Of course it essentially means “rest of the world” music from a western English-speaking perspective, since the store, its internet equivalents, the music media, and increasingly the live music scene, in Britain at least, are dominated by music made by and for English speakers, with a little gaelic folk and a fair bit of classical thrown in. After all, that’s what people want… isn’t it?
But hang on a minute, isn’t world music actually something rather enormous? In fact, strictly isn’t all that western English-speaking music really just a small subset of it, and given western English speakers probably make up considerably less than 10% of the world population, isn’t there an awful lot of great music to be had from the other 90% of that population? The answer, for anyone who’s taken the time to look, is an absolutely deafening YES; there’s an overwhelming amount of excitement, richness and diversity to be had everywhere you look, with genres and sub-genres galore. I’ve spent most of my adult life discovering and savouring this treasure trove and remain bewildered at what a minority interest it is given the gems on offer. The sheer scale of this missing (in Britain) music is nicely illustrated by the two massive tomes that comprise the Rough Guide to World Music, first published fifteen years ago at over 1400 pages in an act of apparently almost lunatic enthusiasm and erudition, and which has continued to grow significantly since. To put that in perspective, the corresponding Classical Music guide barely makes 500 pages.
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| A rather large catalogue of what's currently missing in British music coverage |
To my mind this begs a few questions, mainly stemming from the basic point that people can only want what they know about. So who’s telling them, and more to the point who’s not? Of course there are specialist sources out there for those already plugged into this area (e.g. the excellent fRoots and Songlines magazines in Britain) but how do you get to listen to stuff to establish what floats your boat? How can you be serendipitously drawn into different areas of world music if you never chance across it being played? At this juncture it’s impossible to avoid pointing a finger at the mainstream broadcasters in Britain, and the BBC with its public service remit in particular.
Current BBC radio music broadcasting has four main channels to play with (Radio 1,2,3 on analogue and digital and BBC6 on digital only), with Radio 1 and 2 catering for the established mainstream music (all that English-speaking stuff from the music store). Classical-only Radio 3 roams the airwaves like some sort of superannuated dinosaur that has somehow failed to go extinct, with slightly patronising token forays into jazz and (very rarely now) world music; I have nothing against classical music but the monopoly the BBC allows it, given their limited resources, increasingly seems like something from a bygone age. To its credit BBC6 Music does try, and does manage to be more diverse and stimulating, but even it has not fully and openly grasped the whole world music thing. Interestingly though, following a robust repelling by listeners of BBC plans to axe it, BBC6 Music is now going from strength to strength with its listening figures beginning to outstrip those for Radio 3.
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| BBC World (Music) Service anytime soon? |
So what of live music, which is usually the best way to do justice to outstanding talent? If all else fails surely you can just try going to a few concerts/gigs where recommended foreign musicians are playing? This may still work if you’re London-based, but good luck anywhere else in Britain. Within the last twenty five years there have never been fewer such world music performances going on than right now. It’s tricky to nail the reasons for sure, certainly they fell off very sharply after the last financial crisis perhaps because venues or labels couldn’t afford the costs, and the tightening of security may be making it trickier for some foreign performers to get visas. But my overwhelming sense is of a depressing level of conservatism amongst event organisers. Festivals are more popular than ever all over Britain and run through much of the year, and yet when I scan the impressively long lists of performers for them, they’re full of competent but same old same old names that you only want to see so many times, and it’s rare indeed to spot a truly outstanding and exciting new name from overseas despite the vast untapped talent out there.
Rumour has it that the new controller of Radio 3 has a taste for world music, and the editor of fRoots keeps hammering festival organisers to show some gumption, so let’s hope things have reached rock bottom and that the only way is up – it certainly feels that way. If popularity and success require the oxygen of publicity then world music in Britain is currently suffocating.
As for me, I’m fine – the exciting and uplifting discoveries keep coming and the obscure CDs from sometimes equally obscure addresses keep arriving; it’s all those who are missing out I’m concerned about.
