Week 6

World music can be considered as a significant category in music.  It does not mean music made on the planet Earth.  Many different types of music fit into this genre.  It actually consists of music that is not western, American, or British popular music.  It is categorized by region and is the traditional music of a culture and is played by local, indigenous musicians.  This type of music preserves a region’s culture, but it seems that, with globalization, local musicians are “losing their local identities”.  The local sounds are also being fused with other types of music to create “heterogeneous world music”.  World music could be anything from traditional ethnic music to foreign language pop music.  It seems every type of music today is affected by another type of music.  There exists Spanish reggae, country rap, and Korean pop music.  These are just a few examples of mixes of world music.


P.S.  Are we completely done class on March 25?  And do we have a final exam?

Week 5

Whether popular music can be considered a mass produced commodity or a genuine art form is arguable.  It is true that much of today’s popular music is pieced together based off of past songs.  Beats, rhythms, lyrics, etc. are remastered, remixed, and reused.  Some artists even blatantly copy another’s song, such as Miley Cyrus’ and X Factor’s “The Climb”.  These processes can be categorized as part interchangeability and part pseudo individualization.  Hit songs can, however, prove to be original and artistic. Nevertheless, critics like Theodore Adorno beg to differ, though Adorno fails to see that pop music is still recorded by an artist at some point and is consumed in a different way than other commodities.  All in all, it seems a fair statement to say that popular music is sometimes just a mass produced commodity, but oftentimes it can be a genuine art form.

Week 4

If one were to analyze a culture in the context of the producers that generate cultural products, this would be called a production of culture perspective.  This perspective can be very useful.  To understand the 1955 birth of rock and roll, Peterson used this technique.  Being that it is unlikely rock and roll came about “out of nowhere”, so to speak, Peterson’s explanations serve to discuss many angles.  Touching on law, market, technology, industry structure, and occupational careers, he has many valid points.  However, there can be flaws in the production of culture perspective.  Particularly in Peterson’s argument, he fails to discuss the actual music itself.  His theories could be applied to any style of music born in the year 1955 and fail to answer critical questions.  For example, why rock and roll?  Why did people like it and why did it become so popular?  The birth of rock and roll is arguable.

102100 Week 3

I believe that it would be reasonable to consider rock music to be gendered male.  Throughout rock music's history, males have dominated.  In many ways, females are victimized in rock. Heavy metal is an expression of male aggression and cock rock is a reflection of male sexuality.  These styles tend to dehumanize women.  Another style, glam rock, uses androgyny to imply that males can take on female characteristics and still dominate.

Rock and roll advertising focuses on males and when females are mentioned, they tend to be depicted as sexual objects.  Rock and roll is also inclined to be associated with technology, which is gendered male as well, as females are supposed to be helpless physically, mechanically, and technologically.  More obviously, it is difficult to name female rock artists, while males are endless.  However, it is highly unlikely that males are simply more talented.  “Lead guitarists are made, not born.”