Don't Say "World Music"
The phrase "world music" is awful. Please, never use it again, okay?
It's condescending, and bizarrely illogical on top of that. What it essentially means is "any traditional music that isn't part of the mainstream commercial music culture". It is the "Other" genre.
The implication is that rock, pop, country, even classical (!) deserve specific genre names while everything else outside of those specific Western traditions is "oh yeah and then there's some weird stuff from a country whose language I don't speak".
The term "world music" suggests that Japanese shakuhachi music is the same genre as djembe music from Africa, or that a tune from Iran played on kamancheh should be grouped alongside one played on the Andean quena. As a taikoist, I also find it especially hilarious that I apparently play "world music" that I am learning in the heart of Phoenix, AZ, and which originates from a country well known for its unique flavor of synth-driven pop music.
The reason why this terminology bothers me so much lies in the fact that I think it subtly suggests that "regular people" should not listen to it or understand any of it. It's akin to saying "Well, there's Our Kind of Music, and then there's music from the Rest of the World which is all weird and I don't understand it." The fact that classical music is set aside and protected from this naming convention is especially telling. There's Chinese classical music, too, did you know that? But I'll bet it'd be labeled "world music".
Anyway, please just never use the phrase again, if you can help it. Please, try to refer to all forms of music as what they are, rather than what the mainstream record labels would prefer that you group them as.
