The Effects of Globalization on Music

The influence that music has throughout the world is immeasurable. Music evokes many feelings, surfaces old memories, and creates new ones all while satisfying a sense of human emotion. With the ability to help identify a culture, as well as educate countries about other cultures, music also provides for a sense of knowledge. Music can be a tool for many things: relaxation, stimulation and communication. But at the same time it can also be a tool for resistance: against parents, against police against power. Within the reign of imported culture, cross cultivation and the creation of the so-called global village lies the need to expand horizons to engulf more than just what you see everyday. It is important to note that the role of music in today’s world is a key tool in the process of globalization. However, this does not necessarily provide us with any reasons that would make us believe that music has a homogenizing affect on the world.

Globalization is becoming one of the most controversial topics in today’s world. We see people arguing over the loss of a nation’s cultural identity, the terror of westernization, and the reign of cultural imperialism. Through topics such as these we explore the possibilities or the existence of hybridization of cultures and values, and what some feel is the exploitation of their heritage. One important aspect that is not explored is that such influences can also be more than just a burden and an overstepping of bounds. These factors can create an educational environment as well as a reaffirmation of one’s own culture.

With the music being the highly profitable, capitalist enterprise that it is today, it is no wonder that it is controlled and regulated by a few large conglomerates that exist is today’s world. It is important to make clear that although evidence is being presented of the positive aspects of globalization through music that there is overwhelming evidence that cultural imperialism is more than it seems on the outside. One must keep in mind that cultural imperialism, globalization and the creation of a global village is a business. People are profiting at other people’s loss of cultural identity, they are sold a culture and heritage. With the every growing N’Sync fan clubs and Britney clones, the world is turning into a stage for pop culture and its glamorous unattainable standards.

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...talistic world, but how to satisfy more than one cultural group. This is not the first time we have seen something like this though. In 1958, Dean Martin recorded on of his biggest hits by recording “Volare”. The importance of this song is found not only in the fact that it is an original Italian song, but that it is recorded incorporating both English and Italian into the song at the same time. Frank Sinatra also tried this same approach in 1967. He recorded an album of songs done by Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobin. As noted by the Music Council of Australia (MCA) it is globalization that has an affect on music. They state: “80% of the world’s trade in music happens under four giant transnational recording companies whose fortunes at present depend on global marketing of Anglo American pop music. We can buy music of virtually any culture by ordering from massive catalogues from internet music suppliers, locations unknown. Furthermore, the whole deal can take place on the internet: the search, the ordering, the payment and the delivery. We needn’t leave the room. Music, more than almost any other commodity, has lent itself to globalization. And globalization is upon it.”