f pop music, efforts to censor it and is later quoted as offering some comfort to parents and others who are worried about graphic sex, morbid violence, overt racism and challenges to authority in Popular Music lyrics and videos. The report was raised after public concern about the relationship Popular Music in the form of gangsta rap, explicit videos and death rock etc was having on American youth culture. This example confirms that the senate believed there is a valid need to understand Popular Music and that potentially this music may have a direct impact on the morals of society. Roberts links Popular Music with child development stating, Because children's biological and social development rates are so variable, the authors suggest that perhaps the easiest way to tell if a particular child has reached adolescence is to notice whether he or she has developed a passion for Popular Music. So why does Popular Music have such a direct and threatening impact on society and what fuels this fear; the cause I would reason is consumption? According to IFPI figures this years world-wide record industry sales exceed 36 billion dollars, with the UK coming in at 1.170m and five major record companies holding the power base, Sony, BMI, Warner/AOL Universal and EMI. This represents a major and powerful cultural industry who in league with media companies are capable of directing and forming musical taste and consumption on a global level. By nature any industry of this magnitude will require professionals at all levels that have a vocational qualifications or formal education in that sphere. More regularly we are finding that record companies are in alliance with educational establishments and therefore it can be rationally argued that their business needs, will directly or indirectly effect curriculum topics? Popular Music is part of the larger social context where traditions of culture, class, race, and gender, technology, and profit have now b...
