Is the audience of popular music chosen by the music industry?

To some extent, audience for popular music is created by the music industry because industry controls the sound of popular music that it has created and therefore its audience. Shuker says, “All popular music consists of a hybrid of musical traditions. Within today’s society, music is largely regarded as an economic product force with record companies striving for maximum profits. Music industry plays a large part in setting and maintaining trends by focussing its attentions and budgets in successful path.

Theodor Adorno suggests that recordings generally sound the same, to some extent this is true because when a successful artist comes through; a trend of same set and style of music tends to be developed. An example of this was during the 90’s when boybands attempt to follow in the success of New kids on the block: Backstreet boys, n*sync etc

Since music industry is a predominant influencing factor therefore audience do highly depend on the music industry for their consumption.

NME Magazine

NME is a weekly magazine and tend to focus more on music bands, DVD’s, events, tours, fashion, latest competition and latest camera. NME is renowned for its ‘voice of youth’ in the 70’s and 80’s. Music included is mainly rock and pop whilst it provides a strong insight to in and out of the indie music industry as well as quick review of gigs across the UK. It raises the bar with its passion for both current and old school sounds, creating an insistent love affair for ‘genuine’ music fans fanatic.

The adverts seem to take up the majority of space on a page, but throughout the magazine there is an equal amount of written text and pictures to engage with the readers and catch their attention. Reviews seems reasonably short and it’s ‘involved’ writing form and ‘tell it as it is philosophy connotate a style with a point and informative, which anyone would find difficult to argue with.

Are blackness and whiteness useful concepts in the study of popular music?

In other to understand where music originates from, it is very useful to study its background. It is difficult to consider some music as ‘black’ or ‘white’ because there are many factors to take into account before making a conclusive assumption. Concepts of blackness and whiteness are useful with understanding development of popular music. For example, blues music developed through slave trade; so understanding its background is very important to appreciate the musical sounds.

Music has evolved to a certain level where labels of white or black has to be disregard. E.g. Eminem is white but rap is categorised as black music and also, Phil Lynott is black but rock is seen as white. “Pop music has always depended upon the interaction between white and black traditions” (Hatch 1987)

Since music consumers are not always of the same race as the music performers. Concepts are put in place as guidelines to help address underlying issues within types of music and looking at its past.

Does the emergence of the digital download signal the end for the music industry?

Digital download does signal the end of the music industry to some certain extent as this can be seen from downturn sale of CD which as occurred from illegal download of music online and this can be support with Lessig identification of 4 purposes for downloading: to replace purchasing, (b) to sample then purchase, (c) to access otherwise unavailable content, and (d) to access content that is not copyrighted. Online sites such as Napster has made it easy to discover and download copyrighted music for free.
Although itunes music store reached its 10 billion download last year which shows that people are still willing to pay for their music and does mean that digital download doesn’t signal the of music industry. However reports have shown that music sales is declining in sales and I do believe this to be true through illegal download of music online.

Can popular music achieve genuine political change?

In some ways and to some extent, popular music can achieve genuine political change. Live aid music concert is one of the examples of music involved in an attempt to change world politics. Live 8 music concerts helped raised a substantial amount of money for third world countries where the government of developed countries have failed to eradicate developing countries debt, however this awareness reached billions of people and funds were raised world wide through the concerts and generated lots of money which means and shows that popular music helped achieved this.
Red Wedge, an independent organisation used popular music to promote the Labour party before the general election in1987. Overall popular music can achieve political change with some success, in 1984; Bob Geldof created Band Aid and used popular music to raise money and awareness for Africa where Government policies were failing.

What is world music

World music is simply a category of music that embodies a diverse range of music from around the world, not formally popular or familiarised in the UK and the America. World music has characteristics and features that distinguishes itself as a genre from others through its ethnic style and the rhythm. World music takes up traditional music of any culture due to the fact that the world has so much diverse taste in music and a wide culture to present from and simply means that ‘world music’ is not global. World music however allows people to express themselves in a way that they cannot do in other genres in terms of creativity.

Is Popular Music A Mass Produced Commodity Or A Genuine Art Form?

To consider popular music as an art form is very debatable and subjective to individual understanding, as different people have different interpretations of what they think and believe is art. Adorno said that “the whole structure of popular music is standardized,” that it was symptomatic of the politically and aesthetically destructive nature of the capitalist mode of production.
What can be considered, as creative skill of art by the artist is only their performances and their ability on stage to deliver the lyrics. Their songs have been created for them and are merely part of the product of the song.
Bernard Gedron says that music is 'universal' and that the C.D or vinly is 'particular'. This basically means that the format the music is on is the mass produced commodity whilst the music is the art form. However the songs can't be mass produced, but the format the music on can be.

How useful is a production of culture perspective in understanding the birth of rock and roll?

Rock and roll had a massive impact on the mass audience who were “All Shook Up” whilst other musical genres didn’t have that. Peterson's 'production of culture perspective' consists of six different key factors: law, technology, industry structure, organisation structure, occupational career and market. The production of culture perspective looks at the social factors surrounding the emergence of rock n roll and explains how the society at the time allowed it to flourish. However, he did not go on to explain why rock and roll was successful because it was not just rock and roll that exists during the 50s. Jazz and blues emerged during this time. Peterson perspective completely ignores the music itself, fails to explore what was so unique, fascinating, exciting, special and original about it. Therefore Peterson’s perspective cannot be relied on completely, when understanding the birth of rock n roll.

Is it reasonable to consider rock music is gendered male?

To certain extent, it’s reasonable enough to consider rock music as a gendered male. Musical instruments are associated with genders, for instance guitars are associated with males whilst pianos are associated with females, which are regarded as traditional 'feminine’. Frith and McRobbie introduced the term 'cock rock', in relation to heavy metal, which is an aggressive expression of male sexuality. Society insists women are not to be promiscuous or wild, but lady like which takes away some of their interest from playing or engaging in rock music.
People generally like music that they can relate to or can idolize the lead performer; therefore, rock is regularly seen as male gendered. It’s very hard for women to be taken seriously in rock music due to male dominated genre, however women now embrace rock music through ‘rock chick’ image dressing looks and social behaviour lifestyle which has proven to give them recognition and attention to become more involved.

Can Popular Music Ever Really be Unplugged

Popular music can never really be unplugged due to a number of different reasons. The number of audiences/the fans that listen to popular music makes it impossible to have any chance of unplugging it and because of the kind of music genre produce with the technology it uses. You can’t have an unplugged album because it has already been plugged, once you have record music, its impossible to unplug it. Unplugged music gives the human voice the respect that is due. During a musical performance, the audience may be forgiving if a particular musical instrument cannot be heard, but they are not so forgiving if the vocalist cannot be discerned. (P. Theberge) quotes 'without electronic technology, popular music in the 21st century is unthinkable' which means that for an artist to produce unplugged music they would have play the instruments without the aid of amplifiers and sing without the use of a microphone.

Popular music can be classified as any genre of music that has a wide appeal amongst the general public of a society dominated by urban culture and advanced technology. In the 19^th century, popular music was accepted by the society as synonym for good. When we speak of popular music, we speak of music that is commercially oriented (Robert Burnet: The Globe Juk box, pg 35). Commercial in terms of having profits rather than artistic or other value as a primary aim. Every popular music output involves a piece of technology for its production. According to Nesun Dorma ‘Luciano Povorotti’ he suggested that popular music is what ‘lots’ of people like. The main definition given by Roy Shuker ‘understanding popular music’ pg 7, states that; essesntially, all popukar music consist of a hybrid of musical traditions styles and influence and is also an economic product which is inverted with ideological significance by many of its consumers