imomus

I very much agree with what John Harris says in his article in today's Guardian, The Bland Play On. Selected highlights of the piece:

'Anglo-American popular music is among globalisation's most useful props. Never mind the nitpicking fixations with interview rhetoric and stylistic nuance that concern its hardcore enthusiasts - away from its home turf, mainstream music, whether it's metal, rap, teen-pop or indie-rock, cannot help but stand for a depressingly conservative set of values: conspicuous consumption, the primacy of the English language, the implicit acknowledgement that America is probably best.'

'Though the output of MTV, VH1 and the snowballing number of radio stations owned by Clear Channel might be dressed up in pop's customary language of diversity and individualism, the music they pump out is now standardised to the point of tedium.'

'In 2004, there are but a handful of international musical superstars: Beyoncé, 50 Cent, Justin Timberlake, Eminem, Norah Jones, Coldplay. To characterise the process behind their global success as top-down is something of an understatement. MTV may have initially been marketed with the superficially empowering slogan, "I want my MTV"; more recently, with billions gladly hooked up, it has used the flatly sinister, "One planet, one music". Those four words beg one question: who decides?'

'Two factors hardened pop into the hegemonic monolith it is today. Firstly, though the transatlantic cultural exchange brought pop a new artistic richness, it failed to repeat the trick elsewhere. With a few notable exceptions, continental Europe has long been barred from offsetting an ongoing deluge of Anglo-American imports with any lasting worldwide successes of its own; even the popular music of Africa, where the fusion of regional styles with western pop has long been inspirational, seems unable to snare our attention. And then there is the aforementioned domination of a once chaotic industry by those lumbering corporations. Whither such examples of creative autonomy as Chess, Tamla Motown, Island and Creation? Long since gobbled up, like so many of the western world's more interesting elements.'

'Underlying that picture is a tragic irony indeed: music founded in a spirit of spontaneity and self-expression ending up at the core of an ever-more standardised planet.'

Read the whole article...