"Just as the category of 'Foreign Language Film' has serious problems, so too does that of 'World Music,' which names so many kinds of music that it names nothing at all. World music 'might best be described by what it is not,' noted a 1994 Music Library Association report. 'It is not Western art music, neither it is mainstream Western folk or popular music.' The report adds some vague qualifications about 'ethnic or foreign elements' then gives away the game: 'It is simply not our music, it is their music, music which belongs to someone else.' Perhaps one can see why the idea is now regarded by some as 'outdated and offensive.' As the University of Minnesota’s Timothy Brennan argues in a historical analysis of the term, 'world music does not exist' except 'as an idea in the mind of journalists, critics, and the buyers of records.' ..."
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[PDF] World Music Does Not Exist - Timothy Brennan
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