[FA Worldmusic] Language!

[evangelinekim at att.net]

Bull's eye, Robert!  The near future for world music looks great.
Best,
Evangeline

-------------- Original message from Robert Singerman <robert.s at french-music.org>: -------------- 


> I still can9t understand how in all this discussion language has not been 
> mentioned. I9ve been at many SXSW9s, Midems, etc over the years, working 
> with world and pop artists and currently 3represent2 in the broadest sense 
> of the word, artists speaking many, many languages. Look at film/tv, what9s 
> the difference? Subtitles and Dubbing! Why does film, as Bill says make 
> music mainstream and vice-versa, it9s because anglophones can understand the 
> story, as Dmitri sells his artists with their own stories. But each song is 
> a story! Of course in world music we generally have no conscious idea of the 
> story, unless we are multi-lingual. We will soon see the changing of this 
> incredible challenge to world communication which creates many of our 
> problems worldwide and this will have been lead for years by film, tv and 
> finally music! Why is Hollyweird and AmeriKa so powerful, partially due to 
> language and the money to market (subtitle, dub) films and tv shows and 
> music to seep into brains worldwide. 
> 
> As far as SXSW is concerned, the venue selection this year was not right, 
> Marco, as I walked in with one of the most important journalists mentioned 
> previously and the place did smell terribly of cat piss, he lasted a few 
> songs less than me and Eliza Carthy was great. It is a good idea to bring 
> all artists to SXSW and the other conferences for all reasons discussed and 
> I praise Marco and Tracy9s work and risk taking, please continue - but ... 
> 
> I9m promising all of you, as the language problem is solved, if not by 
> Voxonic, Yabla and/or Gracenote, AMG/lyricfinder with metatag data, then by 
> others, in the coming two-three years, so called world music will be 
> mainstream music and pop, international music will cross borders and many at 
> Joe9s Pub and Carnegie Hall will be singing in French, Italian, Russian, 
> Chinese, even if they don9t speak the language, as they will understand the 
> lyrics! Like Opera! Like Suzanne Vega in Paris! Like the Beatles, all over 
> the world...Live it could be simple l.e.d. Machines and if anywhere, next 
> year at SXSW, or this year at Womex, these machines, new media techniques, 
> should be used, at least for the chorus9. Imagine. Universal language, space 
> is the place, 1 world under a groove...understanding each other finally, 
> even if we don9t like what our favorite world/international/English language 
> music artists are singing, at least we9ll know! Manu Chao would (and will) 
> be huge and a critical voice in the US, finally! 
> 
> I know I9ve been screaming about this for a while now, but seems like barely 
> anyone9s listening and it9s so obviously the main issue keeping world music 
> world music and the biggest challenge to import/export marketing. Except - 
> as Sam the Sham told me at SXSW, (his new album has many beautiful Spanish 
> songs), for instrumental music. I agree with Mel, World Music M.ASS! We need 
> to communicate better to break barriers, that9s all. 
> 
> If we take away the lyrics and only have the melodies, rhythms, colors, 
> dances and vibe, how much can you truly communicate on a conscious level? 
> Fela understood this. If the revolution is in a 3foreign2 language, which 
> trees (and radio, tvs) in a forest or at least our forest get it? 
> 
> Peace, Robert 
> European Music Office 
> French Music Export Office 
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