Overview
- KIEN, the Dutch intangible-heritage center, placed dialect rock on the national list Saturday.
- Officials broadened a fan-club bid that named Normaal, listing the entire genre because rituals like beer-throwing are not unique to the band.
- KIEN adviser Frank Hemeltjen said the center will define what counts as dialect rock this year in talks with Normaal’s fan club, Het Anhangerschap.
- Normaal frontman Bennie Jolink called the recognition an 'enormous honour' after helping launch the style by pairing dialect lyrics with hard rock at Lochem in 1975.
- The entry lands within a program that has more than sixty elements queued for the inventory and over 450 practices already recorded, which documents living traditions passed down in communities.