical and semiotic analyses. In this way this text balances a consideration of written cultural discourse and insight drawn from investigation of aesthetic choices. This study offers new insight into processes of musical and countercultural development in France. These years saw a complicated and shifting discourse where French youth sought to work out how to both identify with a transnational youth movement and retain a sense of national individuality. Music is placed at the centre of this tension as it acted as a vehicle to engage with national Others and as a way of articulating a sense of the national Self. This study views the development of the French counterculture as a result of national and transnational processes. Chapters 2 and 4 view the reception and response to international actors by looking at France’s relationship with the counterculture of the USA and the UK respectively. Chapter 3 turns the attention to circulations within French borders by considering the interplay between the French folk revival and the French counterculture. Chapter 5 features the most direct study, out of the chapters within this thesis, on the internal dialogue about the development of French rock music taking place within countercultural circles.