Politically Purposed Music Genres.

Building on previous work documenting musical genre forms in the United States, this exploratory study reports the discovery of a new type, which the authors term the politically purposed genre. They find two major types: those sponsored by governments, which benefit from national distribution and legal protection, and an anti—status quo type supported by an opposition party or constituency that shares its critique of the existing sociopolitical and economic order. Four nation-cases have been examined: the People’s Republic of China, Chile, Serbia, and Nigeria. The authors examine each case in turn and close with a discussion of the limitations and possibilities of this discovery. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]