High Society Music?

When I stepped in to Virgin Megastores a few days ago, I found a music stand that was labeled "High Society".

   

It seemed like they wanted to associate that specific stand with highbrow culture. Highbrow culture is culture that is consumed by intellectuals and people who belong to a high social class. However, labeling the stand itself felt like Virgin Megastores was trying to appeal to the people who are from a lower social class interested in highbrow culture and social mobility (moving up or down the class system). This stand definitely targets the conspicuous consumers, the consumers who attempt to display class and status through purchase or consumption of high culture (in this case, it's music). By looking at the music CDs on this stand, I realized that it was mostly French and English music. The only somewhat-Arabic CD collection was the special edition of "Belaaks", an album created by Jean Marie Riachi.

   

The album features different artists, most of them are unknown. The album includes some English and French songs in addition to the Arabic ones. The music is a mixture of Jazz and Arabic music. The album is named after the song "Belaaks" which uses Arabic lyrics along with the instrumental music of the famous song "Perhaps".

   

If this music stand does anything other than appealing to conspicuous consumers, it proves the notion that highbrow and lowbrow cultures are socially constructed. They are not given truths, but they are carefully chosen by decision makers, even if its in something as small as Virgin Megastores. However, the main question remains: why is it that what we consider to be highbrow culture in the Arab world is usually foreign, while if something is more authentic, it would be seen as lowbrow culture?