World Music and the global music industry

Authors

  • Dave Laing Independent writer, editor and broadcaster Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v3i3.213

Keywords:

African music, genre-markets, globalization, music industry, world music

Abstract

This article provides a sketch of the main features of the global macro-economy of music followed by comments on World Music and its relation to the macro-economy. The article contains key financial data of the worldwide music industry in 2006 and an estimate of the royalty flows between global regions. The corporate structures of the major international music companies are analysed. The main characteristics of World Music as a ‘genre-market’ and as a sub-set of the global music industry are discussed.

Author Biography

  • Dave Laing, Independent writer, editor and broadcaster

    Dave Laing is Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Popular Music, University of Liverpool. As a researcher and author, he has written, edited and contributed to numerous books and encyclopaedias. His most recent book is Buddy Holly, in Equinox’s Icons of Pop series, of which he is co-editor with Jill Halstead.

References

Andersen, Birgitte, Zelka Kozul-Wright and Richard Kozul-Wright. 2000. ‘The Case of the Music Industry’. Discussion Paper no. 145 (January). Geneva: UNCTAD.

Bohlman, Philip W. 2002. World Music: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Broughton, Simon, Mark Ellingham and Richard Trillo, eds. 2006. The Rough Guide to World Music. Vol. 1 Africa and Middle East. London: Penguin.

Charry, E. 2000. Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

CISAC. 2007. Authors’ Rights in the World: Confirmed Revenue Growth in 2004. Paris: CISAC.

Cobo, Leila. 2005. ‘Six Questions with Tim Prescott’. Billboard (June 25): 45.

Fairley, Jan. 2001. ‘The “Local” and the “Global” in Popular Music’. In The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock, eds Simon Frith, Will Straw and John Street. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Feld, Steven. 2000. ‘A Sweet Lullaby for World Music’. Public Culture 30: 145–72.

Foucault, Michel. 1977 [1975]. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Pantheon.

Frith, Simon. 1996. Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gillett, Charlie. 1996. The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock ’n’ Roll. 3rd ed. London: Souvenir Press.

Hudson, Mark. 1995. ‘Praise be!’ Guardian Weekend, September 30.

IFPI. 2006a. ‘Recorded Music—Driver of a US$100 Billion Economic Sector’. Press release, June 22.

—2006b. Recording Industry Piracy Report. London: IFPI.

—2006c. Recording Industry in Numbers 2006. London: IFPI.

Laing, Dave. 2002. ‘Copyright as a Component of the Music Business’. In The Business of Music, ed. Michael Talbot. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

May, Christopher. 2007. The World Intellectual Property Organisation: Resurgence and the Development Agenda. London and New York: Routledge.

Moss, Stephen. 2007. ‘I’m bringing a message’. Guardian G2 (March 21): 28.

Negus, Keith. 1999. Music Genres and Corporate Cultures. London and New York: Routledge.

Nercessian, Andy. 2002. Postmodernism and Globalisation in Ethnomusicology: An Epistemological Problem. Lanham, MD and London: Scarecrow Press.

Peterson, Richard A., and David G. Berger. 1975. ‘Cycles in Symbol Production: The Case of Popular Music’. American Sociological Review 40: 156–73.

Pietilä, Tuulikki. 2009. ‘Whose Works and What Kinds of Rewards: The Persisting Question of Ownership and Control in the South African and Global Music Industry’. Information, Communication & Society 12/2: 229–50.

Rabine, Leslie W. 2002. The Global Circulation of African Fashion. Oxford and New York: Berg.

Taylor, Timothy. 1997. Global Pop: World Music, World Markets. New York and London: Routledge.

Turino, Thomas. 2000. Nationalists, Cosmopolitans and Popular Music in Zimbabwe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sweeney, Philip. 1991. Directory of World Music. London: Virgin Books.

UNESCO. 2005. International Flows of Selected Cultural Goods and Services 1994–2003. Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

Williamson, J., and M. Cloonan. 2007. ‘Rethinking the Music Industry’. Popular Music 26/2: 305–22.

Published

2009-09-06

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Laing, D. (2009). World Music and the global music industry. Popular Music History, 3(3), 213-231. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v3i3.213