Polish Bayer. Images of Disco Polo in the 1990s

Abstract

The article regards the aesthetics of disco-polo popular genre in the period of the so-called transformation of 1989. The author analyses different images, amongst them the Gala of Popular and Street Music in 1992, videoclips, covers of cassette recordings, visuals from the presidential campaign of 1995. She tries to define a performative strategy of disco-polo singers and to put disco-polo imaginary into a wider context of socio-cultural narrations on lower classes and their place in Polish society of the transformation time. The author argues that images of disco-polo society work across standard opinions about apathetic province; they actually try to transgress it. She also refers to the intelligentsia discussions of 1990' and proves that – against common belief about the post-romantic character of the disco-polo genre – the style is deeply indebted in „romantic props magazine”.