The Matter with World Music

The problems with world music are many, but fortunately for you that mostly impacts the promoter, not the listener. The main problem for me is its very lack of definition. What exactly is world music? If you’re a new listener and think you might be interested, that’s a fairly important consideration. Definitions vary, but almost all of them are extremely broad and inclusive. My own consists of three parts: music of different languages, cultures, and styles, other than the dominant Anglo-American genres, or at least those that have names. If the music has at least two of those three, then it’s world music as far as I’m concerned. This is not without its problems of course. By this definition Cajun music sung in pidgin French passes, while that in English fails. That’s okay; we’re not on a pass-fail system. If it’s any consolation ‘indie’ is almost as hard to define. Neither is a true genre, both more like ‘none of the above’, either capable of being lively or sluggish, comprising a full orchestra with strings or just one person with one string.

The main problem concerning world music for a promoter is that it’s a hard sell. About the only genre that scores lower points- whether MySpace hits or actual sales- than ‘world’ is ‘bluegrass’, and that’s a relative point. In Flagstaff, AZ, bluegrass is nearly, if not clearly, the most popular genre. The same is true for ‘indie’ in LA, and ‘Latino’ in Miami. Back East or Down South the story would be different I betcha’. Obviously a genre besides hip-hop, country, pop or mainstream rock needs to find its niche to survive and thrive. That’s doable. In Europe where most music comes from somewhere else anyway (especially the US) ‘world music’ fares much better. Music’s almost like DNA dividing and diversifying to the point where you have primates of Asian, Nordic, and Black African flavors in that historical path from cyanobacteria. Not coincidentally these races are not only viable, but excel in their respective fields, and hybrids of them are likely more vigorous than the original, though that might be hard to prove.

Popular music is the same. From a point in the mid-fifties to mid-sixties, there was little difference between mainstream ‘white’ music and the parallel reality of so-called ‘race’ music. Accordingly Pat Boone could take a popular Little Richard song, tone it down a bit, put on a white sport coat, then go play it on the other side of town for bobby-soxers. Both Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins were early rockers before they became country music fixtures. Similarly even a decade later Duane Allman or Eric Clapton could take a current Howlin’ Wolf or Muddy Waters song and make it rock or blues-rock with little change, just a change in marketing, nothing spatio-temporal. Thus a torch was handed off as American blacks lost interest in a genre they created. That’s hard to do today. The dominant American genres of hip-hop, country, and rock have little in common, though a trendy middle-road commercial ‘pop’ is always ready to borrow liberally from them to give their music the muscle that it otherwise lacks.

World music itself does the same, borrowing liberally from diverse sources. Concepts such as ‘authentic’ and ‘indigenous’ have little place in the discussion, and frequently face a chicken/egg situation, such as, “which came first, African or Cuban?” To be sure Cuban roots go back to Africa, but just as surely modern genres of African music look straight to Cuba. Thus musical DNA proceeds by artificial selection. Which didn’t we have ‘world’ music before the eighties? It didn’t exist. Few modern genres of African music predate the seventies. Fast forward to 2008 and much of the world music play list comes from big Western cities- Paris, London, New York, LA- with large immigrant communities and what I call ‘slash bands”, as in Mexico/US or France/Tunisia, bands with members from diverse origins who find common ground in eclectic music. Those who dismiss this approach out of a preference for the ‘real thing’ might be missing the boat. They might not like the real thing even if they can find it even if it exists and that very act will change it in the process. This is the Cultural Uncertainty Principle (CUP). Let’s drink.

The nice thing about world music is that it crosses all boundaries (hopefully pulling thread in the process)- of age, of race, of gender, genre and nationality. It has a timeless feel, not necessarily the passing ruminations of the snot-nosed kid down the block. World music has usually been fomented by popular sentiment and fermented like fine wine through the filters of time and tradition and mixed to the tastes of modernity. I know the kid down the block has a creative urge to release, but that mostly applies to other kids. You and I have been through that already, haven’t we? I know that youth is the great progenitor of new ideas. Albert Einstein was 26 the year of his anno mirabilis in 1905, and Schroedinger’s publication of a major theory at the old age of 39 was unheard of. Okay, so that might apply to the Dylan-Hendrix-Cobain phenomena of pop music genius, but those are the vast minority. Most is simply kid rock. No I don’t mean that Kid Rock, but kiddie rock, music for adolescents. Whether it’s pop star Katy Perry kissing a girl “and liking it” or indie darlings Ting Tings begging “shut up and let me go, hey!” doesn’t matter. It’s all trivial meanderings, mostly who’s doing whom.

The goal is novelty of course, for listeners and music industry professionals also. This is what generates sales as well as emotion after all. ‘New’ means ‘more’. Following the trials and tribulations of youth undergoing their pains growing and groin gets old though. With five thousand languages and more or less as many cultures out there we should be able to do better, and that’s what world music is for. It’s a way to satisfy one’s urge for novelty in a way that’s, uh, novel. So there it is. Come and get it. Can’t enjoy a song whose lyrics you can’t understand, you say? How many words did you understand of the Feist song “Sea Lion”? I understood two. Yeah, it’s nice to understand a word or two, but that’s usually enough. Would the song, ‘Oye Como Va?’, by Tito Puente and popularized by Santana, have sold more copies if you knew the lyrics meant, “Hey, how’s it going? The rhythm’s… sure good for enjoying” (repeat ad infinitum). I doubt it. It might have even sold less. Point is, except for a few spectacular lyricists, the music’s the message, not the lyrics.

Ironically, since by my definition one of the requirements for world music is the use of languages other than English, it seems equally of de facto importance that at least one member of the band does speak English. The customers do, after all. It’s no accident that the Mexican groups that are active in the LA indie scene- Kinky, Nortec, Ceci Bastida- all come from border areas with ample opportunity to practice English. Local DJ’s boast about the fact that they helped Julieta Venegas ‘break out’ and ‘go Coachella’, seemingly unaware that she’s been a big star in Mexico for years, pure Mex-pop. She’s only ‘indie’ for US marketing purposes. Meanwhile Mana’ is bigger than all of them put together, and has toured with Santana, but does no promos in English, so goes un-noticed. MySpace comments for the others are mostly in Spanish also, it’s worth noting.

Local promoters even blur the issue further by booking acts like Gnarls Barkley for their ‘world fest.’ Maybe it’s time to ‘re-define world music’ as the LA Weekly puts it, but I doubt it. The same weekly warned viewers to ‘beware world music’ two years ago under the same circumstances. Gnarls Barkley is NOT world music, though a case could be made for Sigur Ros. If newcomers think that Gnarls Barkley represents world music, then they don’t bother with Tinariwen, which is something a world apart and at least every bit as good and important, if not many times more so. Cold Play likes Tinariwen too. The point is that world cultures are disappearing under the onslaught of increasing population, universal English, and the lust for money. Money is a universal language already. So is music. It doesn’t have to be refined into English-language pop crap. The efforts usually don’t work anyway, so vive la difference!