The Globalization Impact; Music and Technology.

When I first think of ways globalization has personally affected my life, it is easy to picture the giant golden arches located at the McDonald's restaurants that I see every where I go. Or even when I glance at my clothing tags as I am cleaning out my closet, only to find "made in China" or "made in Guatemala" on every single item. Although those things do affect my daily life, I had an experience over the summer that forever opened my eyes towards the impact of globalization around the world. 

I left on a one-month tour of seven European countries in the beginning of June. This was my first time to ever leave the States, so you can imagine as I landed in Paris, I began to take everything in, observing left and right, the differences of the new places we began to explore. Although I did see a McDonalds in every single country, there was one thing that immediately came to mind when I began brainstorming. The influence the music had intrigued me. In the Paris shopping mall, the soundtrack was not the romantic French music I had anticipated. Instead, it was what seemed to be the U.S.A. top 25 from 2012, featuring Chris Brown, or Ludacris. The same occurrence followed us to Naples, Italy as we shopped in local shops, as well as franchises I was familiar with from the states as well (such as H&M). But what intrigued me was how most of the locals knew a little bit of English and could carry on a conversation about the clothing, however they definitely were not fluent. However as soon as popular songs came on in English over the speakers, they would hum and sing along as they worked. This got me to realize the impact big performers have on the whole world. They have globalized the music industry. It clicked that stars such as Michael Jackson or even Donny Osmond were such phenomenon’s. I love how much technology has been able to increase this area of globalization. It began with Vinyl records being sent out to stores nationwide, being played so that people would buy them. Then cassette players, CD’s, Itunes, illegal downloads through Napster, and now with Youtube, Spotify, Pandora, and so many more ways, the whole world has access to any music at any time. I love how with the increase in technology music can spread almost anywhere, unifying the globe in such a simple way, through the powerful tool of music.