The Post-mortem Transformations of a Working-Class Hero: Neoliberal Public Culture in the Netherlands

This paper will focus on the ‘resurrection’ of the Dutch people’s singer André Hazes (1951-2004), and his transition from ‘working class hero’ into object of neoliberal, glamorous middle class entertainment. Being a ‘Jack-of-all-trades and a master of none’ Hazes was a man from a working-class background, singing about ‘life as it really is’ and therefore somebody with whom his fans identified. Singing for a public largely consisting of white, autochthonous, lower-income, lower-educated Dutch, Hazes’ self-styled fusion between traditional corny songs, pop and blues (levenslied) was frowned upon by the higher echelons of society: until the late 1980s levenslied was even banned from public radio and television.

Significantly, as a Dutch language genre levenslied became truly popular in the 1990s, in which period a new nationalism and new sentiments of Dutchness gained currency. André Hazes lives on as the uncrowned king of the levenslied, in a multiplicity of appearances, his presence (as a cultural phenomenon) reaching unprecedented heights early 2012. It is my argument that this overall embracement of ‘the people’s singer’ is not an incident, but must be placed in the wider context a changing public culture dominated by nationalist and neocapitalist ideologies. Immersed in commerce  – organisationally, financially and aesthetically – we may think of Hazes and levenlied popular culture as encapsulated into ‘cultural consortia’ under control of the most influential and wealthy stakeholders in Dutch popular culture.