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the spread of generic international culture


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The link to the Russion music video in another thread brings to mind the trend of generic music spreading internationally. There's was no easy way to tell the video and music was Russian, it could have been from anywhere. When I go to an ethnic restaurant playing indigenous pop music usually the only way to tell that it is not USA pop music is the language.

 

I suppose international megacorporations, the internet and satellite TV are the main causes of this trend. Although cultural trends have always spread around the world, the pace and depth of the impact have increased. It used to be when you heard, for example, a Cambodian band playing rock music it would still be obvious that the music was from Cambodia because they would add indigenoius elements and/or fail to copy the American style with complete accuracy. That inaccuracy is part of the charm of British interpretations of blues or Bollywood's attempts at various western music styles. Many recent Bollywood releases lack this charm because their attempts to emulate western styles are so accurate that there is nothing (except the language) distinguishing many of the songs from the latest Brittany-Jessica-Janet etc release.

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Yeah... I've been thinking about this for a long time.

 

I was a huge fan of reggae and dub in the mid and late 70s and got into African music in the 80s...

 

At first I was excited by the "world music" phenom... until I started hearing slavishly recreated reggae from bands in places in Africa (or other parts of the world, for that matter) with their own, really rich and unique musical heritages. I mean, do I really want to go to Mozambique to hear a reggae band?

 

Now, I'm sure that, the human musical spirit being what it is, that great stuff will eventually come out these interminglings... but where will the next generation of ethnic musicians come from?

 

Why go to all the trouble of learning difficult instruments like the kora or the sitar when the audiences are presumed to want to hear synths and electric guitars and vocoded vocals...?

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The link to the Russion music video in another thread brings to mind the trend of generic music spreading internationally. There's was no easy way to tell the video and music was Russian, it could have been from anywhere. When I go to an ethnic restaurant playing indigenous pop music usually the only way to tell that it is not USA pop music is the language.


I suppose international megacorporations, the internet and satellite TV are the main causes of this trend. Although cultural trends have always spread around the world, the pace and depth of the impact have increased. It used to be when you heard, for example, a Cambodian band play rock music it would still be obvious that the music was from Cambodian because they would add indigenoius elements and/or fail to copy the American style with complete accuracy. That inaccuracy is part of the charm of British interpretations of blues or Bollywood's attempts at various western music styles. Many recent Bollywood releases lack this charm because their attempts to emulate western styles are so accurate that there is nothing (except the language) distinguishing many of the songs from the latest Brittany-Jessica-Janet etc release.

 

All so very true. I've been listening to another great online radio station out of The Netherlands called RADIO OH-LA-LA.

 

It's all French pop music of the 1950's and 60's. So much fun it is, so charming, some of it teetering upon "Le Bad", if you know what I mean.. You talk about trying to emulate American pop sensibilities but not getting them "quite right"... ha-ha, or at least imbuing them with their own unique cultural stamp.

 

Outside of RADIO OH-LA-LA (not even shoutcast from France!) one will be hard-pressed to find French music radios which play anything other than American pop... kids all over the world today dig what's American, by-and-large. But I suspect there's always that element of: "We want Mickey Mouse, Coca-Cola, rock 'n' roll and Superman--and American dollars-- but we hate Americans." going on. [France, Japan, and the Arab countries spring to mind here].

 

Russian leaders have, for many decades, despised "Western decadence", encouraging her citizens to embrace the nobility of the austere Russian work ethic. Now here you have a half-nekkid Russian teenager winking at the whole world to "taste her cherry pie."

 

Oh-la-la! ;)

 

I recently read a letter-- it was actually very touching-- written by an older Russian man who says he will always cherish the smell of the cologne ARAMIS... because, in the mid-1960's, it was the first Western men's cologne smuggled from the West, at great peril, into Russia. It was a very expensive black-market item. To him, ARAMIS will always smell, not like sex or romance, but like "possibilities, wealth and hope".

 

Kinda puts things into perspective for me, I think.

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Yes... but that local music is becoming increasingly homogenized and over-processed and ends up sounding more and more distressingly like
American
pop.

 

 

From the point I observe popular music, I do not see this trend. I'm often in France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, England, as well know the pop music from China, Japan, North Africa and middle east. Almost 100% of the successful music in those countries is completly different from the American music culture, style wise, cultural wise, as well production wise. Asking the other way around, do you know American artists who sound like Eros Ramazzotti, Natascha Atlas, Youssou Ndour, Cheb Khaled, Fairouz, Om Khalsoum etc.? You may name some Non-American artists who have a distinct American style, I don't see any, well maybe Zucchero is an Italian singer with an American style.

 

.

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I actually said "western," not American, intentionally because I think much of the generic international music style is derived from European styles as much as American styles. To my ears much of the Madonna-Britanny-Christina music sounds at least 50% European showing the influence of Abba and electronica/disco. (I know that techno and disco originated in the USA but it seems to me that it was largely the Europeans who kept these styles alive.)

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Yes... but that local music is becoming increasingly homogenized and over-processed and ends up sounding more and more distressingly like
American
pop.

