I Hate World Music

2 Pages 387 Words

The article “I Hate World Music” is written by David Byrne, a prominent figure within the musical industry, and who is credited with playing a key role in shaping what we now know as popular music.
The author begins the article by explaining what he believes we, as western society, perceive to be ‘world music’. According to the author, world music consists of any non-western music, and is treated with ambiguity and obscurity by consumers too afraid to explore an area of the musical world that may be new or unusual to them. He also claims the term refers to a bin in record stores for music that cannot be placed into a specific musical category.
‘World music’, the author points out, is an extremely vague term that fails to capture the incredible diversity of music that exists throughout the world outside of western pop culture. As an example we are told: “Albums by Selena, Ricky Martin and Los Del Rio, artists who sell millions of records in the United States alone, are racked next to field recordings of Thai hill tribes”. According to the definition supposedly used, ‘world music’ consists of the vast majority of music in the world, both in terms of production volume and the various types of music, as opposed to an obscure branch of miscellaneous sounds largely ignored by western consumers.
To restrict your listening to English language pop is, according to the author, like deciding to eat the same meal for the rest of your life. This for me summarizes the overall underlying theme of the article, with the author making a strong and impassioned argument that we, as westerners, are allowing our ignorance and fear of the unknown to distort our attitudes towards any music that may convey cultural origins and values that differ in any way from our own.
The author then goes on to discuss the myth of musical authenticity, claiming that western consumers still look for stereotypical features of national cultures to fee...