I HATE world music. The term is a catchall that commonly refers to non-Western music of any and all sorts, popular music, traditional music and even classical music. It's a marketing as well as a pseudomusical term -- and a name for a bin in the record store signifying stuff that doesn't belong anywhere else in the store.
What's in that bin ranges from the most blatantly commercial music produced by a country, like Hindi film music (the singer Asha Bhosle being the best well known example), to the ultra-sophisticated, super-cosmopolitan art-pop of Brazil (Caetano Veloso, Tom Ze, Carlinhos Brown); from the somewhat bizarre and surreal concept of a former Bulgarian state-run folkloric choir being arranged by classically trained, Soviet-era composers (Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares) to Norteno songs from Texas and northern Mexico glorifying the exploits of drug dealers (Los Tigres del Norte). Albums by Selena,
Ricky Martin and Los Del Rio (the Macarena kings), artists who sell millions of records in the United States alone, are racked next to field recordings of Thai hill tribes. Equating apples and oranges indeed.
There is some terrific music being made all over the world. In fact, there is more music, in sheer quantity, currently defined as world music, than any other kind. Not just kinds of music, but volume of recordings as well. When we talk about world music we find ourselves talking about 99 percent of the music on this planet. It would be strange to imagine, as many multinational corporations seem to, that Western pop holds the copyright on musical creativity.
Kevin Ross
i dont care
Anthony Martinez
Western popular music is the fast food of music, and there is more exciting creative music making going on outside the Western pop tradition than inside it. There is so much incredible noise happening that we'll never exhaust it. For example, there are guitar bands in Africa that can be, if you let them, as inspiring and transporting as any kind of rock, pop, soul, funk or disco you grew up with. And what is exciting for me is that they have taken elements of global (Western?) music apart, examined the pieces to see what might be of use and then re-invented and reassembled the parts to their own ends. Thus creating something entirely new.
Grayson Harris
To restrict your listening to English-language pop is like deciding to eat the same meal for the rest of your life. The ''no-surprise surprise,'' as the Holiday Inn advertisement claims, is reassuring, I guess, but lacks kick. As ridiculous as they often sound, the conservative critics of rock-and-roll, and more recently of techno and rave, are not far off the mark. For at it's best, music truly is subversive and dangerous
Landon Kelly
all of this started because i ruptured someones ass to Jupiter then they got mad about shit in my youtube favs imo
Leo Wilson
>Mariachi in southamerica. What a dumb map.
Gabriel Anderson
Why can't fruit be compared?
Jayden White
>Half those are Caribbean genres What a dumb poster.
Cooper Baker
Yeah whatever, you can complain about those being in the wrong continent too if you want, but I'm talking specifically about mariachi. Looks like you're just going out of your way to reply to my post, user.
Justin King
Go build your wall, spic.
Lucas James
Looks like you're just going out of your way to reply to my post, user.
William Barnes
Looks like you're just going out of your way to avoid building your wall, spic.