 

 

Well what is "American Pop"? For example, a great deal of the early hits from N'Sync, Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears were produced by a Swede named Max Martin. And for those boybands, their success started in Europe and Asia before being big in the US, despite their nationality.

 

Timbaland's music is all over the place now, but his trademark drum programming style was greatly influenced by British drum n' bass music, which has roots in Jamaican dub music.

 

Cultures are supposed to cross-pollinate. Pasta came about because Marco Polo visited China.

 

The "local flavor" is going away, I agree. I went to Portland, Oregon a couple weeks on vacation and listened to the radio there, nothing I heard was any unique or different to my chagrin. But if you wanna stand out from the crowd, then adopt or make up your own "local flavor" (until it gets co-opted by the mainstream, and then the process has to start all over again with newer ideas...)

 

Though speaking of local flavor, when I visited New Orleans in 2005 (five months before The One-Eyed Bitch destroyed the city), WWOZ-FM was my soundtrack.

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The cross-pollination of music is fine provided that it doesn't stamp out what's original and unique in other cultures.

 

It can be good sometimes. For instance, KCRW here in Los Angeles (who also have NPR) play a sort of watered-down sort of world music, where it's mixed with techno, or it's more pop, or it has 4/4 rhythms, or it simply sounds more Westernized. But I suppose that this is still preferable to people listening to truly {censored}ty sounding stuff, and who knows, may get a few of the listeners to delve deeper into a region's more "authentic" music. After all, the truth of the matter is that almost no one, even on this forum full of huge music fans, is going to go listen to Hugh Tracey's African field recordings or stuff on "The Secret Museum of Mankind" or Laotian nose-flutes or whatever.

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Also, this begs the question: WHAT IS AUTHENTIC? How far back should we go?

 

I listen to 1950s recordings of African high-life. Is that authentic? Could be argued either way. They're playing guitars. Because the recordings are 55-60 years old, and it's rawer, does that make it more "authentic" than newer high-life guitar recorded digitally for the Putamayo label?

 

I love the Ethiopiques series. Ethiopiques 4, with music from the late '60s and early '70s, is one of my favorite releases ever, as it sounds like jazz musicians playing snake charmer music. But you know, what's going on here is that Ethiopian musicians are playing on jazz instruments and putting their own unique culture and rhythms into the music. One could point to this and say that it's watered-down, and they'd have a good point. But damn, is it ever good!!!

 

So, yeah, I dunno. Tough call. A lot of the so-called "world music" makes me wretch because it has these cheeseball digital synths and just sounds awful. But there's got to be a few gems in there as well, no? Tough call, this "popification" of international music.

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Many recent Bollywood releases lack this charm because their attempts to emulate western styles are so accurate that there is nothing (except the language) distinguishing many of the songs from the latest Brittany-Jessica-Janet etc release.

 

It's funny, y'know. Bollywood had these amazing dance sequences in their films. Madonna borrowed heavily from that (and freely admits it - and why not? Some of those lavish Bollywood dance sequences are mind-blowing!). So Madonna becomes popular in Bollywood, and they're influenced by her.

 

Hmmmm....that's almost like African musicians playing rock or funk, innit? Cross-pollination indeed!! :D

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Look on the bright side, when alien life forms visit Earth and ask us "What is Earth culture?" We won't have to waste a lot of time coming up with an answer!

:)

 

Though I'm still not comfortable with a space alien knowing that Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" is the international anthem of the planet Earth...

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Though I'm still not comfortable with a space alien knowing that Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" is the international anthem of the planet Earth...

 

 

Oh, I thought it was either a Bob Marley or Eagles song. It seems like no matter what country I go to, I hear songs by both of those artists. Michael Jackson is another one I seem to hear, no matter if I'm in a remote village of 20 families deep in the Ladakhi Himalayas, in the Andes of Peru, dodging autorickshaws in New Delhi, riding a boat in Burma, or hanging out in the Volta Region in Ghana.

 

And I'm hoping this is the case because if space aliens think that Celine Dion's song is our international anthem, they'll probably blow us to bits.

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Almost 100% of the successful music in those countries is completely different from the American music culture, style wise, cultural wise, as well production wise

 

 

I'd agree with Angelo. This "Serebro" clip is an exception and it doesn't really reflect what is popular in Russia. One of the most popular genres in Russia is a "prison chanson", philosophical yet cynical songs about how life can be hard. It has nothing to do with gangsta style in US, it has different music style and way to perform. But if you take the lyrics from these Russian songs and 50 Cents

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Those Russians are lovable, and I do not think they were very concerned about doing "russian music" but standard pop.

They succeeded.

 

Now listen to my own music and besides of the language, tell me where's my band from... I was never thinking on "this MUST sound to a mexican band doing synth pop". No freaking way!

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.

 

 

That segment was what catched my attention. When I'm in a night club in Dar-el-Beida (engl. Casablanca), there are no Disney characters, I drink beer or Cognac, listen to Abdel Halim Hafez, watch the ladies swing their hips with the intention to make me, the superman, horny, and I pay in Dirham. 250 Kilometer east of Dar-el-Beida, in F

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