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Many people ask me, “Why do you listen to foreign music?” The response is simple: “Because domestic music isn’t very good.” In the American music industry, corrupt motives drive a large portion of the major artists. For the most part, Christian music and country music are exempt from this generalization. Country exists in itself as its own very distinct genre, where as rap, rock, alternative, hip-hop and pop all mingle amongst themselves. Country music has its own channel, CMT, whereas rap, rock, alternative, hip-hop and pop share one channel, MTV.

KoRn, an American heavy metal band, released a song that directly attacked the music industry of America pointing out very unsettling facts: 90% of “hit” songs make it to the top in 20 second and are under 3:30 minutes in length; one corporation owns the five major video channels in the US; in one year, the big five record labels together sold about twenty-five billion CDs; one hundred songs are released every week and only four make it to the average radio “playlist” each week; hits on the top forty are repeated well over one-hundred times a week per station; two radio conglomerates control 42% of listeners. They end by asking, “does this sound like a formula to you?” They point out that American music has become a “business” rather than an art..

Recently, the American music industry has become massive, and what was once an expression of human creativity has turned into a machine to make money. Law authorities now treat music as confidential material and ruthless lawsuits persecute those in violation of copyright laws. News papers contain numerous articles about the latest pop-star scams and gossip magazines try relentlessly to pry into the private lives of artists. Interestingly, you can take a camera and go down the national gallery, and photograph every piece of artwork in the gallery, then, on your way home, stop and take pictures of statues, drawings on the sidewalk and any other piece of art you want, and no one cares. However, if you record a song without permission, you can get arrested.

Today, artists, regardless of whether or not they can actually sing, manage to make millions of dollars and manage to indoctrinate millions of listeners. Take the rap artist Soulja Boy. He is without a doubt a terrible example of good music and good morals, yet, somehow he’s managed to be in the top ten for quite a long time now. Just the other day, my brother and I were driving somewhere; we live in Washington D.C., so many radio stations broadcast music. We scanned the stations for about twenty five minutes then we both looked at each other and at the same time said, “there’s nothing on.” Personally, I don’t care for most popular music and when I drive somewhere, I either listen to a CD, the news, or nothing.

American music has reached a new level: it’s no longer a matter of preference such as, “I live Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata”; “Oh, well, I personally prefer Handel’s Messiah.” Slowly it’s become a matter of religious morals: “I will not allow these artists to indoctrinate me” versus “I like this beat, the way it sounds, I don’t care about the effect that it has on my eternal life.” I looked at the top ten playlists for several local radio stations. I found only one or two songs that did not promote revenge, hatred, sexual impurity, or violence.

Foreign music, on the other hand, proves to be completely different than American music. However, I do not live in a foreign country, nor have I ever been out of North America. I know that some of the people reading this probably do live in other countries or have at least visited. My observations of foreign music are purely from an American stand point. I don’t know much about their music industry nor do I claim to.

For the most part, foreign music seems to be much cleaner and much more skillfully performed. I grew up with a strong dislike for rap, but after listening to a large selection of foreign rap, mostly Chinese, I realized that I didn’t like the content. A lot of Chinese rap, in my opinion, sounds very pleasant.  

One of the most interesting things I noticed when I looked deeply into foreign music was just how much better it is all around. A lot of foreign countries seem to still believe in the expression of music as an art and not a business. Americans tend to now know excessive amounts about foreign bands because they’re not ridiculously rich and not as well publicized. Consequently, the best known bands seem to be the most skilled because it’s not a popularity contest, it’s a true competition of skill.

People won’t produce more music if you throw more money at them (which is why I rarely buy CDs and instead listen to the radio). I don’t think that artists need money to produce, they need skill and determination and I consequently don’t support them unless they are really good. Foreign music basically presents the art in a purer form, free from the major corruption of the American media.

 

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