Pop music in Malta from the fifties to the seventies : in search of a formula for national identity

Abstract

The popular music of a generation reflects and reproduces its people's concerns during developments and changes occurring through the ages, especially in matters concerning their identity. In Malta this interest emerged in the early thirties when the first Maltese folk tunes and other melodies were recorded and re-released again, in the fifties and sixties, through a wider accessibility. The new lease of life and development of Maltese popular songs found a wider reception in the sixties referred to as 'a road that was wide open' when 'Viva Malta', became the theme that drove the new post-colonial generation. After Malta's Independence, in 1964, was like the dawn of a new horizon, an awakening in every sector, from the economic to the artistic perspective. The Maltese people began to understand and savor their independence against the heritage scenario from former rulers spanning across the centuries. They looked proudly towards a beautiful future that belonged to them under the 'Made in Malta' label. The objective of this study is to initiate an investigation about the relationship between the national memory and the ideologies in pop Maltese music that were inherited from our Italian neighbours as well as the adoption of other innovations from Britain and from the other side of the Atlantic. Very little that's of any academic relevance has been written about Maltese pop music. The artistic sense and national identity in popular Maltese song has yet to be studied in greater depth, academically analyzed and provided with more credibility. Due to the lack of such bibliographic sources, the study had to depict a narrative study of the pop music in Malta and the scenario that goes behind it. The analytical definition of popular culture and pop music is addressed in the introduction in relation to social duality in line with the Frankfurt School theories and the manner to recognize the popular element and commercial sound as projected by authoritative scholars in this area includingFrith, Tagg, Middleton and Dogsfma. Bob Dylan's vision contains substantial food for thought! The introduction focuses on what characterises the Maltese popular song.