Regal Zonophone

According to last.fm, Mexico would not have any local artists in its Top 10 list, but that is because the music taste of the sort of people who would have a last.fm is very different from the music taste of the general population.

If My City vs. Your City could scrobble an accurate picture of what Mexicans listen to, you would see a lot more local artists. I imagine something similar might happen in China.

That being said, I'm surprised that not even Café Tacvba makes the Top 10 list, being the only Mexican band that measures up to the highest international standards in terms of creativity and production, and also being one of the most popular acts in the country.

But, there's some problems with this - eh?

It's sort of like the electoral college problem:

http://www.fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/

Even though we're going with percentages here, could there be only 10 people in Turkey *with* the last.fm widget scobbling?

Is last.fm available in any other language, except English? I did only a quick cursory glance and couldn't find a way to change the language, although I did find the widget to change the URL to another CBS-owned site. I also know that when in Paris, it didn't change to a French interface, even though other sites (Google) do.

If this is true, it's possible that what we're seeing is what's scrobbled by anglophones, generally. Japan may be the exception, but most everyone learns English in Japan at an early age, anyways, no? Enough to use an English-interface without much problem.

I stand corrected on that one - there is a language pref - next to the design pref.

The list of Chinese options is big coastal cities and Beijing (and its satellite, Tianjin). The only exception is Changsha, the birthplace of Mao Zedong, in Hunan province, where the only Chinese entry is for a Taiwanese artist. But... as you noted, this is LastFM, not QQMusic or Baidu MP3's list. Stuff like Lady Gaga does okay in Shanghai (or Taibei), but doesn't really break into the other half of China, the vast inland region, which is still very nativist in its media consumption. I think Koreans and Taiwanese are making a lot more money and have a higher profile in Changsha (or Lanzhou, or Nanjing, or Ha'erbin) than Lady Gaga has. I think LastFM is giving a good picture of what urban elite kids are listening to in these towns, though: Wang Fei and Green Day.

A lot of Western critics think of Chinese censorship as a means of protecting the position of the Chinese Communist Party, but I think a lot of it also has to do with protecting indigenous culture, whether it's pop music or Twitter-clones or homegrown neoliberalism. Superficially, China does look pretty confident, right? But that confidence quickly crumbles in the face of any imagined meddling by outside forces (whether the United States or Uighur activists or Han Chinese who are too fond of elections). China, a lot of the time, swaggers and puts on fabulous shows for the world, but it is still deeply culturally anxious, in a way that Japan isn't. Chinese cultural critics often combine a sense of superiority with an amazing capacity for self-doubt. I think that's one of the reasons why China will continue to resist, or minimize, the influence of world monoculture.

I think the vision of liberalizing China that Western thinkers love to describe often clashes with the vision of liberalizing China that Chinese thinkers are working with. In the Western vision, China is opening up to Western ideas and influence; people are watching Prison Break and buying Nikes, embracing neoliberalism. But in the Chinese imagination, the opening up definitely does allow Western culture/ideas to enter China but the most important part is the opening of the exit gate for Chinese cultural products and ideas. Western thinkers look at Chinese culture and, viewing it through the prism of Western thought and culture, see, of course, Western thought and culture and the glorious or inglorious spread of monoculture. Chinese thinkers (except far left nationalists who are quite fond of seeing the negative parallels between the new Chinese elite and the Western elite) are a lot less likely to identify the Western DNA in ideas like neoliberalism or televised singing contests.

Should't you be out spotting trains?

i think maybe "the west" is a brand and economics is a force like nature unto primitive existences. popular music developed as it did because cars had radios and needed something to play in between advertisements. i could only guess because blues music developed from the english language, its unfolding would remain favorable to english, as well as western themes and perspectives, although i can imagine socrates disproving me as easily as my impulse manifests. still, i think colonialism is beyond human will, it's the will of pagan-type economic gods like "the travel channel" telling american tourists where the "non-touristy" places are

at the same time it might be worth to note that only sanctioned selections from the anglosphere could even be imagined to get into this list. current 93 or nunslaughter could not get a hat in the race any more than something "authentic" to another sphere could

No Iceland on the list, unfortunately. I would expect them to be above 30% threshold as well.

ルイスは１０年ぶりの東京？

WiggyにWestion Tokyoであったとき以来。

I'm getting 8 Japanese artists, 1 Korean, and 1 Lady GaGa for Shizuoka, Japan

and for Guangzhou, China, apparently 4 Chinese (at least, I can read Wong Fei, and there are 3 others with Chinese names)

http://rockitbaby.de/projects/mycityvsyourcity/#shizuoka/japan/guangzhou/china

I don't really accept that what last.fm listeners listen to has much to tell us apart from what it is that last.fm listeners listen to. Outside the US/UK and the major European cities, last.fm listeners are going to be a minuscule portion of the population that is already heaviily geared towards Anglo pop culture. For instance, when I was in Brazil, all I heard was Brazilian music and all people seemed to be interested in was Brazilian music, bar the odd Madonna CD or whatever. Walk into a random bar in Rio, and you are almost certainly going to hear Brazilian music. And yet last.fm supposedly tells a different story.

Take a quick glance at the Brazilian top 20 and you'll see that the clear majority of songs are Brazilian.

Tianjin and Seville!

-because of what a few last fm listeners listen to?
Music is a big thing for me, but I've never used last fm much, it's never seemed necessary or perhaps I've never had the time. When I moved to Berlin some years ago, if there would have been any musical reason to it, it would have been with people like Patric Catani and early Cobra Killer in mind, but I doubt last fm would have reflected that. You would just as likely find them on, say, Australian lists, due to their having toured there previously when few small European bands make it that far. If I wanted to meet other people who listen to the Boredoms I'd just as soon go to New York as Tokyo. I'm not going there to look, but would last fm tell me where to find other Joemus listeners?

Why the predominance of Radiohead though (here and on those endless Q/Mojo best music ever lists)?

I understand people all wanting to listen to the Beatles (and Lady Gaga to some extent), but Radiohead?

This is a mystery to me.