Is the audience for popular music created by the music industry?

It can be easily argued that the music industry are constantly controlling the music we listen too. Some songs are clearly more highly publicised than others, appearing on the radio and television in order to gain a wider audience. Record companies pay large amounts of money for their songs to get into the public sphere. A lot of people choose to avoid the lure of commercialized popular music which in recent times has in itself become fashionable, however the music industry being savvy realised the increase in popularity of indie music and began being out similar style acts in order to pull the money back into its ball court. The music industry has a lot of control over its audience, although they cannot force the public to buy their commodities they can pretty much force them to listen to it which is where they manage to sneak into the public subconscious and get away with producing manufactured rubbish and making money out of it.  

Are Blackness and Whiteness useful concepts in the study of popular music?

 Music has always seemed a place of great racial divisions, progressions and tensions. The birth of rock and roll stemmed from blues songs which were originally sung by african Americans. White record companies took these old blues tracks and re recorded them in a more upbeat tempo white white artists and essentially re marketed them. To a primarily white audience. In this sense there as always been black and white sides to the music industry with most big record companies branching out and having sub labels for black artists. In these modern times however the lines between black and white music have certainly been blurred. Music is no longer particularly branded by race. People of all races tend to enjoy a vast variety of music. However the stereotypical genres of white and black music have still yet to die out, they are so deep rooted in the way we appreciate music it will take a while and a few more people like Eminem until people universally realise that music is multicoloured.  

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

The rise in the trend of illegal downloading is definitely not ideal for the music industry. However with more and more people downloading music they would not necessarily buy it is becoming almost like a free advertising for bands. The fear is that eventually no one will buy music and the music industry will collapse. However it is proven that this is in no way true. Ian Condry states that 'If fans use digital technologies in a conscientious way, and record companies withhold judgement on the dangers of non-commercial uses, then we might be able take music into a new era...' The perfect example is radio head, who's album “Kid-A”was leaked early on the internet and subsequently went platinum in the first week of UK release. Following this they released their album 'In Rainbows' and sold it for the price people were willing to pay for it, they found that the average was £10. Digital downloading will hopefully show the evolution of the music industry, not the end of it.

Can popular music achieve genuine political change?

Popular music has been used throughout human history to inspire political change. The very first folk songs were usually designed to spread the word of governmental wrong doings and the need to protest and fight for a better life. In more recent times there have been many instances of politically motivated popular music. Fela Kuti in Nigeria constantly wrote music which was advocating change, so much so that he won the support of many followers and decided to run for president of Nigeria. Clearly this was a political threat to the government as they proceeded to have him put into a coma. This is a clear example of music causing much political threat if not true change. Yet if music could not cause genuine change why would it be seen as a threat? 'Ohio' sung by Neil Young was banned for a while as have been many other political songs. It is hard to conculsively say whether music by itself has ever managed to achieve political change however if it is such a threat, it must have some power.

What is World Music and why do we have such a category?

The term 'World music' is deceiving as technically it covers every musical genre. Yet 'world music' has become a term used mainly to describe music which cannot be fitted into conventional music categories. The world-wide popularity of Anglo-American music, is taking over the music mainstream world wide. People in countries all over the world, (many where English is not their native language) will listen primarily to exported Anglo-American 'chart toppers' as opposed to their traditional music, often loosing their cultural identity. Although artists for example Paul Simon's in his album Graceland attempt to merge more traditional, exotic music with their own western sound, this rarely increases the general popularity of traditional music by a great deal. As a result of this, 'world music' becomes the music world's miscellaneous category, containing countless unrelated artists from around the world, clearly unworthy of their own categories, showing the music industries disregard for quality and high regard for cash.

Is Popular Music a Mass Produced Commodity or a Genuine Art Form?

Critics such as Adorno do see popular music as a mass produced commodity. Programmes such as 'X Factor' reinforce this view, as the contestants are constantly made to sing cover versions and are rarely (if ever) able to preform their own artistic material. However this theory is solely dependant on how we view art. If we see art as creative, individual, initiative flare then pop music cannot fit this category or can it? Artists like Andy Warhol show that art can be mass produced and still fabulous. Critics like Gendron believe that it is the artists themselves that turn popular music into an art form, providing individual meanings and styles the songs they cover, for example the conflicting approaches of the 'Sex Pistols' to Frank Sinatra's 'My Way'. This shows that yes popular music can be an art form but just like in 'conventional' art there will be good artists and bad ones.

How useful is a production of culture perspective in understanding the birth of Rock and Roll?

Richard A Peterson, in his article 'Why 1955? Explaining the advent of Rock music' he lists six categories of reasons, which he believes provide the perfect conditions for the birth of rock music. One of the main advances is in technology. With the birth of the Transistor, smaller, portable radios are produced allowing younger people to have control of what they listen to for the first time. Also the FCC become more interested in the idea of television, allowing radio to be flooded with various new stations. However he never mentions the actual music that was beginning to emerge. The main question that arises from this is whether the rock musicians made rock and roll or did the social circumstances surrounding them allow them to emerge as a success? The culture perspective is very useful in helping us understand why rock and roll was able to explode in the 50s but it does not explain to us why it was rock music that became popular at this time.