Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Cultural Citizenship for Music from Foreign Countries?


This year, a song from Korean Pop that has topped the charts in over 33 countries by PSY, "Gangnam Style" has brought Kpop to the world like never before. However, even before the debut of PSY, many boundaries have been redefined in in the modern American Music. However, may there actually be a sort of "cultural citizenship" that lies within music?
Although from the beginning there was enormous popularity for Korean music (Wonder Girls, Super Junior, Girl's Generation), it was very hard for Korean music groups to successfully do business and be welcome in America because of the hidden hardships existent from something similar to the "colorblind cultural racism" described by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. One good example is iTunes, a podcatcher/music-selling software so popular in America and yet so exclusive in the music that it allows. Many popular artists from different countries do not even have a single album on this podcatcher. The inclusion of Korean music and other music from different countries has significantly bettered since the beginning of the Century, because of new ways of popularizing music videos and albums through You Tube, Twitter, and other systems via the web. The level of exposure to music from other countries is actually quite limited by what American companies and the American government allow. 

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