Contemporary Popular Music
See also: List of Polish musiciansPoland has always been a very open country to new music genres and even before the fall of the communism, music styles like rock, metal, jazz, electronic, and New Wave were well-known. Since 1989, the Polish scene has exploded with new talents and a more diverse style.
Every year, a huge gathering of young Poles meet to celebrate the rock and alternative music in Jarocin, Żary, and Kostrzyn nad Odrą and at Open'er Festival and Off Festival. These events often attract more than 250,000 people and are comparable to the gatherings in Woodstock and Roskilde.
In jazz music, Polish musicians created a specific style, which was most famous in 60s and 70s. Some famous Polish jazz artists are: Krzysztof Komeda, Zbigniew Namysłowski, Adam Makowicz, Tomasz Stańko, Michał Urbaniak.
Two contemporary big Polish music festivals are Opole Festival and Sopot Festival. Among other important festivals there are: Jazz Jamboree, Rawa Blues Festival and Wratislavia Cantans.
Read more about this topic: Polish Folk Music
Famous quotes containing the words popular music, contemporary, popular and/or music:
“The new sound-sphere is global. It ripples at great speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers and races.... The economics of this musical esperanto is staggering. Rock and pop breed concentric worlds of fashion, setting and life-style. Popular music has brought with it sociologies of private and public manner, of group solidarity. The politics of Eden come loud.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)
“Literature that is not the breath of contemporary society, that dares not transmit the pains and fears of that society, that does not warn in time against threatening moral and social dangers—such literature does not deserve the name of literature; it is only a façade. Such literature loses the confidence of its own people, and its published works are used as wastepaper instead of being read.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)
“The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision. Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Your remark that clams will lie quiet if music be played to them, was superfluous—entirely superfluous.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)