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 Rare Shellac Series
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Throughout the world, the rise of mass culture in the 19th century brought the music of the common man to the forefront of the popular agenda. Expressions of "high culture" no longer dominated in the big cities. The taste of recently-urbanised country migrants was increasingly catered for.
Since the turn of the 20th century popular melodies, folk songs, humorous commentaries and dance music with a hard edge gained widespread acceptance. In the suburbs of Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Leipzig and Dresden new types of urban folk singers and entertainers emerged at the cutting edge of recreation. Their songs reflected the dissonant and raucous reality of urban life in harsh and critical lyrics, but always modified by a pinch of irony and a considerable amount of humour.
The commercial recording industry recognised the mass appeal of these emergent syncretic forms and a representative sample from that early period is featured on this series. |
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