The controversial relationship between 'local' and 'global' within popular music must be considered when defining 'world' music. ‘Local music’ is described as indigenous music, which is specific local surroundings, where as ‘global music’ in contrast sees major labels projecting talent to a global market and audience. It is from globalization that cultural imperialism has arisen, where prevailing nations influence dominant ideologies through certain marketing functions. This causes concern towards the seemingly homogenous music creating a threat to ingenious music types.
Peter Manuel’s ‘case of the Indian cassette’ argues against this opinion. His study found that with the introduction of the cassette, new independent markets encouraged diversity in available genres, to large amounts of people, and so weakened the mass monopoly created by predominant companies.
Ultimately global music corporation’s extensive control on information within the market means that any diverse music type can gain popularity with ease due to mass monopoly.
This is interesting but does not ultimately answer the question.
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