A world of music

A World of Music
British, American & Argentinian Music

Contents
1 Music of the United Kingdom 1
1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 Early music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.2 Baroque music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Classical music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Timeline of British classical music, and its preceding forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4 Folk music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4.1 English folk music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4.2 Northern Irish music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4.3 Scottish folk music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4.4 Welsh folk music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.5 Early British popular music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.6 Modern British popular music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.7 See also . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.8 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.9 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.10 External links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 British popular music 6
2.1 Early British popular music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2 1950s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3 1960s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.4 1970s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.5 1980s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.6 1990s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.7 2000s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.8 2010s to present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.9 See also . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.10 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3 Music of the United States 10
3.1 Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.1.1 Social identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
i

ii CONTENTS
3.2 Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.3 Folk music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.3.1 Blues and spirituals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.3.2 Other immigrant communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.4 Classical music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.4.1 Early classical music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.4.2 20th century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.5 Popular music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.5.1 Early popular song . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.5.2 Blues and gospel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.5.3 Jazz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.5.4 Country music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.5.5 R&B and soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.5.6 Rock, metal and punk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.5.7 Hip hop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.5.8 Other niche styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.6 Government, politics and law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.7 Industry and economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.8 Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.9 Scholarship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.10 Holidays and festivals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.11 See also . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.12 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.13 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.14 Further reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.15 External links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4 American popular music 30
4.1 Early “popular” music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.1.1 Tin Pan Alley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.1.2 Broadway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.1.3 Ragtime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.2 Early recorded popular music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.2.1 Popular jazz (1920–1935) and swing (1935–1947) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.2.2 Blues diversiﬁcation and popularization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.3 1950s and 60s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.3.1 Country: Nashville Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.3.2 Soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.3.3 1960s rock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.4 1970s and 80s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.4.1 1970s funk and soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.4.2 80s pop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

CONTENTS iii
4.4.3 Birth of the underground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.4.4 Punk and alternative rock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.4.5 Heavy metal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.5 1990s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.6 2000s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.7 International and social impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.8 See also . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.9 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.10 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.11 Further reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.12 External links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5 Music of Argentina 45
5.1 Folk music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.1.1 Andean music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
5.1.2 Chacarera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
5.1.3 Chamamé . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.2 Popular music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.2.1 Tango . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.2.2 Rock and roll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5.2.3 Electronic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5.2.4 Pop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5.2.5 Cumbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.2.6 Cuarteto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.2.7 Latin Fanfarria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.3 Art music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.3.1 Jazz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.3.2 Classical music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.4 Multimedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.5 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.6 External links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.7 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.7.1 Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.7.2 Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.7.3 Content license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Chapter 1
Music of the United Kingdom
This article is about music from the United Kingdom. For
UK Music, the industry organisation, see UK Music.
The music of the United Kingdom refers to all forms
A Promenade concert in the Royal Albert Hall, 2004.
of music associated with the United Kingdom since its
creation.
Through its history, the United Kingdom has been a ma-
jor exporter and source of musical innovation in the mod-
ern and contemporary eras, drawing its cultural basis
from the history of the United Kingdom, from church
music, from Western culture and from the ancient and
traditional folk music and instrumentation of England,
Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. In the 20th cen-
tury, inﬂuences from the music of the United States be-
came most dominant in popular music. This led to the
explosion of the British Invasion, while subsequent no-
table movements in British music include the New Wave
of British Heavy Metal and Britpop. The United King-
dom has one of the world’s largest music industries to-
day, with many British musicians having had an impact
on modern music.
1.1 Background
1.1.1 Early music
Main article: Early music of the British Isles
Music in the British Isles, from the earliest recorded
English Miniature from a manuscript of the Roman de la Rose
times until the Baroque and the rise of recognisably mod-
ern classical music, was a diverse and rich culture, includ-
ing sacred and secular music and ranging from the popu-
lar to the elite.[1]
Each of the major nations of England,
Ireland, Scotland and Wales retained unique forms of mu-
sic and of instrumentation, but British music was highly
inﬂuenced by continental developments, while British
composers made an important contribution to many of
the major movements in early music in Europe, includ-
ing the polyphony of the Ars Nova and laid some of
the foundations of later national and international classi-
cal music.[2]
Musicians from the British Isles also devel-
oped some distinctive forms of music, including Celtic
chant, the Contenance Angloise, the rota, polyphonic vo-
tive antiphons and the carol in the medieval era.
1

