Are blackness and whiteness useful concepts in the study of popular music?

I feel it is important to recognaise and understand the history of music, and a significant part of its history is based on race. Many black artists are said to be the idea makers behind certain genres, as we discussed in lecture the 'white fascination with black music' is the reason for rock'n'roll, which shows the link between race and music. Although race should not be of importance, the truth is, that music has been shaped by it, and certain genres are associated with races, such as Latino music, Bhangra, Hip Hop and Pop. Although during the history of music "whiteness" and "blackness" did dominate audiences due to the culture of that time, i feel in this day and age it is less useful in the study of current popular music. People of all different ethnicities and backgrounds nowadays listen to an array of cultured music. White people listen to rap, black people listen to rock and artists are multi-racial across the wide spectrum of music genres. Music is now multi-racial, with cultures actually coming together and creating fusions of their sounds to produce new sub-genres.

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It’s hard to mention political change within the music industry without mentioning the Band Aid and Live 8 concerts. Perhaps the most popular and successful concerts in history are clearly the most well known. But one has to argue whether or not this was actually down to the music itself or just that the whole event had such a passionate creator. There is no doubt that the concerts and music artists helped, and gave huge awareness to the cause, reaching audiences in the billions, but whether or not the concerts themselves would have actually created the change is questionable. I believe that It was mainly down to Bob Geldof putting such pressure on the government and demanding changes be made.

Although many have tried, including modern artist like Eminem with his 'Mosh' single in which he calls for everyone to vote, I don’t really feel as though great political change is often made. Something on the scale of Band Aid and Live 8 will have the back bone to bring around change, but I don’t think a lonesome artist can have the scope to bring genuine change, and it’s merely a using the idea of poltical undertones as a gimmick