The Global Corporatization of Music Cory McKay Departments of Music and Computer Science University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario, Canada, N1G 2W 1 The control of the worldwide music industry hardware that is used to play music. This leads has become increasingly concentrated in the them to implement policies that benefit all as- hands of a few very influential multinational pects of their operation. This is particularly ap- corporations over the past several decades. These parent in the case of films, where the commercial major powers have been very successful in gain- links between soundtracks and the movies them- ing control of markets all over the world that selves can be very strong, to say nothing of reve- were previously dominated by relatively small nues from t-shirts, posters, children‘s toys, local companies or government organizations. magazines and books. An obvious result of these developments has A good example is the film The Bodyguard been the global commercialization of music, which featured W hitney Houston‘s hit I Will something which has very negative conse- Always Love You. The success of the movie con- quences. This commercialization tends to ho- tributed to the success of the song and vice versa, mogenize the diverse musical styles of the world leading to double profits for a company that held and to marginalize those styles that do not fit interests in both. The marketing strategies used into the recording industry‘s preconceptions of in promoting films and soundtracks together are what will sell. Other very worrying problems are made apparent by the practice of recording vid- the intrusive effect of mainstream W estern cul- eos that show movie clips. Film and music are ture on non-W estern cultures and the exploitative even more closely linked in the Indian movie and manipulative ideas promoted by record industry, where film music is the predominant companies in order to increase sales. popular music idiom.3 More than 90% of the gross sales worldwide Traditionally, W estern music was sold pri- of recorded music in 1994 came from albums, marily in the W est. This has changed dramati- singles and music videos owned or distributed by cally in recent years, however, and American and W EA, BMG, EMD, Polygram, Sony or UNI.1 British music industries now obtain over half of These six multinationals have used mergers and their revenues from foreign markets.4 This boom purchases to gain a stranglehold on the world in foreign sales has been partly brought about by music industry in the past several decades, to the the increasing availability of cassette players in extent that there are virtually no other companies the developing world and by an opening up of that can compete with them on any significant world markets after the fall of Communism. Ten level. times as many recordings are sold now in most To give the 90% statistic some context, the countries than was the case in the 1950‘s5 and traditional threshold of market concentration the international music industry has an annual before monopolistic activities become apparent turnover of $33 billion U.S.6 is a market share of 70% by the top eight firms Another important change in the music in- in any particular industry.2 It should be realized dustry is that the United States is no longer the that the levels of ownership and market concen- only worldwide recording center. European and tration that might be tolerable in other areas are Japanese companies have now become major particularly undesirable in the media industry. forces as well, leaving W EA as the sole U.S. The six corporate powers also have exten- sive control of numerous forms of media outside 3 of the music industry as well as interests in the Peter Manuel, Cassette Culture. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993) 40-41. 4 Robert Burnett, The Global Jukebox. (New 1 Robert Burnett, The Global Jukebox. (New York: Routledge, 1996) 4. York: Routledge, 1996) 2. 5 Ibid., 39. 2 Ibid., 13. 6 Ibid., 2-3. owned company among the six giants. Nonethe- speak any more.10. Music now seems less, the developing world still has virtually no hardly more than a somewhat clumsy excuse for the self-glorification of musicians and ownership of any of these companies. In fact, 11 these corporations have been rapidly buying up the growth of a new industrial sector. small local recording companies in the develop- ing world, leaving the recording industry of the Music is a well-known agent of socialization world almost entirely in the hands of American, and carrier of culture. As soon as music falls European or Japanese companies. In addition, under corporate control, there is a very serious the cultural center of the music industry is still danger that these functions of music will be the United States, at least in commercial terms. abused. Just as national anthems and hymns are American musicians sell the most recordings and used to reinforce loyalty to countries or religions, it is the United States that invented music televi- multinationals use music to reinforce corporate sion and dominant commercial forms like pop, loyalty. The jingles used in television commer- rock and rap.7 cials are an obvious example of this. Given that the music industry of the world is The influences that can be exerted through now dominated by a few multinationals that are control of the music industry are much less bla- primarily influenced by mainstream W estern tant than jingles, of course, but no less real. culture, the next step is to understand how the Product placement in music videos is already a negative effects of this manifest themselves. It is very lucrative source of money for the musicians important to realize that the ultimate goal of who consent to it. The content of many commer- these companies is to make as much of a profit cial pop songs, the imagery displayed in music as possible, not to be considerate of the social or videos and the conspicuous consumption appar- artistic issues surrounding music. The sheer size ent in the lifestyles of pop stars all reinforce the of multinational record companies also makes idea that mass consumption will lead to happi- them insensitive towards or unaware of local ness. issues. Jacques Attali does an excellent job of Corporations are also in an excellent posi- highlighting some of the problems related to the tion to censor music that contains political con- corporate control of music production: tent that is contrary to their interests. This takes on a form much subtler than government censor- Fetishized as a commodity, music is illustra- ship. Rather than explicitly banning a particular tive of the evolution of our entire society: song, corporations can simply choose to not re- deritualize a social form, repress an activity cord or promote it under pretexts different from of the body, specialize its practice, sell it as a spectacle, generalize its consumption, then its political content. They can then claim that the see to it that it is stockpiled until it loses it musician is free to have his or her music re- meaning.8. Everywhere we look, the mo- corded by other companies, when the reality is nopolization of the broadcast of messages, that virtually all of the recording and distributing the control of noise, and the institutionaliza- companies are owned by the same few multina- tion of the silence of others assure the dura- tionals. Continued refusals often lead musicians bility of power. Here, this channelization to self-censor their music in an effort to have takes on a new, less violent, and more subtle their work recorded. form: laws of the political economy take the place of censorship laws. Music and the mu- The feel-good content of much commercial sician essentially become either objects of pop music can have the effect of glossing over consumption like everything else, recupera- 9 the reality of the structural oppression faced by tors of subversion, or meaningless noise.. people all over the world. This is particularly The monologue of standardized, stereotyped apparent in the film music of India, where audi- music accompanies and hems in a daily life in which in reality no one has the right to ences living in dire poverty go to see movies and listen to music that glorifies the lives of the mid- dle or upper class citizens of India. 7 It can thus be seen that commercial pop has Timothy D. Tayor, Global Pop. (New York: the triple socializing effect of making people Routledge, 1997) 199. forget the conditions under which they live, of 8 Jacques Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Brian Massumi, trans. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985) 5. 10 Ibid., 8. 9 Ibid., 8. 11 Ibid., 9. making them believe that there is legitimacy in ties to more original bands. The numerous boy commercial power and of silencing people by bands assembled by record companies in imita- mass-producing a deafening, syncretic type of tion of the New Kids on the Block are an exam- pop music while censoring alternatives. This is ple of this. particularly worrisome given the increasing di- In order to take advantage of the economies versity of media controlled be the same corpora- of scale, record companies would rather sell 500 tions. 000 copies of one record than 50 000 copies each The commercialization of music has impor- of ten different records. As a result, there are tant cultural ramifications that must be consid- now fewer musicians signed to major labels than ered. The major corporations tend to promote there were in the 1980‘s.16 Since the small record primarily W estern styles of music, which results companies that used to record local musicians in W estern popular culture infusing the everyday are being bought up as the big six multinationals lives of listeners and reproducing the dominant increase their foreign ownership, these musicians complex of ideology in colonized cultures.