Does the music industry create the market?

The music industry does control and create the market the majority of the time as they are well aware of what music sells and what the public want. The industry is concerned with making money so they are more likely to sign and support artists which have a sound they believe will make them money and sell well going off current trends and popular bands. An example of this is the boy band phase when many boy bands were put together despite many of them having a similar sound. Some theorists argue that the whole music industry is controlled by the market and everything that is sold is so according to their plan. They also argue that this results in most popular music that sells well sounding the same. However an argument against this is that everything does not sound the same and the market cannot physically make you buy particular music. Also not everything sells that is marketed. Recording companies are going to want to advertise sound a like bands to those that sell and make money.

are Blackness&whiteness useful concepts in the study of popular music?

The concepts of blackness and whiteness are very difficult to define. It can be useful when looking at popular music as it does help when putting music into catorgories and looking at the beats and structure of a song. Some people find it useful to place music into these catorgories as it can give people an idea of what they can expect to listen to. However it is not always helpful to use these concepts as it disregards everything else and reduces everything down to race and many people listen to many genres of music regardless of the race/ethnicity of the artist. Ethnicity is still a very important topic in history but in terms of popular music in todays society it is not as important as the seperation is no longer there. Also artists are no longer confined to one genre of music that depends on whether they are black or white.