What is World Music? What is the function of it?

World music can be any music, which is produced in another country. Shuker states that ‘the common preference of listeners and record buyers for foreign-originated sounds, rather than the product of their local artists and labels, is associated with the cultural imperialism thesis.’ It is suggested that dominant countries will make products, which endorse cultural values of their origin and market them in such a way that the ‘world music’ dominates over the local indigenous music. The problem with this thesis being that world music is shown to be dominated by one or a couple of dominant nations, there is not a mix of countries who can create their own music and can say it is popular for a worldwide audience. World music should be something that is a mixture of international and national music, not just music from a dominant nation, which can be popular music for the masses.

Is popular music a mass produced commodity or a genuine art form?

Adorno has stated that ‘the whole structure of popular music is standardized, even where the attempt is made to circumvent standardization. Standardization extends from the most general features to the most specific ones’ in On Record. The suggestion that popular music is homogenous and this leads to the notion that the entire culture industry must be standardized and therefore it is a mass-produced commodity. Suggesting popular music is homogenous means that every track produced is the same; the structure of it is the same and therefore cannot be a genuine art form. Art should be something that is unique and makes a point of self-awareness; it can also be something to express feelings of its producer. Popular music is not unique, every ‘artist’ follows the tried and tested method and therefore popular music is a mass produced commodity whose only purpose of existing is to make money from its passive audience.

How useful is a production of culture perspective in understanding the birth of Rock and Roll?

According to Peterson there are 6 factors for the emergence of Rock and Roll, which are law, technology, industry structure, organization structure, occupational career and market, yet these don’t necessarily give a proper understanding of why Rock and Roll music can be classified as Rock and Roll music as Peterson doesn’t go into great detail about the actual music content. Though Peterson does state “these are times when the usual routinising inhibitions to innovate do not operate as systematically, allowing opportunities for innovator to immerge” which shows that he does explain how social and historical contexts affect how the music is made and how it changes over time. This emphasizing on the fact that even today people cannot decide which song was the first Rock and Roll track, whether it was Elvis Presley with That’s all right in 1954 or The Andrew’s Sisters with Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy in 1940.

Is it reasonable to consider that rock music is gendered as male?

Frith and McRobbie have used the term ‘cock rock’ to refer to the gendered nature of this genre of music. They state that by using this term they mean ‘music making in which performance is an explicit, crude and sometimes aggressive expression of male sexuality’. This showing that rock is male dominated music in which females are the subordinate gender, they don’t fit into the stereotypical ideology of a rock musician. Bayton makes statements on how women’s role in music have mainly been the vocalist rather than the instrumentalist which suggests that instruments related to rock music such as the guitar are manly and Bayton states how the guitar is held low and in front of the genitals, again connoting that the guitar is an extension of the male body, this is another sign in which males imply this is their territory which emphasizes that rock is gendered as male.