ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on general cultural parameters for situating and understanding rock music and its central importance as a major popular-cultural force in Yugoslav society. It assumes that understanding this relationship reveals an important story about not only Yugoslav rock music itself but also the nature and problems of Yugoslav society as a particular kind of 'imagined ideological community' and distinct socio-political project. Shake, Rattle and Roll is about exploring these ten propositions through a historical-sociological framework and offering an interpretive understanding of the substance of Yugoslav rock'n'roll. It explains the movement's particular type of socio-cultural critique as a struggle against the cultural hypocrisy of Yugoslavias 'new socialist culture', and attempts to assert local cultural authenticity as the only legitimate way of engaging with a larger society and the 'world out there'.
