Ideology of Music.

All genres of music have an ideology. This is a set of ideas and values that would fit the genre. Claude Levi-Strauss has the theory of 'Binary Oppositions', that in Western culture we think in pairs of ideas that are opposites ie. Love and hate, war and peace.

For example, this table below shows how Pop/R&B genres differs from Rock/Hip-Hop genres.

Pop/R&B	Rock/Hip-Hop
More conformist	More rebellious
Better produced and more expensive to make	Rawer, less over-produced
Conscious of having a ‘good’ image	(pretend to) care less about image
Less obvious sexual references	More sexual obvious references
No alcohol or drug references, clean	Open about drugs and alcohol
Passive, non offensive	More aggressive, open about feelings
Universal messages, relates to a lot of people	Mostly about artist, more self indulgent
Mainstream, mass audience	Outside mainstream, niche audiences
Non violent, no swearing or blanked out	More violent references, casual swearing
Conspicious wealth	Act poor

The ideology affects how musical genres are represented. For example pop and R&B records are more likely to be played on the radio due to their universal messages and the lack of swearing. It also affects the way they will be shown in magazines and on TV. A rock magazine will have a different layout to a dance magazine. Rock magazines tend to be darker, also the font can sometimes be different. For example Kerrang! magazine has an eroded style font to appeal to the target audience more. Magazines based around Pop genres will be more cheerful and colourful, when Smash Hits! was still published it was always very colourful, and the people in the pictures would always be smiling.

This is different from rock genre magazines where the people in the pictures may not be smiling, or be posing in rebellious way or not smiling. The 'Magic Bullet Theory' can be relevant here, as the way that these people pose for these magazines might affect the personalities of those that read these magazines. Groups of people that prefer rock or heavy music may appear to be less friendly and dress in a way that doesn't look friendly, whereas people who prefer Pop may dress in brighter clothing, and appear to be bubbly and lively.