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1. Popular Culture and Music in the Modern World
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
1 1 Popular Culture and Music in the Modern World If you come down from the [Singapore] causeway to Johor Baru You are going to meet a lot of people Who appreciate the rhythm and blues . . . I got Malaya blues Each and everyday I choose. The Blues Gang, a Malaysian rock group.1 The literature on popular musics has grown enormously in recent years. This is true for North America and Europe, of course, but also for Africa, the Caribbean, parts of Latin America, and China. Perhaps now we are finally beginning to have enough information to assess the broad role of popular music in various Southeast Asian nations, including its role in politics. But first we need a broader perspective as background. This chapter examines various aspects of popular culture and popular music generally, with particular attention to Asia and the Pacific, in order to provide a larger context for the comparative assessment of the relationship between various popular musics and political expression in Southeast Asia. First we explore the meaning of popular culture and its relationship to modern society—in particular, the implications of mass mediation. We then analyze popular music as a phenomenon , including the overall parameters of the genre. The remainder of the chapter looks at the relationship between popular music and various aspects of society, history, culture, and politics. 2 POPULAR CULTURE AND MUSIC Some Basic Data (1991)2 Gramophone/Phonograph Record Units Produced: Asia 1,495,000; Africa 736,000; Latin America and Caribbean ca. 30,000,000; Europe 538,590,000; United States ca. 54,000,000; World Total 696,414,000. World Record Sales (1988): singles/EPs 370,000,000; LPs 510,000,000; tapes 1,390,000,000; CDs 400,000,000.3 Sound Recorders Produced (incl. cassette tape recorders/players): Asia 104,575,000; Africa 267,000; Europe 8,192,000; United States 831,000 (1990); World Total 116,096,000. Sound Reproducers Produced (incl. gramophones, record players, compact disc players): Asia 10,737,000; Africa 56,000; Latin America and Caribbean 215,000; Europe 8,634,000; United States 933,000 (1984); World Total 19,935,000. Radio Receivers Produced (incl. radio-cassette tape players): Asia 97,530,000; Africa 1,526,000; Latin America and Caribbean 5,582,000; Europe 12,725,000; United States 2,600,000; World Total 128,933,000. Television Receivers Produced: Asia 75,388,000; Africa 3,161,000; Latin America and Caribbean 4,991,000; Europe 19,196,000; United States 13,267,000; World Total 125,256,000. Popular Culture and Modern Society In societies around the world the artifacts of popular culture and mass media have become a part of everyday life for billions of people: Take a walk down any street, in any city or village, as the twilight fades and the darkness comes over the scene. Whether you are in London or Tokyo, Cairo or New York, Buenos Aires or Singapore, a small blue light will flicker at you from the unshuttered windows. Take a stroll down any small town, Fussa-Machi or . . . Luxor, at the threshold of darkness, and you will find the flickering blue light shimmering in the distance. These lights are the tiny knots in the seamless web of modern media, fluttering their messages inexorably at the natives of the post-modern global village.4 Popular culture can be deplored, celebrated, or merely enjoyed while also functioning as a vehicle for politics, personal expression, or entertainment. As a result it challenges and changes the way people spend their leisure hours, communicate, and perhaps even think about themselves and the larger context in which they must exist. Yet popular culture remains a nebulous concept with contested definition . In some languages, such as Japanese, there is no proper word that even corresponds to the English word popular (particularly in its American usage), with Japanese equivalents conveying the sense of ephemerality (“temporarily widespread” or “soon obsolete” songs), a discovery that should not surprise [44.201.131.213] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 19:37 GMT) POPULAR CULTURE AND MUSIC 3 fans of Japanese haiku poetry or painting. As one Japanese scholar concludes, “the term ‘popular’ is not popular in Japan.”5 Does popular culture mean simply the products designed for mass consumption, or something more than that? Does the “popular” pertain to a mode of production and consumption, a style, a method of distribution, a form, a strategy? Could it be that popular culture functions in some respects...