THE PLACE OF POPULAR CULTURE - MUSIC AND THE CITY - Essay Example

? TOPIC: THE PLACE OF POPULAR CULTURE - MUSIC AND THE LECTURER: THE PLACE OF POPULAR CULTURE - MUSIC AND THE Introduction Culture has been said to be the way of life of a group of people, depicted through means such as the way they dress, language they speak, food they eat, and other social variables like birth and death ceremonies, family system and art (Connell and Gibson, 2003). Generally though, these may be said to be the very traditional forms of culture that identifies a group of people. In contemporary era, the concept of popular culture is gaining grounds and has come to include such variables of culture such as music and theatre. Even though music could be said to be part of the very traditional facets of culture, there is no denying the fact that the changing trend of music whereby it had become more versatile and dynamic has made it jumped into a new array of description, which is the popular culture description. New York is one place that has a culture of its own. Through the power and potency of music as a global communication tool, the culture of New York City has been projected by various artists and songstresses who pick various themes about the locality of New York City and amplifies them to the larger world. In this paper, the concept of cultural geography is scrutinized with a link of it to culture and how the local musical space of New York City has helped in projecting the cultural values of the city. This will be done with specific analysis of the song, A Bavarian in New York by Triumvirat. Cultural Geography and how culture is linked to place Even though cultural geography generally comes under the field of human geography, it is largely rooted in the phenomenon of culture and actually revolves around it. This is because cultural geography delves into cultural outcomes and norms that exist across spaces and places (Knox and Marston, 2012). Cultural geography also refers to the relations that exist in spaces and places differentiations as pertains to variables of culture such as religion, language, economy, and morality. Through cultural geography therefore, it should be possible to distinguish one place from another through the inputs of their cultural practices. In effect, culture is directly linked to a place because culture helps in giving a place its differential identity from other places. It is not surprising therefore through tourism, people travel across spaces and places to experience the cultural dynamism of other places. When debating the issue of cultural geography, reference is commonly made to countries, even though most cities have their own influential cultural geographies. Cultural geography can therefore be narrowed down to cities very easily, especially when reference is made to cities that are found in cosmopolitan countries like United States, where States and Cities try to leave independent of each other. With this said, New York City comes to mind easily as one city with so much to offer in terms of cultural geographic identity. Why music has a strong place in Geographic Orientation The discussion on cultural geography would be most inadequate if music as a variable of popular culture is not discussed. This is because music, particularly local musical spaces give music so much power and influence in the cultural geography of any given city. In reality, music has the kind of strong place it has in geographic orientation because music can be used as a very powerful communication tool beyond the mere purpose of entertainment. Discussing music as a variable of culture, aspects of music such as theme, language, rhythm, genre, and message can all be identified. Through themes of music, musicians are able to use their works of songs to highlight specific cultural themes that exist in given geographic orientations. This way, the attention of all people hearing the song is quickly drawn on the unique themes of the said geographic location, such as a city. The rhythm and genre of music have also been associated with certain geographic areas, making it easier to trace a piece of song to a particular place. A typical example of this is the genre of hip hop to America and Reggae to Jamaica (O’Sullivan, 2005). What is more, there is a growing trend in music where the kind of language used in music is easily identified with certain geographic orientations. In popular culture, the use of more vulgar language, swearing words and words of threat could be easily identified with certain line of musicians. Analysis of A Bavarian in New York in relation to New York City As it has been outlined above, there are several ways and instances that music may be used to important cultural variable to promote the cultural geographic identity of a city. Rightly so, the song, A Bavarian in New York by Triumvirat can be quoted as a perfect example of song whose lyrics looks at popular culture in New York to its later. Lyrically, the song is made of three verses, all touching on the theme of gun in the hands of ordinary people. In direct relation to popular culture in New York City, avenues such as movies and social media has made the visibility and presence of guns a very debated and hot debate. Generally, there are those with the school of thought that guns are good for the protection of people as the cosmopolitan nature of the city makes it highly unsafe to walk in unprepared (Connell and Gibson, 2003). On the other hand, there are those who have said that the use of gun should be controlled to the highest point such that guns must not be seen as public weapons or defense weapons (O’Sullivan, 2005). To those who argue like this, they opine that once guns get into wrong hands, they can be highly devastating. Using the narration of a Bavarian who had come to New York, the artist emphasizes that it is not everyone in New York who is a New Yorker. Therefore, leaving guns in the hands of every other person in New York could be like leaving guns in the hands of a blind person. This is certainly an unsafe situation. The artist also creates the idea that leaving the gun in the hands of just any other person at all could be used for wrong purposes as the Bavarian exhibited in the story of the song. What is more, the artist establishes in a land where everyone has a gun, it would become a game that is left for the fittest to survive, leading to uncontrolled attacks from one person to another. In the lyrics, it is stated that “I knew that when somebody held a gun at you; You're likely to die” and eventually, someone died from the point of a gun. Conclusion Culture continues to remain a very dynamic component of every society. This is because as revealed in the discussions, culture changes with time and often changes to suit prevailing socio-economic situations that abound. As dynamic as culture is the concept of music, which also refuses to be stagnant but versatile; changing from time to time. It is because of how related the concepts of culture and music are that they have often been blended into a single paradigm to promote the image and ideologies of locales such as cities. New York City stands tall among sister cities when it comes to cities that have several musical compositions made to express the cultural dynamism of the place. The concept of cultural dynamism is mentioned because through the various forms of music which are made for New York City, there is a clear indication that the city is an ever changing one that embraces dynamism, diversity and growth. With particular reference to A Bavarian in New York which was discussed, it would be noted that the artist tries to visit a topic that remains very controversial in New York, which is gun ownership and usage. But using the platform of music, the artist has successfully told the story about New York as to why the presence of gun in the hands of the wrong people can kill the rather hospitable culture of the people, which makes them open their arms to all. References Connell, J and Gibson C (2003). Sound tracks: popular music, identity and place. Routledge, London Knox and Marston (2012). Cultural Geographies. London: Routledge. O’Sullivan, S. (2005). Art Encounters Deleuze and Guattari: Thought Beyond Representation. London: Palgrave Macmillan Read More