2 CHAPTER 1. MUSIC OF THE UNITED KINGDOM
Church music and religious music was profoundly af-
fected by the Protestant Reformation which affected
Britain from the 16th century, which curtailed events as-
sociated with British music and forced the development
of distinctive national music, worship and belief. English
madrigals, lute ayres and masques in the Renaissance
era led particularly to English language opera devel-
oped in the early Baroque period of the later seventeenth
century.[3]
In contrast, court music of the kingdoms of
England, Scotland and Ireland, although having unique
elements remained much more integrated into wider Eu-
ropean culture.
1.1.2 Baroque music
Main article: Baroque music of the British Isles
The Baroque era in music, between the early music of
the Medieval and Renaissance periods and the develop-
ment of fully fledged and formalised orchestral classical
music in the second half of the eighteenth century, was
characterised by more elaborate musical ornamentation,
changes in musical notation, new instrumental playing
techniques and the rise of new genres such as opera. Al-
though the term Baroque is conventionally used for Eu-
ropean music from about 1600, its full effects were not
felt in Britain until after 1660, delayed by native trends
and developments in music, religious and cultural differ-
ences from many European countries and the disruption
to court music caused by the Wars of the Three Kingdoms
and Interregnum.[4]
Under the restored Stuart monarchy
the court became once again a centre of musical patron-
age, but royal interest in music tended to be less signifi-
cant as the seventeenth century progressed, to be revived
again under the House of Hanover.[5]
British chamber and orchestral music drew inspiration
from continental Europe as it developed into modern
classical music. The Baroque era in British music can be
seen as one of an interaction of national and international
trends, sometimes absorbing continental fashions and
practices and sometimes attempting, as in the creation of
ballad opera, to produce an indigenous tradition.[6]
How-
ever, arguably the most significant British composer of
the era, George Frideric Handel, was a naturalised Ger-
man, who helped integrate British and continental music
and define the future of the classical music of the United
Kingdom that would be officially formed in 1801.[7]
1.2 Classical music
Main article: Classical music of the United Kingdom
Musical composition, performance and training in the
United Kingdom inherited the European classical tra-
ditions of the eighteenth century (above all, in Britain,
from the example of Handel) and saw a great expan-
Sir Edward Elgar
sion during the nineteenth century.[8]
Romantic nation-
alism encouraged clear national identities and sensibil-
ities within the countries of the United Kingdom to-
wards the end of the nineteenth century, producing many
composers and musicians of note and drawing on the
folk tradition.[9]
These traditions, including the cultural
strands drawn from the United Kingdom’s constituent
nations and provinces, have continued to evolve in dis-
tinctive ways through the work of such composers as
Arthur Sullivan, Gustav Holst, Edward Elgar, Hubert
Parry, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten.[10]
1.3 Timeline of British classical
music, and its preceding forms
1.4 Folk music
Each of the four countries of the United Kingdom has
its own diverse and distinctive folk music forms. In ad-
dition, there are numerous distinct and semi-distinct folk
traditions brought by immigrants from Jamaica, India, the
Commonwealth and other parts of the world. Folk music
flourished until the era of industrialisation when it began
to be replaced by new forms of popular music, including
music hall and brass bands. Realisation of this led to two
folk revivals, one in the late-19th century and the other
in the mid-20th century, which kept folk music as an im-
portant sub-culture within society.[11]
1.4.1 English folk music
Main article: Folk music of England

1.5. EARLY BRITISH POPULAR MUSIC 3
England has a long and diverse history of folk music dat-
ing back at least to the medieval period and including
many forms of music, song and dance. Through two pe-
riods of revival from the late nineteenth century much
of the tradition has been preserved and continues to be
practiced.[11]
It led to the creation of a number of fusions
with other forms of music that produced subgenres such
as electric folk, folk punk and folk metal and continues
to thrive nationally and in regional scenes, particularly in
areas such as Northumbria and Cornwall.[12]
1.4.2 Northern Irish music
Main article: Folk music of Ireland
Ireland, including Northern Ireland, has vibrant folk tra-
ditions. The popularity of traditional instruments such
as fiddles has remained throughout the centuries even as
analogues in Great Britain died out. Perhaps the most fa-
mous modern musician from Northern Ireland influenced
by folk tradition is Van Morrison.
1.4.3 Scottish folk music
Main article: Scottish folk music
Scottish folk music includes many kinds of songs, in-
Scottish traditional group The Tannahill Weavers
cluding ballads and laments, sung by a single singer with
accompaniment by bagpipes, fiddles or harps. Tradi-
tional dances include waltzes, reels, strathspeys and jigs.
Alongside the other areas of the United Kingdom, Scot-
land underwent a roots revival in the 1960s. Cathy-Ann
McPhee and Jeannie Robertson were the heroes of this
revival, which inspired some revolutions in band formats
by groups like The Clutha, The Whistlebinkies, The Boys
of the Lough and the Incredible String Band.
1.4.4 Welsh folk music
Main article: Music of Wales
Wales is a Celtic country that features folk music played
at twmpathau (communal dances) and gwyl werin (music
festivals). Welsh music also includes male voice choirs
and songs accompanied by a harp. Having long been sub-
ordinate to English culture, Welsh musicians in the late
20th century had to reconstruct traditional music when a
roots revival began. This revival began in the late 1970s
and achieved some mainstream success in the UK in the
80s with performers like Robin Huw Bowen, Moniars and
Gwerinos.
1.5 Early British popular music
Main article: Early British popular music
In the sense of commercial music enjoyed by the people,
British popular music can be seen to originate in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries with the arrival of the
broadside ballad, which were sold cheaply and in great
numbers until the nineteenth century.[13]
Further techno-
logical, economic and social changes led to new forms
of music in the nineteenth century, including the brass
band, which produced a popular and communal form of
classical music.[14]
Similarly, the music hall sprang up to
cater for the entertainment of new urban societies, adapt-
ing existing forms of music to produce popular songs and
acts.[15]
In the 1930s the influence of American Jazz led
to the creation of British dance bands, who provided a
social and popular music that began to dominate social
occasions and the radio airwaves.[16]
1.6 Modern British popular music
Main article: British popular music
See also: British rock and British pop
Forms of popular music, including folk music, jazz,
The Beatles
rapping/hip hop, pop and rock music, have particularly
flourished in Britain since the twentieth century. Britain

