foreign music

World music is an English phrase for styles of music from non-Western countries, including quasi-traditional, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's inclusive nature and elasticity as a musical category pose obstacles to a universal definition, but its ethic of interest in the culturally exotic is encapsulated in Roots magazine's description of the genre as "local music from out there".This music that does not follow "North American or British pop and folk traditions" was given the term "world music" by music industries in Europe and North America. The term was popularized in the 1980s as a marketing category for non-Western traditional music. It has grown to include subgenres such as ethnic fusion (Clannad, Ry Cooder, Enya, etc.) and worldbeat. The term became current in the 1980s as a marketing/classificatory device in the media and the music industry. There are several conflicting definitions for world music. One is that it consists of "all the music in the world", though such a broad definition renders the term virtually meaningless.

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