Point Of Dicussion: "World" Music - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

RockyRaccoon
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POINT OF DISCUSSION

This is Point of Discussion, a thread for people to discuss issues and topics related to music in a thoughtful and productive way. The goal of this is to make you think, to make you take a look at what you believe, why you believe it, and what others believe. Good discussion is the key to any society, and this is a place where, hopefully, that can be fostered. If you would like a certain topic to be discussed or question to be posed, PM me and I'll toss it in when I can.

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The Topic:
Considering the how globalization has affected the world, is the genre of "world" music a relevant classification anymore? Was it ever? Would you consider the idea of "world" music to be a western, ethnocentric idea, or does the genre have a specific place and meaning?
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craola
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it was always a silly term. how can nusrat fateh ali khan, salif keita and deep forest get lumped into the same genre?
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benpaco
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This has always been a weird category for me. I'm mostly just here in hopes to read others' posts frankly, but for me, it's a category of music that ought to be thrown out. It's just a lazy way of categorizing everything from Calypso to Reggae to Zouglou to Afrobeat to Rai to Hindustani classical to stuff on Mali Music. It's a dumb thing for me.

Also, how do you define world? Like is it the style? Cuz if so, I can see an argument that puts like Zun Zun Egui's new album as world even though they're from the UK. If it's just the country you're from 1 How do you decide what counts as world (i.e. does South Africa count? Does Brazil? I'd say no, but some would say yes, it's just hard) and 2 Is all music from there automatically "world"? Like if a really great Senegalese Garage Rock band existed, would that automatically be "world"?
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It always has and always will be a silly umbrella term for disparate, unrelated genres of music to be gathered together into something easily marketable and exotic sounding. If Satie was still here he'd have a field day. Laughing

Really though it a totally Western-centric construct, and pretty insulting to say the least. I'm sure Samba musicians would hate to be told that they play something equivalent to Afrobeat, and so on so forth. At it's core it's just marketing though, and as the world does become more globalized, as you said, it will hopefully fade away and we'll be able to call music from around the world what it actually is.

And I mean, it's not entirely harmful necessarily, I'm sure a lot of people have discovered great artists through the tag they would have shied away from if it had been properly labelled, but in our current age people who are interested in exploring music from around the world will do so regardless of what it's tagged as, I'm sure.

mickilennial
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It has never been a genre, in the musical sense, but a loose category to encompass a commercial box. I mean is "foreign film" a genre of cinema? No, but it's still a category of which we use to validate or celebrate our interest in non-western pieces of film.

LevonTostig

Using "world" to categorize all music that's not western is not ethnocentric...unless someone is using "world" as a blanket term to disregard all non-western music. Otherwise it's just a means by which to broadly refer to music that is not western, just as "western" is used to refer to western music.

One can broadly call something "world music" and then more narrowly define it to a specific genre and not be acting in a ethnocentric way.

craola
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Location: pdx

LevonTostig wrote:

Using "world" to categorize all music that's not western is not ethnocentric...unless someone is using "world" as a blanket term to disregard all non-western music. Otherwise it's just a means by which to broadly refer to music that is not western, just as "western" is used to refer to western music.

One can broadly call something "world music" and then more narrowly define it to a specific genre and not be acting in a ethnocentric way.

Crap. I hadn't thought about it this way, but I suppose you're right.
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Hayden

Location: CDMX

Gowienczyk wrote:

It has never been a genre, in the musical sense, but a loose category to encompass a commercial box. I mean is "foreign film" a genre of cinema? No, but it's still a category of which we use to validate or celebrate our interest in non-western pieces of film.

This. It's just a general umbrella of what isn't western music. Reggae always seems to be an exception, but for the most part it's just easier saying 'world' rather than go into detail about highlife, MPB, bolero, afrobeat, samba, calypso, wolof, whatever it might be. Of course 'world' isn't a genre.. it just can't be. Just a classification really.

Also, my world chart is in my sig Mr. Green

Defago
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Gowienczyk wrote:

It has never been a genre, in the musical sense, but a loose category to encompass a commercial box. I mean is "foreign film" a genre of cinema? No, but it's still a category of which we use to validate or celebrate our interest in non-western pieces of film.

This! It's more of a blanket term to refer to not-our-music by westerners.

Defago
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LevonTostig wrote:

Using "world" to categorize all music that's not western is not ethnocentric...unless someone is using "world" as a blanket term to disregard all non-western music. Otherwise it's just a means by which to broadly refer to music that is not western, just as "western" is used to refer to western music.

One can broadly call something "world music" and then more narrowly define it to a specific genre and not be acting in a ethnocentric way.

It actually is, since you're defining "the rest of the world" as non-westerners. Since "ethnocentric" means to evaluate other cultures according to the standards of your own culture, then if "world music" means "non-western music" then that's definitely done according to the standards of your culture, "western culture". The phrase "the rest of the world" is not objective, but subjective, depending on what my culture is - as such, it's ethnocentric. Not that there's anything wrong with using ethnocentric phrases!

To be honest, I prefer to use the term "[culture] folkloric music". So that way you can avoid the ethnocentrism and be more specific while maintaining the idea of a culture's specific musical traditions. Peruvian folkloric music is much more specific; free to use from any perspective, not only the western one; and less (albeit still some) of a blanket term and more of a genre. "Folkloric music" without a culture alongside it is also a better term than "world music" since it involves all autonomous and non-globalized forms of musical traditions while being usable from any perspective and not just the Occidental one!

Last edited by Defago on 02/24/2015 04:32; edited 1 time in total