4 CHAPTER 1. MUSIC OF THE UNITED KINGDOM
has had an impact on popular music disproportionate
to its size, due to its linguistic and cultural links with
many countries, particularly the United States and many
of its former colonies like Australia, South Africa, and
Canada, and its capacity for invention, innovation and fu-
sion, which has led to the development of, or participa-
tion in, many of the major trends in popular music.[17]
In
the early-20th century, influences from the United States
became most dominant in popular music, with young per-
formers producing their own versions of American mu-
sic, including rock n' roll from the late 1950s and devel-
oping a parallel music scene. This is particularly true
since the early 1960s when the British Invasion, led by
The Beatles, helped to secure British performers a ma-
jor place in development of pop and rock music. Since
then, rock music and popular music contributed to a
British-American collaboration, with trans-Atlantic gen-
res being exchanged and exported to one another, where
they tended to be adapted and turned into new move-
ments, only to be exported back again. Genres originat-
ing in or radically developed by British musicians include
blues rock, heavy metal, progressive rock, ska, hard rock,
punk rock, Bhangra, electric folk, folk punk, acid jazz,
trip hop, shoegaze, drum and bass, grime, Britpop and
dubstep.
1.7 See also
• Culture of the United Kingdom
• List of music festivals in the United Kingdom
1.8 Notes
[1] R. McKitterick, C. T. Allmand, T. Reuter, D. Abulafia,
P. Fouracre, J. Simon, C. Riley-Smith, M. Jones, eds,
The New Cambridge Medieval History: C. 1415- C. 1500
(Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 319.
[2] W. Lovelock, A Concise History of Music (Frederick Un-
gar, 1953), p. 57.
[3] R. H. Fritze and W. Baxter Robison, Historical dictionary
of late medieval England, 1272-1485 (Greenwood, 2002),
p. 363; G. H. Cowling, Music on the Shakespearian Stage
(Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 6.
[4] J. P. Wainright, 'England ii, 1603-1642' in J. Haar,
ed., European Music, 1520-1640 (Woodbridge: Boydell,
2006), pp. 509-21.
[5] T. Carter and J. Butt, The Cambridge History of
Seventeenth-Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2005), pp. 280, 300, 433 and 541.
[6] M. Lubbock, The Complete Book of Light Opera (New
York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1962) pp. 467-8.
[7] E. Arweck and W. J. F. Keenan, Materializing Religion:
Expression, Performance and Ritual (Aldershot: Ashgate
Publishing, 2006), p. 167.
[8] D. Gordon and P. Gordon, Musical Visitors to Britain
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2005), ISBN 0-7130-0238-7, p.
62.
[9] B. Sweers, Electric Folk: The Changing Face of En-
glish Traditional Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2005), ISBN 0-19-515878-4, p. 47.
[10] W. Apel, Harvard Dictionary of Music Series I: Diaries
(Harvard University Press, 2nd edn., 1969), ISBN 0-674-
37501-7, p. 292.
[11] G. Boyes, The Imagined Village: Culture, Ideology, and
the English Folk Revival (Manchester: Manchester Uni-
versity Press, 1993), ISBN 0-7190-2914-7.
[12] B. Sweers, Electric Folk: The Changing Face of En-
glish Traditional Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2005), ISBN 0-19-515878-4.
[13] B. Capp, ‘Popular literature’, in B. Reay, ed., Popular Cul-
ture in Seventeenth-Century England (Routledge, 1985), p.
199.
[14] T. Herbert, The British Brass Band: a Musical and Social
History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 4-5.
[15] Diana Howard London Theatres and Music Halls 1850-
1950 (1970).
[16] C. Parsonage, The evolution of jazz in Britain, 1880-1935
(Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2005), pp. 197-
200.
[17] P. Childs, M. Storry, Encyclopedia of contemporary
British culture (London: Taylor & Francis, 1999), p. 412.
1.9 References
• Mthembu-Salter, Gregory and Peter Dalton.
“Lovers and Poets -- Babylon Sounds”. 2000.
In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with
McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World
Music, Vol. 2: Latin & North America, Caribbean,
India, Asia and Pacific, pp 457–462. Rough Guides
Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0
• Ritu, DJ. “One Way Ticket to British Asia”. 2000.
In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with
McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World
Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East,
pp 83–90. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books.
ISBN 1-85828-636-0
• Liudmila Kovnatskaya. English music in the 20th
century. Sources and periods of development.
Moscow: Sovietsky Kompozitor, 1986. 216 pp.

1.10. EXTERNAL LINKS 5
1.10 External links
• (French) Audio clips: Traditional music of the
United Kingdom. Musée d'Ethnographie de
Genève. Accessed November 25, 2010.
• some traditional sea shanties
• British pub songs
• Bandible - user-submitted UK artist and band re-
views

