Title: Planet Pop
1Planet Pop
- 3 Mystic Erotic Exotic
- (Representation in World Music)
Lecturer Katherine Brown Email
k.r.brown_at_leeds.ac.uk Room 2.21
2Todays Lecture
- Representation in world music marketing how
world music is packaged in order to sell it - Stereotypes of non-Western/non-metropolitan
people and music used to sell records - Case study Le mystère des voix Bulgares
- Commercial exploitation of non-Western musicians
- Case study Paul Simon Graceland
3Commodification and appropriation
- to understand or appreciate world music, it
has not only to be presented by an intermediary
but commodified. Tim Taylor - To commodify to turn into an object that can be
sold - Intermediary one who stands between the product
and the consumer, who interprets
4Commodification and appropriation
- Assumptions of world-music marketing to sell
non-Western music to a Western audience - 1) it cannot be appreciated on its own terms (or
in academic, scholarly terms) - 2) it needs to be explained by a Westerner
- 3) it needs to be sold to Westerners on THEIR
terms, in terms they understand, not those of the
creators appropriation
5Commodification and appropriation
- Music has no inherent meaning the meaning is all
added by culture. - Appropriation is the act of taking the music of
another and giving it meaning by understanding it
in ones own cultural framework (e.g. drone
Eastern mysticism) - HOW use of old, familiar stereotypes
(misrepresentations) of non-Westerners generated
in the era of European colonialism
6Aladdin negative stereotypes
7Aladdin positive stereotypes
8Mystical, magical (spiritual) utopia
I can show you the world Shining, shimmering,
splendid Tell me, princess, now when did you
last let your heart decide? I can open your eyes
Take you wonder by wonder Over, sideways and
under on a magic carpet ride A whole new world
A new fantastic point of view No one to tell
us no Or where to go Or say we're only dreaming
9Erotic the belly dancer
10Orientalism
- Same, more positive stereotypes of non-Western
people used to market world music - BUT these representations bound up in a history
of colonial exploitation that can be replicated
in the world music industry and in listeners
consumption of stereotypes about third-world
people that have real (economic/political)
consequences
11Orientalism and exoticism
- Edward Said Orientalism (1978)
- Western representations of the East (and by
extension any non-Western cultures) - Difference East as Other (and, by definition,
inferior in relation to governance sometimes
superior in relation to nature and spirituality) - Believed to be true, bolstered by writings of
travellers, officials and (some) scholars - Used to underpin the colonial enterprise
12Spiritual
13Spiritual
14Spiritual
15Buddha Bar China Dream
16Buddha Bar Nature Deep Believe
17Natural
18Ancient/primitive/timeless
19Erotic
20Celebration, dance
- All of this is dance/chillout/trance music
- All of it apparently celebrates world peace,
globalisation and hybridity as celebration, world
oneness
21Authenticity, utopia
All of this presents non-Western cultures as not
only essentially different, but as providing a
utopia, a haven, for tired-out Westerners, and
doing so on the basis of restoring a lost
authenticity, roots, from an earlier, less
stressful age
22The techno-explorer
23The techno-explorer
24Le mystère des voix Bulgares
25Paul Simon Graceland
26Paul Simon
27Ladysmith Black Mambazo
28Graceland controversy
- During South African boycott over apartheid Paul
Simon expressed no interest in South Africa or
political situation, and is thought to have
reinforced white-black inequities - Economics Ladysmith got paid a flat fee for
recording and Zimbabwe concert Simon got
royalties and international video rights - Creativity Ladysmiths authorship only credited
on Homeless, Simon on all the rest
29You can call me Al
- Pennywhistle South African kwela (black urban
improvisational street genre of 1950s and 60s
black townships in worst era of apartheid)
ironed out for Western tastes - Bass guitar style South African mbube (Zulu
choral style prominent bass, call and response
pattern, characteristic glides) - Together, basic backing of the song township
instrumental jive mbaqanga
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