f34 End Of The World?
It thrived in the ’80s, peaked in the ’90s and fell off a cliff with the recession. Now it’s a record market of retro-reissues, a gig circuit in crisis and a media no-go zone. Elizabeth Kinder asks “Whatever happened to World Music?”
he 1980s: Thatcher’s Britain, Apartheid-era South Africa. We’re politicised, angry and we’re engaged. We’re going to free Nelson Mandela and feed the world. The clubs in the capital are bursting with the sounds of musicians from all over the planet. Everyone’s up and out and dancing to Latin, African and wild Balkan beats. The Bhundu Boys are tearing up and down the motorways in a Transit van packing out clubs across the country. The music’s on Radio 1, it’s in the mainstream press and finally foreign sounds like those so warmly embraced by Paul Simon on Graceland and so, unwit- tingly, by the nation, are given a catch-all name. World Music – if you’re ‘cool’ – is the new rock’n’roll.
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2015. Coalition-led apathy and a gener- al sense of pointlessness amidst still stupid self-serving short-term political thinking, the economic crisis and the bloody bankers. And Nigel Farage. We turn our eyes away from the horrors abroad and the mess at home and sink into the comforting arms of Netflix. Or a box set. Besides, the amazing unknown bands from other continents we’d dance to all night can’t get into the country any more, let alone the clubs. World music has more or less disappeared into the morass of just more ‘stuff out there’, sucked into the un-signposted seas of Spotify and iPod shuffle: or bubbling up as an occasion- al talking point between the ‘ironic’ prawn salad and the coq-au-vin if your dinner guests happened to catch something on Radio 3, or maybe Later With Jools.
Well hello! The music itself is alive and well. The landscape may have changed and the map’s missing, but it’s still there, vibrant and exciting and relevant as ever. It’s not even hiding. We just can’t see it. First to be jettisoned from the sinking ship of the music business, it’s bobbing about, not drowning but enthusiastically waving. But we’re confused and don’t know where to search. Plus, unsure now of what we’re looking for (and also strapped for cash), we wonder if it’s worth it.
Initially in the digital revolution, the independent world music scene seemed untroubled by the choppy waters around the lumbering business model of the major music industry. As the major labels became consumed by corporate media giants, their A&R strategies became increasingly short- term, focusing on the profit of the first album and single – signing acts that would slot into a mould rather than break it, which an idiot could market.
The concept of working with an artist long term, of building a career and accept- ing that if you were going to realise signifi- cant returns this might not happen until the fourth or fifth album was much more likely to thrive with the independent labels like World Circuit, Hannibal or Real World whose owners passionately believed in the music, were unafraid of something new and understood the market they were working with. World music had always been champi- oned by small independent labels rather than by the majors. The independents, more flexible and adaptable in terms of A&R than the majors, retain a core audience that likes
World music’s much missed pioneer radio DJs: the late Charlie Gillett and John Peel.
physical artefacts, who want the CD and the sleevenotes and are less affected by the impact of digital downloading.
So they had their niche audiences and knew their artists. And while Charlie Gillet and John Peel were still alive, Lucy Duran and Andy Kershaw were on national radio and events like the Awards For World Music were on the telly, or at least on, there was still a possibility of getting the names of their acts out there and into the press thanks to the likes of Robin Denselow and Andy Morgan. The tired old argument that people aren’t interested in music if it’s not in English is always blown out of the water by what hap- pens when people are given wide access to it.
released two years later. Ironically, this caused a flurry among major labels, looking to make a quick buck with world artists, which backfired – firstly because they didn’t understand the market or the music and secondly, because despite Buena Vista, the mainstream media weren’t interested.
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Their ’80s openness shut down in the ’90s, Andy Morgan once told me, with “the baggy revolution and acid house. Every- thing was instantly a lot more tribal and the hip media favoured ‘indie rock’. People at IPC did their market research, talked to accountants and decided that the best way to sell a magazine or paper was to take two or three bands and feature them time and time again on the cover. Editors didn’t accept any more features on world music.”
When Kershaw went from Radio 1 to Radio 3, world music more or less went with him. Aside from Charlie Gillet on BBC London and the World Service, it couldn’t be heard anywhere else on national radio. The only papers that would carry world music items were the broadsheets (the Guardian being the most amenable) and the music itself moved out of the clubs and into the concert halls.
The music went from standing up to sit- ting down. In the clubs the audience were young. They were dancing. It didn’t matter if the words weren’t understood, the energy of the performance transmitted and connect- ed in a visceral way. “In the ’80s there was post-disco and electronic overly-controlled production,” Joe Boyd tells me over the phone. “World music answered a need that corresponded to a decline of music we liked
he obvious example of course, is Buena Vista Social Club. Origi- nally released in 1997, it became a world-wide phenomenon on the back of Wim Wenders’ film
Photo: © Judith Burrows
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