Chapter 2
British popular music
Not to be confused with British pop music, an article
about the pop music genre of popular music.
British popular music and popular music in general,
Rock band Queen in concert (1984)
can be defined in a number of ways, but is used here to de-
scribe music which is not part of the art/classical music or
Church music traditions, including folk music, jazz, pop
and rock music.[1]
These forms of music have particularly
flourished in Britain, which, it has been argued, has had
an impact on popular music disproportionate to its size,
partly due to its linguistic and cultural links with many
countries, particularly the former areas of British control
such as United States, Canada, and Australia, but also a
capacity for invention, innovation and fusion, which has
led to the development of, or participation in, many of
the major trends in popular music.[2]
This is particularly
true since the early 1960s when the British Invasion led by
The Beatles, helped to secure British performers a major
place in development of pop and rock music, which has
been revisited at various times, with genres originating
in or being radically developed by British musicians, in-
cluding: blues rock, heavy metal music, progressive rock,
punk rock, electric folk, folk punk, acid jazz, drum and
bass, grime and Britpop.
2.1 Early British popular music
Main article: Early British popular music
Commercial music enjoyed by the people can be seen
An eighteenth-century broadside ballad
to originate in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
with the arrival of the broadside ballad, which were
sold cheaply and in great numbers until the nineteenth
century.[3]
Further technological, economic and social
changes led to new forms of music in the nineteenth cen-
tury, including the brass band, which produced a popu-
lar and communal form of classical music.[4]
Similarly,
the Music hall sprang up to cater for the entertainment
of new urban societies, adapting existing forms of mu-
sic to produce popular songs and acts.[5]
In the 1930s the
influence of American Jazz led to the creation of British
dance bands, who provided a social and popular music
that began to dominate social occasions and the radio
airwaves.[6]
2.2 1950s
Main article: Music of the United Kingdom (1950s)
By 1950 indigenous forms of British popular music were
already giving way to the influence of American forms
6

2.4. 1970S 7
of music including jazz, swing and traditional pop, me-
diated through film and records. The significant change
of the mid-1950s was the impact of American rock and
roll, which provided a new model for performance and
recording, based on a youth market.[7]
Initially this was
dominated by American acts, or re-creations of American
forms of music, but soon distinctly British forms began
to appear, first in the uniquely British take on American
folk music in the Skiffle craze of the 1950s, in the begin-
nings of a folk revival that came to place an emphasis on
national traditions and then in early attempts to produce
British rock and roll.[7]
2.3 1960s
By the early 1960s the British had developed a viable na-
The Beatles.
tional music industry and began to produce adapted forms
of American music in beat music and British blues which
would be re-exported to America by bands such as The
Beatles and Rolling Stones.[8]
This helped to make the
dominant forms of popular music something of a shared
Anglo-American project. The development of British
blues rock helped revitalised rock music and led to the
growing distinction between pop and rock music. In the
mid-1960s, British bands were at the forefront in the cre-
ation of the hard rock genre. While pop music contin-
ued to dominate the singles charts, teen culture contin-
ued to dominate. Rock began to develop into diverse and
creative subgenres that characterised the form throughout
the rest of the twentieth century.[9]
2.4 1970s
In the 1970s British musicians played a major part in de-
Led Zeppelin performing in 1975
veloping the new forms of music that had emerged from
blues rock towards the end of the 1960s, including folk
rock and psychedelic rock. Several important and influ-
ential subgenres were created in Britain in this period, by
pursuing the possibilities of rock music, including electric
folk and glam rock, a process that reached its apogee
in the development of progressive rock and one of the
most enduring subgenres in heavy metal music.[10]
While
jazz began to suffer a decline in popularity in this period,
Britain began to be increasingly influenced by aspects of
World music, including Jamaican music, resulting in new
music scenes and subgenres.[11]
In the middle years of the
decade the influence of the pub rock led to the British in-
tensification of punk, which swept away much of the ex-
isting landscape of popular music, replacing it with much
more diverse new wave and post punk bands who mixed
different forms of music and influences to dominate rock
and pop music into the 1980s.[12]
2.5 1980s
Rock and pop music in the 1980s built on the post-
punk and new wave movements, incorporating different
sources of inspiration from subgenres and what is now
classed as World music in the shape of Jamaican and
Indian music, as did British Jazz, as a series of black
British musicians came to prominence, creating new fu-
sions like Acid Jazz.[13]
It also explored the consequences
of new technology and social change in the electronic mu-
sic of synthpop. In the early years of the decade, while
subgenres like heavy metal music continued to develop
separately, there was a considerable crossover between
rock and more commercial popular music, with a large
number of more “serious” bands, like The Police and
UB40, enjoying considerable single chart success.[14]
The
advent of MTV and cable video helped spur what has

