Understanding popular music

The paper ” Understanding Popular Music” is a good example of an assignment on music. The infusion of popular culture in music cannot be without mass media’s assistance, as Turner p. 4 quotes “ Popular culture and the mass media have a symbiotic relationship: each depends on the other in an intimate collaboration.” A good example of this is Andrea Bocelli’s music which is categorized as opera but popularized by mass media that anyone who listened to him would claim that he/she knows opera music by heart. The first music event I have watched on television is Bocelli’s concert titled An American Dream. The said concert has historical significance since the Italian opera singer performed at the Bay in front of the Statue of Liberty. Before the concert began, there were footages of Andrea Bocelli guided by his aides going on a tour inside the Statue of Liberty. It is historic since Italian’s were among the first immigrants to America searching for the American Dream. Through Bocelli’s concert, it is a manifestation that Italians and opera are now highly-appreciated by American society. However, we must also be critical of this type of music since the common people would think that because Bocellli is popular, his performance sets the standard in opera. As W. H. Auden argues “ What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten and replaced by a new dish.” The beauty of Bocelli’s voice ( an Italian) and the setting of the concert is a perfect fusion of two cultures successfully combined with music. Unfortunately, critics such as Tommasini argues otherwise: What does it say to the students there about integrity and standards when a singer so inadequately equipped for opera is given this opportunity because he is a pop-culture icon who has sold more than 20 million records? Indeed, pop culture has made opera music lose its original meaning.