What is 'world music'?

I believe the term has two meanings. The first accumulates all popular music of the time and labels it ‘world music’ – as the majority of the world favours that music at that one specific time. Put simply, it is the music that the world likes. For example, the album that ranks #1 in worldwide sales at the end of each year could be seen as the world’s most popular album, making it ‘world music’.

However, this is a very literal way of interpreting the term. A more culturally-aware way of explaining the term (which is also the way I see it too) is that ‘world music’ is music originating from each individual country – Bhangra from India, Irish folk from Ireland and Aboriginal from Australia. These genres may not be enormous sellers in the music charts, nor very profitable, but they relate to each country they originate from.

Is popular music a mass-produced commodity or genuine art form?

I do not believe that either of these assessments can ever truly be 100% correct. Adorno argued that all popular music is standardized - a mass-produced commodity. He stated that all popular music involves ‘part interchangeabilty’. ‘Part interchangeabilty’ refers to the way in which different parts of popular songs can be taken and put into other songs and therefore there is no uniqueness to any song.

However, some people may argue that any song that has been written by a person will contain some of that person's creativity - and I believe any expression of creativity can be considered art. Indeed Gendron argued that, although popular music is mass produced, you cannot mass produce one man's single moment of inspiration.

Adorno compares popular music to what he classes as ‘serious’ (classical) music. Again, here his theory focuses solely on what he believes is 'good' music. He would not class a Beatles song or the winner of the X Factor's song as artistic in anyway - but many do. Music as an art form is just like any other form of art - forever subjective.

How useful is a production of culture perspective in understanding the birth of rock and roll?

Without knowing the effects that the world as a whole had on the music industry in the 1950s, the birth of rock and roll may seem to have exploded completely out of the blue. However what Peterson's theory does is link the changes that the world was going through to the birth of rock and roll. So, in this respect, the theory is extremely useful in defining what factors played their parts in allowing this new genre of music to become what it was.

Demonstrating the social and economic factors and how cultural pillars such as music law (ASCAP) and music occupations (Radio presenters) were changing - combining to produce a platform for something new (rock and roll) - the theory stands up as workable idea that goes a long way to explaining how rock and roll came about. However, the theory is very much that - simply a theory. Complicated terminology and statistics may explain in figures why it was likely for rock and roll as a business to be successful - it does not explain why the music itself was successful.

Is it reasonable to consider that rock music is gendered male?

Yes and no. I believe that there are two aspects to this statement. If you take rock music literally and look at the male to female ratio of rock musicians and songwriters - then the genre is clearly dominated by men.

However, if you look at the content and connotations of rock music, females have a very obvious influence; whether that be the androgynous blurring of gender lines by Bowie or the content of a typical Prince song - women were/are referenced to in rock music all the time (albeit sometimes in a misogynistic way).

Stereotypically, rock and roll is angry, aggressive, expressive – all masculine traits - and whilst it can be argued that women that do make it in the genre, such as Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin, display very masculine traits, as Ani Difranco said “Men make angry music and it's called rock-and-roll; women include anger in their music and suddenly they're angry and militant.”