8 CHAPTER 2. BRITISH POPULAR MUSIC
Dire Straits in 1985.
been seen as a Second British Invasion in the early years
of the decade, with British bands enjoying more success
in America than they had since the height of The Beat-
les’ popularity in the 1960s. However, by the end of the
decade there was a fragmentation, with many new forms
of music and sub-cultures, including Hip Hop and House
music, while the single charts were once again dominated
by pop artists, now often associated with the Hi-NRG hit
factory of Stock Aitken Waterman. The rise of the Indie
rock scene was partly a response to this, and marked a
shift away from the major music labels and towards the
importance of local scenes like Madchester and subgen-
res, like gothic rock.[15]
2.6 1990s
In the 1990s, while the singles charts were dominated
Gallagher brothers of Oasis on stage
by boy bands and girl groups like Take That, and Spice
Girls,[16]
British soul and Indian-based music also en-
joyed their greatest level of mainstream success to date,
and the rise of World music helped revitalise the popu-
larity of folk music.[17]
Electronic rock bands like The
Prodigy and Chemical Brothers began to achieve a high
profile. Alternative rock reached the mainstream, emerg-
ing from the Madchester scene to produce dream pop,
shoegazing, post rock and indie pop, which led to the
commercial success of Britpop bands like Blur and Oasis;
followed by a stream of post-Britpop bands like Travis
and Feeder, which led the way for the international suc-
cess of bands including Snow Patrol and Coldplay.[18]
2.7 2000s
At the beginning of the new millennium, while talent
Coldplay, considered to be the most commercially successful
British Rock act of the 2000s.
show contestants were one of the major forces in pop mu-
sic, British soul maintained and even extended its high
profile with figures like Joss Stone, Amy Winehouse and
Adele, while a new group of singer/songwriters, includ-
ing KT Tunstall and James Blunt, achieved international
success.[19]
New forms of dance music emerged, fusing
hip hop with garage to form grime.[20]
There was also a
revival of garage rock and post punk, which when mixed
with electronic music produced new rave.[21]
2.8 2010s to present
The success of UK artists in the US during the early 2010s
led to some claiming a new British Invasion was taking
place, as British musicians took their largest ever share of
the US album charts year-on-year between 2011 (11.7%
of US market), 2012 (13.7% of US market), 2013 and
2014.[22]
Notable British musicians achieving global suc-
cess at the beginning of the 2010s include One Direction,
Adele and Mumford & Sons.
Adele's album '21' became the UK’s best-selling album
of the 21st Century and its 4th best-selling album of all
time in 2011, certified platinum 16 times. During the
same year, the Grammy-award winning album Back To
Black by British singer Amy Winehouse became the UK’s
second best selling album of the 21st Century and its 13th
best-selling album of all time following her death in 2011,
certified platinum 11 times.
In 2013, despite the trend of declining album sales per-
sisting, the British music industry saw a 9% growth
in revenue which could be traced to “individual rev-
enues by musicians, singers, composers, songwriters and

2.10. NOTES 9
lyricists”,[23]
adding £3.8bn to the UK economy. In 2014,
the UK’s top 10 albums were all by British artists, includ-
ing releases by Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, George Ezra,
Paolo Nutini, Coldplay and One Direction.
Sam Smith’s debut album In the Lonely Hour, released
in 2014, peaked at number one in the United King-
dom, New Zealand and Sweden, and number two in Aus-
tralia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Norway and the United
States. In the same year, Ed Sheeran's second album X
charted at number one in twelve countries, topping both
the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200, and
reaching the top 5 in eleven other countries. Also in 2014,
One Direction's album 'Four' reached number 1 in the
UK, became the top charted album on iTunes in 67 coun-
tries and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in
the US. As a consequence, One Direction became the first
band to reach number one on the US Billboard chart with
each of their first four albums, British or otherwise.[24]
2.9 See also
• List of number-one singles (UK)
• British pop music
• British rock
2.10 Notes
[1] R. Shuker, Understanding popular music (London: Rout-
ledge, 2nd edn., 2001), pp. 8-10.
[2] P. Childs, M. Storry, Encyclopedia of contemporary
[3] B. Capp, ‘Popular literature’, in B. Reay, ed., Popular Cul-
ture in Seventeenth-Century England (Routledge, 1985), p.
199.
[4] T. Herbert, The British Brass Band: a Musical and Social
History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 4-5.
[5] Diana Howard London Theatres and Music Halls 1850-
1950 (1970).
[6] C. Parsonage, The evolution of jazz in Britain, 1880-1935
(Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2005), pp. 197-
200.
[7] R. Unterberger, “British Rock & Roll Before The Beat-
les”, All Music Guides, http://www.allmusic.com/explore/
essay/ retrieved 24/06/09.
[8] Encyclopædia Britannica Article
[9] S. Frith, “Pop Music” in S. Frith, W. Stray and J. Street,
The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock (Cambridge
University Press, 2001), pp. 93-108.
[10] “Prog-Rock/Art Rock”. AllMusic. AllMusic. 2007. Re-
trieved 2007-12-04.
[11] A. Donnell, Companion to contemporary Black British cul-
ture (London: Taylor & Francis, 2002), p. 185.
[12] P. Childs, and M. Storry, Encyclopedia of contemporary
[13] N. Zuberi, Sounds English: Transnational Popular Music
(University of Illinois Press, 2001), p. 188.
[14] Rip It Up and Start Again Postpunk 1978-1984 by Simon
Reynolds pp. 340, 342-343.
[15] S. Frith, Popular Music: The rock era (London, Routledge,
2004).
[16] P. Shapiro, Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of
Disco (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2006), pp. 288-9.
[17] D. Else, J. Attwooll, C. Beech, L. Clapton, O. Berry,
and F. Davenport, Great Britain (London, Lonely Planet,
2007), p. 75.
[18] V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra, S. T. Erlewine, All Music
Guide to Rock: The Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and
Soul (Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), pp. 1346-7.
[19] N. McCormick, “Flower of Brit-soul turns shrinking vio-
let” Daily Telegraph, 29 Jan 2004, retrieved 02/07/09.
[20] McKinnon, Matthew (2005-05-05). “Grime Wave”.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2008-02-
24.
[21] J. Harris, “New Rave? Old Rubbish”, The Guardian, 13
October 2006, retrieved 31 March 2007.
[22] http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/1538581/
the-new-british-invasion-uk-acts-claim-largest-share-ever-of-us-album
[23] http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/sep/17/
british-music-industry-38bn-uk-economy-2013-measuring-music-report
[24] http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music/news/a612774/
one-direction-make-us-billboard-chart-history-with-new-album-four.
html#~{}p0vcL4l9Mno0JD#ixzz3NxLCU1gJ

