World Beats, yo

"Music is the universal language of mankind." -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Outre-Mer

One of the things i'm amazed with is world music. It's fascinating. There are so many different things associated with music, and it's all over the world. I think it's amazing how there are so many different dances to different types of music, and it seems like no matter where you are in a country, everyone knows the dance.

Take Greece, for example. My Greek uncle is always playing these Greek songs, and I always thought it would be different in the actual country of Greece, and that these songs were 'North-Americanized.' I was proved wrong. I went to Greece this past March, and throughout the streets the exact same music was being played. It clicked in that this music was being shared all over the world, even though it originated in one country.

In one continent (Europe, for example), there are thousands of types of music that vary per country. Germany has different music than Italy, Italy has different music than Switzerland, Switzerland has different music than Turkey...and so on and so forth. It's exhausting, really.

My favourite thing is when bands take different aspects of world music and put it with theirs. My favourite band, the Dropkick Murphys, is an Irish punk band. They have the basic band instruments (guitars, bass, drums, vocals) as well as traditional celtic instruments (fiddles, bagpipes, mandolins, accordians, etc.). It blows my mind every time I listen to them. When I see them in concert, it's even more amazing. Other bands I love do this too, but the Dropkick Murphys are my favourite.

In my opinion, there is no bad genre of music. I think I have music from every nationality on my Itunes, and saved on my computer. The best thing about it is the weird looks I get when I play something random. Those weird looks actually show the intolerance, judgements, stereotypes, negative conotations, and other things associated with lacking cultural experience. That's my opinion, and it's not changing.