Some people believe that music can play a crucial role in building a strong community regardless of age and cultural identity. I completely disagree with this opinion, since music is often composed based on local contexts and targeted at specific age groups. Therefore, music is unable to bring individuals from different ages and regions together on a large scale.
To begin with, music is usually written based on local stories, traditions, or trends, which express emotions specific to a particular region and may not resonate with other cultures. As a result, such music often fails to appeal to people from different cultural backgrounds. Most famous music bands conduct their concerts in certain areas because their music is not equally popular worldwide. For instance, Hindi music is extremely popular among South Asian people; however, audiences in many other countries do not pay much attention to it, and Hindi music concerts are relatively rare in overseas countries. Consequently, Hindi music is unable to touch the hearts of people outside South Asia and fails to overcome cultural boundaries.
Another compelling reason is that music is often composed to target specific age groups for economic profit; therefore, people of different ages cannot always enjoy the same type of music. Generally, music predominantly attracts teenagers, who are the largest consumers of the music industry. As a result, most music is produced for young people rather than for the elderly. Spotify is the world’s most popular music platform, and young people account for more than 80% of its premium subscribers. Furthermore, at most concerts, a large proportion of the audience consists of teenagers and young adults. Older people usually prefer classical music, whereas pop or trendy songs are more appealing to younger generations. Thus, music is not an effective way to connect people from different age groups.
To conclude, although music can help connect people within a particular region or community, I believe it is still unable to unite people on a large scale regardless of cultural boundaries and age differences around the world.