Chapter 3
Music of the United States
For the series of critical editions, see Music of the United
States of America (publications).
The music of the United States reflects the coun-
try’s multi-ethnic population through a diverse array of
styles. It is a mixture of music influenced by West
African, Irish, Scottish, Mexican, and Cuban music tra-
ditions among others. The country’s most internationally
renowned genres are jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, rock,
rhythm and blues, ragtime, hip hop, barbershop, pop,
experimental, techno, house, dance, boogaloo, salsa, and
rock and roll. The United States has the world’s largest
music market with a total retail value of 4,481.8 mil-
lion dollars in 2012,[1]
and its music is heard around the
world. Since the beginning of the 20th century, some
Forms of American popular music have gained a near
global audience.[2]
Native Americans were the earliest inhabitants of the land
that is today known as the United States and played its
first music. Beginning in the 17th century, immigrants
from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Germany and
France began arriving in large numbers, bringing with
them new styles and instruments. African slaves brought
musical traditions, and each subsequent wave of immi-
grants contributed to a melting pot.
Much of modern popular music can trace its roots to the
emergence in the late 19th century of African Ameri-
can blues and the growth of gospel music in the 1920s.
The African American basis for popular music used el-
ements derived from European and indigenous musics.
There are also strong African roots in the music tradition
of the original white settlers, such as country and blue-
grass. The United States has also seen documented folk
music and recorded popular music produced in the ethnic
styles of the Ukrainian, Irish, Scottish, Polish, Hispanic
and Jewish communities, among others.
Many American cities and towns have vibrant music
scenes which, in turn, support a number of regional
musical styles. Along with musical centers such as
Philadelphia, Seattle, New York City, San Francisco,
New Orleans, Detroit, Minneapolis, Chicago, Miami,
Atlanta, Nashville, Austin, and Los Angeles, many
smaller cities such as Asbury Park, New Jersey have pro-
duced distinctive styles of music. The Cajun and Creole
traditions in Louisiana music, the folk and popular styles
of Hawaiian music, and the bluegrass and old time music
of the Southeastern states are a few examples of diversity
in American music.
3.1 Characteristics
The music of the United States can be characterized by
the use of syncopation and asymmetrical rhythms, long,
irregular melodies, which are said to “reflect the wide
open geography of (the American landscape)" and the
“sense of personal freedom characteristic of American
life”.[3]
Some distinct aspects of American music, like
the call-and-response format, are derived from African
techniques and instruments.
Throughout the later part of American history, and into
modern times, the relationship between American and
European music has been a discussed topic among schol-
ars of American music. Some have urged for the adoption
of more purely European techniques and styles, which are
sometimes perceived as more refined or elegant, while
others have pushed for a sense of musical nationalism that
celebrates distinctively American styles. Modern classi-
cal music scholar John Warthen Struble has contrasted
American and European, concluding that the music of
the United States is inherently distinct because the United
States has not had centuries of musical evolution as a na-
tion. Instead, the music of the United States is that of
dozens or hundreds of indigenous and immigrant groups,
all of which developed largely in regional isolation un-
til the American Civil War, when people from across the
country were brought together in army units, trading mu-
sical styles and practices. Struble deemed the ballads of
the Civil War “the first American folk music with dis-
cernible features that can be considered unique to Amer-
ica: the first 'American' sounding music, as distinct from
any regional style derived from another country.”[4]
The Civil War, and the period following it, saw a general
flowering of American art, literature and music. Am-
ateur musical ensembles of this era can be seen as the
birth of American popular music. Music author David
Ewen describes these early amateur bands as combining
10

3.2. DIVERSITY 11
“the depth and drama of the classics with undemanding
technique, eschewing complexity in favor of direct ex-
pression. If it was vocal music, the words would be in
English, despite the snobs who declared English an un-
singable language. In a way, it was part of the entire
awakening of America that happened after the Civil War,
a time in which American painters, writers and 'serious’
composers addressed specifically American themes.”[5]
During this period the roots of blues, gospel, jazz and
country music took shape; in the 20th century, these be-
came the core of American popular music, which further
evolved into the styles like rhythm and blues, rock and
roll and hip hop music.
3.1.1 Social identity
Music intertwines with aspects of American social and
cultural identity, including through social class, race
and ethnicity, geography, religion, language, gender and
sexuality. The relationship between music and race is
perhaps the most potent determiner of musical mean-
ing in the United States. The development of an African
American musical identity, out of disparate sources from
Africa and Europe, has been a constant theme in the
music history of the United States. Little documenta-
tion exists of colonial-era African American music, when
styles, songs and instruments from across West Africa
commingled in the melting pot of slavery. By the mid-
19th century, a distinctly African American folk tradi-
tion was well-known and widespread, and African Amer-
ican musical techniques, instruments and images became
a part of mainstream American music through spirituals,
minstrel shows and slave songs.[6]
African American mu-
sical styles became an integral part of American popular
music through blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, and then
rock and roll, soul and hip hop; all of these styles were
consumed by Americans of all races, but were created in
African American styles and idioms before eventually be-
coming common in performance and consumption across
racial lines. In contrast, country music derives from both
African and European, as well as Native American and
Hawaiian, traditions and yet has long been perceived as a
form of white music.[7]
Economic and social classes separates American music
through the creation and consumption of music, such as
the upper-class patronage of symphony-goers, and the
generally poor performers of rural and ethnic folk musics.
Musical divisions based on class are not absolute, how-
ever, and are sometimes as much perceived as actual;[8]
popular American country music, for example, is a com-
mercial genre designed to “appeal to a working-class
identity, whether or not its listeners are actually work-
ing class”.[9]
Country music is also intertwined with ge-
ographic identity, and is specifically rural in origin and
function; other genres, like R&B and hip hop, are per-
ceived as inherently urban.[10]
For much of American his-
tory, music-making has been a “feminized activity”.[11]
In the 19th century, amateur piano and singing were
considered proper for middle- and upper-class women.
Women were also a major part of early popular music
performance, though recorded traditions quickly become
more dominated by men. Most male-dominated genres of
popular music include female performers as well, often
in a niche appealing primarily to women; these include
gangsta rap and heavy metal.[12]
3.2 Diversity
The United States is home to a wide array of regional styles and
scenes.
The United States is often said to be a cultural melting
pot, taking in influences from across the world and cre-
ating distinctively new methods of cultural expression.
Though aspects of American music can be traced back
to specific origins, claiming any particular original culture
for a musical element is inherently problematic, due to the
constant evolution of American music through transplant-
ing and hybridizing techniques, instruments and genres.
Elements of foreign musics arrived in the United States
both through the formal sponsorship of educational and
outreach events by individuals and groups, and through
informal processes, as in the incidental transplantation
of West African music through slavery, and Irish music
through immigration. The most distinctly American mu-
sics are a result of cross-cultural hybridization through
close contact. Slavery, for example, mixed persons from
numerous tribes in tight living quarters, resulting in a
shared musical tradition that was enriched through further
hybridizing with elements of indigenous, Latin and Euro-
pean music.[13]
American ethnic, religious and racial di-
versity has also produced such intermingled genres as the
French-African music of the Louisiana Creoles, the Na-
tive, Mexican and European fusion Tejano music and the
thoroughly hybridized slack-key guitar and other styles of
modern Hawaiian music.
The process of transplanting music between cultures is
not without criticism. The folk revival of the mid-20th
century, for example, appropriated the musics of various
rural peoples, in part to promote certain political causes,
which has caused some to question whether the process

