Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Rock & Pop
Rock has played an outsized role in modern Czech history, perhaps to an extent
unique among European nations. It was rock (or more specifically the rock of the
American band the Velvet Underground and clandestine Czech counterparts such as
the Plastic People of the Universe) that nurtured and sustained the anti-communist
movement in the 1970s and '80s. The late former president Václav Havel was a huge
fan, and numbered among his closest friends the members of the Rolling Stones, Vel-
vet Underground frontman Lou Reed, and even the late absurdist rocker Frank Zappa.
Mozart actively embraced Czech audiences and once even famously said
of his adoring Prague public, 'My Praguers understand me', following the
premiere of his opera
Don Giovanni
in Prague's Estates Theatre in 1787.
Rock music blossomed during the political thaw of the mid-1960s and home-grown
rock acts began to emerge, showing the heavy influence of bands such as the Beatles,
Beach Boys and Rolling Stones. The local 1967 hit single 'Želva' (Turtle) by the band
Olympic bears the unmistakeable traces of mid-decade Beatles. One of the biggest
stars of the time was pop singer Marta Kubišová (1942-). She was officially banned
by the communists after the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion, though she was rehabilitated
after 1989 and still occasionally performs. Her voice and songs, to this day, capture
something of that fated optimism of the 1960s, pre-invasion period.
Jan Hammer's theme song for the popular 1980s TV show
Miami Vice
re-
mains one of the most popular jazz recordings of all time, selling some 4
million copies in the USA alone.
The Warsaw Pact invasion silenced the rock revolution. Many bands were prohib-
ited from openly performing or recording. In their place, the authorities encouraged
more anodyne singers such as Helena Vondráčková (1947-) and Karel Gott (1939-).
Many popular songs from those days, such as Gott's classic 'Je jaká je' (She is What
She is), are simply Czech covers of the most innocuous Western music of the day.
Rock became heavily politicised in the 1980s in the run-up to the Velvet Revolu-
tion. Hard-core experimental bands such as the Plastic People of the Universe were
forced underground and developed huge cult followings. Another banned performer,
Karel Kryl (1944-94), became the unofficial bard of the people, singing from his
