In examining the reception, surveillance and appropriation of Western popular music in Yugoslavia between 1945 and 1961, this dissertation argues that the mass consumption of it compelled the ruling Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) to alter its strategies in cultural politics and international relations in order to appease popular desires at home and fashion a liberal and modern image of Yugoslavia abroad. Popular music became a prime medium for the construction of pan-Yugoslav cultural bonds and notions of Yugoslav citizenship as the CPY realised that it had a peculiar power based on its international character, modern technologies and widespread popularity, especially among youth. However, the party's attitudes towards popular music were confused well into the 1950s, as its leaders found themselves mired in the contradictions of early Yugoslav communism. This was especially so from 1950, when the CPY began opening Yugoslavia up to Western cultural influences unlike any of its Eastern European kin, as it courted economic, military and political support from the West after its expulsion from the Cominform in 1948. While this openness towards Western cultural trends became a mark of exceptionalism that distinguished the CPY from its Eastern European relatives throughout the Cold War, the ideological reconciliation of it was a tangled process for the party throughout the 1950s as it wondered what sort of political and social impact Western popular music had on its citizens. By 1957, in response to popular desires and foreign policy interests, the CPY accepted that Western popular music could be appropriated in its own cultural politics if it was ideologically, linguistically and productionally "Yugoslavised," which led to significant investments being made into the development of a domestic industry. In doing so, the party strengthened the domestic grip of its ideology without compromising its international image of openness; it reduced a dependence on Western popular music by producing imitations of it at home, yet because they were so imitative they could also be exported abroad to affirm Yugoslavia's openness, modernity and prosperity.