12 CHAPTER 3. MUSIC OF THE UNITED STATES
caused the “commercial commodification of other peo-
ples’ songs... and the inevitable dilution of mean” in the
appropriated musics. The issue of cultural appropria-
tion has also been a major part of racial relations in the
United States. The use of African American musical
techniques, images and conceits in popular music largely
by and for white Americans has been widespread since at
least the mid-19th century songs of Stephen Foster and
the rise of minstrel shows. The American music industry
has actively attempted to popularize white performers of
African American music because they are more palatable
to mainstream and middle-class Americans. This process
has been related to the rise of stars as varied as Benny
Goodman, Eminem and Elvis Presley, as well as popular
styles like blue-eyed soul and rockabilly.[13]
3.3 Folk music
Main article: American folk music
Folk music in the US is varied across the country’s numer-
ous ethnic groups. The Native American tribes each play
their own varieties of folk music, most of it spiritual in na-
ture. African American music includes blues and gospel,
descendts of West African music brought to the Americas
by slaves and mixed with Western European music. Dur-
ing the colonial era, English, French and Spanish styles
and instruments were brought to the Americas. By the
early 20th century, the United States had become a ma-
jor center for folk music from around the world, including
polka, Ukrainian and Polish fiddling, Ashkenazi Jewish
klezmer and several kinds of Latin music.
The Native Americans played the first folk music in
what is now the United States, using a wide variety of
styles and techniques. Some commonalities are near uni-
versal among Native American traditional music, how-
ever, especially the lack of harmony and polyphony,
and the use of vocables and descending melodic fig-
ures. Traditional instrumentations uses the flute and
many kinds of percussion instruments, like drums, rattles
and shakers.[14]
Since European and African contact was
established, Native American folk music has grown in
new directions, into fusions with disparate styles like Eu-
ropean folk dances and Tejano music. Modern Native
American music may be best known for powwow gath-
erings, pan-tribal gatherings at which traditionally styled
dances and music are performed.[15]
The Thirteen Colonies of the original United States were
all former English possessions, and Anglo culture became
a major foundation for American folk and popular mu-
sic. Many American folk songs are identical to British
songs in arrangements, but with new lyrics, often as
parodies of the original material. American-Anglo songs
are also characterized as having fewer pentatonic tunes,
less prominent accompaniment (but with heavier use of
drones) and more melodies in major.[16]
Anglo-American
traditional music also includes a variety of broadside bal-
lads, humorous stories and tall tales, and disaster songs
regarding mining, shipwrecks and murder. Legendary
heroes like Joe Magarac, John Henry and Jesse James
are part of many songs. Folk dances of British origin
include the square dance, descended from the quadrille,
combined with the American innovation of a caller in-
structing the dancers.[17]
The religious communal society
known as the Shakers emigrated from England during the
18th century and developed their own folk dance style.
Their early songs can be dated back to British folk song
models.[18]
Other religious societies established their own
unique musical cultures early in American history, such
as the music of the Amish, the Harmony Society, and of
the Ephrata Cloister in Pennsylvania.[19]
The ancestors of today’s African American population
were brought to the United States as slaves, working
primarily in the plantations of the South. They were
from hundreds of tribes across West Africa, and they
brought with them certain traits of West African music
including call and response vocals and complexly rhyth-
mic music,[20]
as well as syncopated beats and shift-
ing accents.[21]
The African musical focus on rhythmic
singing and dancing was brought to the New World, and
where it became part of a distinct folk culture that helped
Africans “retain continuity with their past through mu-
sic”. The first slaves in the United States sang work songs,
field hollers[22]
and, following Christianization, hymns.
In the 19th century, a Great Awakening of religious fer-
vor gripped people across the country, especially in the
South. Protestant hymns written mostly by New Eng-
land preachers became a feature of camp meetings held
among devout Christians across the South. When blacks
began singing adapted versions of these hymns, they were
called Negro spirituals. It was from these roots, of spir-
itual songs, work songs and field hollers, that blues, jazz
and gospel developed.
3.3.1 Blues and spirituals
Main articles: Blues and spiritual (music)
Spirituals were primarily expressions of religious faith,
sung by slaves on southern plantations.[23]
In the mid to
late 19th century, spirituals spread out of the U.S. South.
In 1871 Fisk University became home to the Jubilee
Singers, a pioneering group that popularized spirituals
across the country. In imitation of this group, gospel
quartets arose, followed by increasing diversification with
the early 20th-century rise of jackleg and singing preach-
ers, from whence came the popular style of gospel music.
Blues is a combination of African work songs, field
hollers and shouts.[24]
It developed in the rural South in
the first decade of the 20th century. The most important
characteristics of the blues is its use of the blue scale,

