Gee, I have A LOT to write about! First off, something that might be what you mentioned. I'm keeping off the anglo-saxon countries for now: - Accept - Blood Of The Nations (Germany) - Daft Punk - Discovery (France) - Goldfish's discography (South Africa) - Wardruna - Runaljod - Gap Var Ginnunga (Nordic folk) - MØ - No Mythologies To Follow (Denmark) - Infected Mushroom's discography (Israel) - Yellow Magic Orchestra's discography (Japan) - Soilwork - Natural Born Chaos (Sweden) - Supermax - Fly With Me (Austria) - Babymetal - Babymetal (Japan) Other than that, I like some artists from Canada: Deadmau5, Grimes and a lot of artists from England. There are some cases of artists which are from the US, but incorporate music from other countries, such as System Of A Down (Armenian music) and Juno Reactor (Spanish music and Japanese music mostly). BTW, I have 2 takeaways from your post: 1 - So record stores still exist... we don't have those in my area. When people sell CDs, it's either on bookstores or the supermarket. It's a weird feeling... though I wish there was a place like that here. I'd hang out there as much as I could. 2 -I have a few points to raise about the article: There's the assumption that all the music in the world comes from a few controlled channels. The internet has democratized the access to music. If I want to listen to Iranian music, I don't have to search far and wide for a CD and pay for it; I just go to Youtube, type "Iranian music" and I can listen to the song. There is no one limiting my access to only what the majors want me to buy (Billboard's Top 100). That doesn't happen only with "world music". People have different tastes, even for local music. People who like country might not like rock, those who like blues might not like grunge, and so on. You might listen to flamenco music and not like it. You tried it, didn't like it, end of story. Not going to be relevant to your musical world. I understand this. People want something different, but not THAT different. Babymetal's album is a good example: what you find there is a one-third mix of metal, another third of j-pop and yet another third of a lot of genres. It becomes a mishmash of hip-hop, reggae (!) and techno in some tracks. For those who didn't know j-pop, it was too much to take in all at once. So there you have it. For me, I don't do that kind of segregation. If I like the music, I don't care where it came from. P.S.; I'll get the links later. It's 3 AM right now.)So, I want to know what all of your favorite non-American records are, across the entire range of genres, from Mali guitar rock to Brazilian folk, to Finnish tradition songs, to whatever you have.
It's a none too subtle way of reasserting the hegemony of Western pop culture. It ghettoizes most of the world's music
In my experience, the use of the term world music is a way of dismissing artists or their music as irrelevant to one's own life.
This grouping is a convenient way of not seeing a band or artist as a creative individual, albeit from a culture somewhat different from that seen on American television.
The one thing I took away from this: "wait, Infected Mushroom is Israeli?!" They put on a great show too. I saw them around 2010 at a festival (was it Coachella? It might have been. I went to a few that year.) But you're also wrong on one point. Nobody can dislike Babymetal. That is the greatest band around and they have the greatest music videos. What's not to like?
Hahahaha! Yeah, I like the idea behind the whole thing, but that's me. One can say Iron Maiden is the greatest band around (there are lots of avid fans here in my country). I don't like Maiden at all, and got into a fight once because of that.But you're also wrong on one point. Nobody can dislike Babymetal. That is the greatest band around and they have the greatest music videos. What's not to like?
Interesting story about that. My boss is Bosnian and was telling me the story of how during the siege of Sarajevo, Iron Maiden was one of the only bands that came to play, where they were already loved. He said they almost worship Bruce Dickenson as an idol there now. There was a great article about it all too. I'll loop you in when I post it.