World Music and the global music industry

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.

Nation-states, transnational corporations and cosmopolitans in the global popular music economy

“…States may intervene to support traditional or folkloric practices, recognised by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as ‘intangible cultural heritage’ requiring protection. Yet, many local activities perceived to be threatened are commercial popular music styles that fuse traditional forms with the international aesthetics of rock, pop or soul, not neatly slotting into national definitions of folklore in need of protection, nor the genres preferred by the major music companies when producing, promoting and marketing popular music (Laing, 2009; Negus, 1999).…”

“…During the 1990s, the major transnational music companies (containing record labels) set a dominant agenda that defined the criteria by which talent and repertoire were evaluated and contracted (Laing, 2009; Negus, 1992/2011) by prioritising what they categorised as ‘international repertoire’ (Negus, 1999). This referred to artists singing in ‘global English’ and performing a melodic ballad style that could be accommodated to varied genres, and that crossed linguistic and cultural barriers with the assistance of considerable investment and promotion.…”

“…This referred to artists singing in ‘global English’ and performing a melodic ballad style that could be accommodated to varied genres, and that crossed linguistic and cultural barriers with the assistance of considerable investment and promotion. International popular music repertoires were integrated into ‘global’ strategies of entertainment corporations, with the world divided into ‘regions of supervision and control’ such as ‘Asia Pacific’ or the somewhat arbitrary category of ‘Mediterranean, South America and Middle East Region’ managed by a senior executive at Universal (Laing, 2009, p. 24).…”

The Firm Foundation of Organizational Flexibility: The 360 Contract in the Digitalizing Music Industry

“…In this article, our analysis remains largely within the limits of Laing's (2009) "narrow" definition of the music industry as a "unitary business sector" in which three "relatively autonomous" subsectors are engaged in "directly producing and disseminating music compositions, recordings and performances" (p. 15, original emphasis). These three sub-sectors-recording, music publishing, and live performance-have distinct logics (Hull, 2004;Wikstrom, 2009;Sutherland & Straw, 2007; see also Williamson & Cloonan, 2007), and have operated with some degree of independence for nearly a century.…”

From dance bands to radio and records

“…Leaving out the neighbouring, yet interrelated, sectors like the musical instrument trade and the electrical goods industry, money from music can be earned in three ways: selling it in a conserved form as a physical item, offering it as a service, or trading it as a license (Laing 2008;Nathaus 2011). The first way to generate revenue from music includes the sale of sheet music and records; the second is the performance sector in the widest sense, including live concerts as well as the performances of disc jockeys and plays on juke boxes.…”