A book about rock in French-speaking Switzerland
Romands rock traces the development of the rock scene in French-speaking Switzerland, from the sixties to the year 2000, through the various musical currents and their leading figures, as well as the political, social, cultural and economic upheavals.
In French-speaking Switzerland, as in the USA, Great Britain and France, there have been "generations" of Presley, Beatles, Dylan and Woodstock. It's from these sources, still nourished by blues and country, that the entire history of rock'n'roll has drawn. And it's from these waves of sound that a thousand and one artistic ebbs and flows have flowed here and elsewhere. For this Romands rock, in the form of a historical sketch of contemporary music in French-speaking Switzerland, it's a long, untrammelled river that had to be followed against the current. Over the course of a singular, fragmented and territorially-dispersed fifty-year history, the music scene in French-speaking Switzerland has swarmed without too many standard patterns. The German, French and Italian-speaking parts of Switzerland were not hit by the rock wave at the same time. From yé-yé to electronic music, from punk to hip-hop, from chanson to hard rock, from folk to progressive rock via pop, there isn't a style that hasn't worthily spread to French-speaking Switzerland.
Olivier Horner has been a journalist specializing in contemporary music since 1998. He currently works for RTSinfo. The book is published by Slatkine, with the participation of the FCMA.
More info: www.slatkine.com
