Managing the Eastern European position in the digital era: music industry showcase events and popular music export in Hungary

Abstract

Following the 1989–1990 transition and formal reintegration into the world system, the ‘opening up’ of post-socialist countries to global cultural industries, including the music industry, primarily meant a creation of new markets for major record labels and other central actors of the global music economy. This chapter explores this particular semi-peripheral position of the national music industries of Eastern Europe within global, as well as regional—European—relations of dependency while also reflecting on the changing structure of the digital music industries. This is done through an examination of two case studies, the showcase festival BuSH (Budapest Showcase Hub), first held in 2016, and Hungarian music export initiatives. Showcase festivals in East-Central Europe, such as Tallinn Music Week or BuSH, are aimed at creating and reinforcing a regional industry network, partly to counterbalance the dependency of Eastern Europe on the global core of the music industry. At the same time, the regional focus is not unrelated to the strengthening of new intermediaries in the digital music industry. Music export, on the other hand, is still primarily aimed at Western markets, and the dominant music industry discourse stresses the importance of professionalism as something local artists and industry professionals need to acquire in order to be successful, thus echoing a narrative of ‘catching up’ with the West, without reflection on global relations of dependency.