The Language of Rock: Iranian Youth, Popular Music, and National Identity

Abstract

So begins the song “Kabootarha-ye Sepid ” (“White Pigeons”)1 from the 2004 album Ta Binahayat (“Till Eternity”) by Arian, arguably the most successful Iranian pop band in recent years. What makes this song so interesting is not just that it is the only example of a high-profile pop band in Iran singing in English, but that the song explicitly forefronts a kind of universalizing discourse which has become increasingly prevalent among the grass-roots rock music which forms the main focus of this chapter. While the music of Arian sits firmly towards the “pop” end of the “rock-pop” spectrum, the immense popularity of the band and the high profile of its music in the public domain raises interesting questions about the extent to which such discourses resonate with broader trends within Iranian society. I will return to Arian below.

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