How Commercialization has changed the Music Industry - Essay Example

The objective of this essay is to critically analyze the process of commercialization of music. From the recent trends it is quite evident that the role of music with social systems has changed to a large extend. More than an artistic creation it has been commercially enhanced as a cultural commodity. The quality of music is often judged upon the extent of its consumption by masses. In other words, more popular a piece of music is, its quality is perceived to be proportionally high. Here, the reach of music, to be precise in commercial terms, its marketing strategies is the factor which would decide the perceived quality of music.

For instance, a particular song is marketed heavily and manages to reach a lot of people; the public would perceive that it’s artistically great owing to its popularity. The role of music in the modern society has a fundamental nature. It is associated with the society ritualistically. Music plays important role in social activities and gatherings. This association is further connected with the emotional affiliations of the society. Each genre of music can generate respective feelings in people.

This ability was utilized by the earlier societies at a personal level or at closed social gatherings. Thus music used to connect with the personal music ears of people and also with the common feelings of communities. This power of music had an important role in the creation of music. However, with the commercialization of music it has taken a more general form. With this change, the aesthetics of music underwent unprecedented changes. The aesthetics started to depend largely on the technologies, new techniques and the latest trend in the societies.

An example to this is Jazz music. This genre of music was considered to be Devil’s music at a point of time in the history. Later as other fashion statements of the society was commercialized in such a way that this genre of music became the music of the elite. Thus the larger commercialization of the societal norms has direct connections with the trends in music. Fundamental critics would define this as degradation of the aesthetics of music. It is quite natural to have changes in the forms and aesthetics of music with changing norms of the society.

However, these changes in music become dangerous, when the creation of music is defined by the commercial requirements of the society. In other words, it is not a healthy trend where the commercial elements would decide what the world should listen to. On the other side the music and its developments should respond to the changes in the society and its norms. The development the culture industry in the liberalized economy has a huge role in the commercialization of music. In a world where trade and export became faster and easier, people get exposed to newer things faster.

This created a demand for cultural elements from different societies. As a result of this music of a particular society became global and broke its societal and geographic limitations. Thus the consumer base for music became large. For instance, for a particular genre of music from the streets of Pakistan, there could be large number of enthusiasts all around the world. Thus music in general has broken the cultural boundaries. The new definition of boundaries of culture in general is the marketability of it.