| If Nimbooda Nimbooda isn't on your top 10 (or top 10,000) list of musical genius, don't worry! This isn't your fault. And despite what you may think, it isn't the music's fault either. In fact, many music listeners in the Western world would feel the same way about music from Eastern civilizations. This is because differences in geography lead to cultural differences, which in turn lead to differences in tastes in music. Studies about how musical preference relates to geography and culture “have demonstrated that people tend to show preferences for music from their own culture” (Lee et al 20). The tendency to prefer music from one’s own culture can be attributed to that culture’s feelings towards |
outside entities. For example, in Lily Kong’s examination of Singaporean identity formation through music, she observed that Western music was received negatively by the government deeming it a corrupting and “devil-like” entity. She concludes, “At the large scale - that of the national and global - moral geographies inscribed by the state demarcate national boundaries as the boundaries within which morality resides and beyond which belong negative decadent forces” (110).
So the fact that my fellow New-Jerseyans aren't putting the latest hits from Aishwarya Rai Bachchan on their iPods has nothing to do with Indian music being bad. We just happen to think it's bad because it's not something with which we are familiar. And isn't that the nature of humans, to reject what we don't know or understand as being bad or scary? How geography and culture influence our musical preferences is probably the greatest example on how musical taste is socially constructed. If I had been born in India, I'd most likely be damning The Beatles existence (doubtful), and cranking up Nimbooda Nimbooda in protest to Western civilization.
So the fact that my fellow New-Jerseyans aren't putting the latest hits from Aishwarya Rai Bachchan on their iPods has nothing to do with Indian music being bad. We just happen to think it's bad because it's not something with which we are familiar. And isn't that the nature of humans, to reject what we don't know or understand as being bad or scary? How geography and culture influence our musical preferences is probably the greatest example on how musical taste is socially constructed. If I had been born in India, I'd most likely be damning The Beatles existence (doubtful), and cranking up Nimbooda Nimbooda in protest to Western civilization.