Review of 'Uncut' Magazine

Uncut is one of those magazines that offers its readers a bit of everything, (when it comes to music and films of course) in a fairly simple but at the same time not in a patronising way. Each issue of this quite awesome  magazine includes all the things you would hope for. there is a wide variety of information most of which would be expected in the normal run of the mill film and music magazine. its got all the essential stuff you need with a little bit of wit smushed in there too. in fact in my opinion the words used by Josh Ritter when he calls the album 'So runs the world away' "dense stuff alright" completely goes against my opinion of this fabulous magazine. 'Uncut' is one of the many magazines that is aimed at men in their 20-30's and delivers its very thorough information perfectly. 

Does the emergence of the digital download signal the end for the music industry?

Digital downloading is by far the most popular form of gaining new music, whether its through legitimate programmes such as iTunes or the non legitimate ones like 'Limewire' and 'Napster' etc. With the ever increasing ease to uploading music onto the internet for others so download and copy for free, music companies are saying that it is destroying the industry and causing them to lose out on a vast amount of profits. However, although this is a solid argument, there is a very strong counter argument also. People that download a certain artists work wouldn't necessarily have bought the album int he first place and by downloading if for free it means that more people will listen to artist that might not have otherwise. this will expose them to a wider range of music and they will then be more likely to buy other albums by that artist in the future or go to a concert of theirs. this then in turn will prove to benefit the artist in the long run.
Although downloading does at first glance seem a great problem for the music industry, it will not be its downfall, if anything will in time increase profits etc. in the industry.

Can popular music achieve genuine political change?

Frith and Straw said that "Pop Becomes the expression of its political and social context" which would support the opinion that pop music is intertwined with politics. There have been cases where artists have tried to make some kind of a change with their music, such as Bob Marley with 'Get Up, Stand Up'(1973), which was widely sold,  where Marley talks of how people have to stand up for them selves and never give up, had an impact on people and their thinking. The other, more obvious example of how music can in fact influence politics was seen in ‘Band-Aid’ and ‘Live Aid’ where they raised over £50million for the children of Africa. Although there was a lot of criticism of this event, the fact remains that it got peoples attention and managed to make more money then the government could have hoped to for the cause. This alone is a perfect example of how popular music can achieve genuine political change.

What is World Music, and why do we have such a Category?

World music is the combination of 'local' and 'global' music by the music industry. One of the main types of what is seen as world music came from when Anglo-American popular music essentially became established as the accepted global template and language for music. Then the globalisation of music and of America means that musicians try to make their music sound American no matter where they come from.
On the other hand, Deanna Robinson, Elizabeth B Buck and Marlene Cuthbert suggest that "world music homogenisation is not occurring but rather that international and local sounds are being fused to create heterogeneous 'world music'".
Based on these views my conclusion of 'World Music' is that it is Indigenous music that has been taken by a multinational company, adapted, produced, circulated and distributed world wide and listened to all over the worlds by different types of people.

Is Popular Music a mass produced commodity or a genuine art form?

Theodor Adorno said that popular music is not an art form and that its structure has been standardized for mass consumption. Nonetheless, a popular definition of art is that it is a creative expression of a person’s thoughts that can provoke thoughts or emotions in others, and what is music of not this?
I think music always starts as an art form, but gets turned in to a commodity through the selling and advertising process. Music gets changed in order for it to appeal to the highest number of people, and that it where it can lose its ‘Art’. An example of this was the 2009 X-Factor winner’s (Joe McElderry) final performance. Taking the recent song ‘The Climb’ by Miley Cyrus, McElderry’s own version was his début single. The song, originally a very powerful story, was overly commodified in the X-Factors re-make of it and lost some of its impact.
This argument supports Adorno’s point about popular music not being an art form, and in this case he would be right. However, a lot a popular music still holds onto its story and its power and relays influential emotions to its audience, making it ‘Art’.

How useful is the production of culture perspective in understanding the Birth of Rock and Roll?

The production of a cultural perspective is a powerful thing and is some ways what people base their opinions on themselves. It can be broken down for us to see its effects on our culture and more importantly our society.
Rock and Roll is said t be founded by the likes of Elvis Presley, Bill Haley and Joe Turner, but, this is an example of 'cultural perspective', its just a point of view. It may well be the case that these talented musicians were the founders of the genre but to a certain extent we still have to see that it could be a 'cultural perspective' from that time, we will never really know what went on behind the scenes.
In order to understand the 'Birth of Rock and Roll' it is necessary to produce a cultural perspective as a way (even though it is only an opinion) for the rest of us to get an understanding of what took place and how the genre of music came about.

Is it reasonable to consider that "Rock" music is gendered male?

'Frith and McRobbie' referred to heavy metal and rock music as 'cock rock', and this is a fair comment. It is very reasonable to say that 'Rock' music is gendered male, not in saying that women cant and don't appreciate/play it, but the fact is that few women do actually play it compared to men. Rolling Stones published an article which supports this where they listed their opinion of the top 50 guitarists and in that list there was not one female. People may see this as a sexist view on their behalf but i feel they are just giving their own opinion. Rock music has been gendered male simply because of the facts, there are more male rock bands and has dominantly male listeners. Male and female artists are inspired by different types of music and different artists that came before and it just so happens that more men are influenced by rock music then women. By 'gendering' Rock as male, and simply stating what is true, it's not sexist it is classifying the music genre to a specific type of listener the same way folk and more vocalist types are typically gendered as female.