Littera Deusto

There are a lot of different ideas that pop out in our heads when we hear the word music. Its definition in the encyclopedia appears as follows:  music, as any artistic expression, is a cultural product. The purpose of this art is to arouse an esthetic experience in the listener and to express feelings, thoughts or ideas. If we pay attention to this definition, music will have a different impact depending on the listener.

Moreover, it does not mean that there is a right or wrong way to listen to music but that each person grasps its meaning in a disparate way. However, since the beginnings of the existence of this art, music has also served to separate people depending of the type of music they would listen to or play. For example, certain music styles are closely related to a specific culture or social status and that is something that has not changed much, especially if we take into account the variety that we can find in music nowadays.

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

-Aldous Huxley

On the other hand, in this globalized world we live in, it seems like music has sort of lost its fundamental meaning and that it has become another way of controlling the mass. Furthermore, media drives us to consume mainstream music and if you listen to something unlike, sometimes you become an easy target to be criticized.

Spain for example,  is a country clearly dominated by the media. The television is the predominant mean of communication and it incite us to buy staff we do not really need, it designs a way of live we should follow and it sells us the type of music we have to listen to inside a reduced fringe (the commercial music). In the case of the music there are certain styles that are completely left out of the commercial pattern.

In addition, in the society we live in there are a lot of preconceived ideas associated with specific artists and genres. We are naturally prejudiced against styles of music that we don’t like and are comforted by those that we do.  But, we should try to open up our minds and try to understand that music is a way of expression. If we pay attention to the lyrics of the mainstream music, they talk about love, partying or even sex. There are other types of music like Heavy Metal, Metal or Punk that besides talking about love they talk about wars, gender violence, human rights, religion… and they have a more critic view about our society.

All those topics make us think and ask ourselves a lot of question about the life we are living. Maybe that is the reason way the media is not interested on supporting such music styles because they do not want to introduce those ideas on people minds. In addition, they try to “tag” this music as something evil and reckless and also the people that listen to it.

As I have mentioned before, music is a way of expression, it is define as art no matter the style or the lyrics. I may feel more identified with a certain style of music but that does not define me as a person and certainly anybody has the right to judge or be judged just because of that.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: commercial, Culture, mainstream, media, Music, social status