PhD - Constructing identity through revaluation of indigenous cultural forms: a case study on Popbandari Music (Babak Nikzat, 2018))
As of the 1960s, because of Iranians’ great enthusiasm for Western culture, Iranian pop music was strongly influenced by Western commercial music and frowned upon the use of elements from regional music traditions. Since the 1980s, various causes, such as the growing Western interest in oriental culture and Iranians’ renewed interest in their own culture, have led to new marketing strategies for pop music. As a result, elements of regional and classical Persian music are now being consciously integrated into pop music, including bandari, a traditional style from southern Iran. This project aims firstly to examine this style in its cultural context, secondly to examine the process of its integration into pop music from a sociocultural perspective, and thirdly, to make a musical analysis of "bandari-pop", comparing its structures to those of traditional genres. Such a comparison makes it possible to trace the process of adaptation and alteration of the original musical elements under the influence of Western music. This is an example of how new commercial music genres emerge as hybrid forms and become a means of establishing identity.