3.4. CLASSICAL MUSIC 13
with a flatted or indeterminate third, as well as the typ-
ically lamenting lyrics; though both of these elements
had existed in African American folk music prior to the
20th century, the codified form of modern blues (such as
with the AAB structure) did not exist until the early 20th
century.[25]
3.3.2 Other immigrant communities
Main article: Music of immigrant communities in the
United States
The United States is a melting pot consisting of numer-
ous ethnic groups. Many of these peoples have kept alive
the folk traditions of their homeland, often producing dis-
tinctively American styles of foreign music. Some nation-
alities have produced local scenes in regions of the coun-
try where they have clustered, like Cape Verdean music in
New England,[26]
Armenian music in California,[27]
and
Italian and Ukrainian music in New York City.[28]
The Creoles are a community with varied non-Anglo
ancestry, mostly descendant of people who lived in
Louisiana before its purchase by the U.S. The Cajuns are
a group of Francophones who arrived in Louisiana after
leaving Acadia in Canada.[29]
The city of New Orleans,
Louisiana, being a major port, has acted as a melting pot
for people from all over the Caribbean basin. The result
is a diverse and syncretic set of styles of Cajun and Creole
music.
Spain and subsequently Mexico controlled much of what
is now the western United States until the Mexican-
American War, including the entire state of Texas. After
Texas joined the United States, the native Tejanos living
in the state began culturally developing separately from
their neighbors to the south, and remained culturally dis-
tinct from other Texans. Central to the evolution of early
Tejano music was the blend of traditional Mexican forms
such as mariachi and the corrido, and Continental Euro-
pean styles introduced by German and Czech settlers in
the late 19th century.[30]
In particular, the accordion was
adopted by Tejano folk musicians around the start of the
20th century, and it became a popular instrument for am-
ateur musicians in Texas and Northern Mexico.
3.4 Classical music
Main article: American classical music
The European classical music tradition was brought to
the United States with some of the first colonists. Eu-
ropean classical music is rooted in the traditions of Eu-
ropean art, ecclesiastical and concert music. The cen-
tral norms of this tradition developed between 1550 and
1825, centering on what is known as the common practice
period. Many American classical composers attempted
to work entirely within European models until late in the
19th century. When Antonín Dvořák, a prominent Czech
composer, visited the United States from 1892 to 1895,
he iterated the idea that American classical music needed
its own models instead of imitating European composers;
he helped to inspire subsequent composers to make a dis-
tinctly American style of classical music.[31]
By the be-
ginning of the 20th century, many American composers
were incorporating disparate elements into their work,
ranging from jazz and blues to Native American music.
3.4.1 Early classical music
During the colonial era, there were two distinct fields of
what is now considered classical music. One was asso-
ciated with amateur composers and pedagogues, whose
style was originally drawn from simple hymns and gained
sophistication over time. The other colonial tradition was
that of the mid-Atlantic cities like Philadelphia and Bal-
timore, which produced a number of prominent com-
posers who worked almost entirely within the European
model; these composers were mostly English in origin,
and worked specifically in the style of prominent English
composers of the day.[32]
European classical music was brought to the United States
during the colonial era. Many American composers of
this period worked exclusively with European models,
while others, such as William Billings, Supply Belcher
and Justin Morgan, also known as the First New England
School, developed a style almost entirely independent
of European models.[33]
Of these composers, Billings is
the most well-remembered; he was also influential “as
the founder of the American church choir, as the first
musician to use a pitch-pipe, and as the first to intro-
duce a violoncello into church service”.[34]
Many of these
composers were amateur singers who developed new
forms of sacred music suitable for performance by am-
ateurs, and often using harmonic methods which would
have been considered bizarre by contemporary European
standards.[35]
These composers’ styles were untouched by
“the influence of their sophisticated European contempo-
raries”, using modal or pentatonic scales or melodies and
eschewing the European rules of harmony.[36]
In the early 19th century, America produced diverse
composers such as Anthony Philip Heinrich, who com-
posed in an idiosyncratic, intentionally “American” style
and was the first American composer to write for a sym-
phony orchestra. Many other composers, most famously
William Henry Fry and George Frederick Bristow, sup-
ported the idea of an American classical style, though
their works were very European in orientation. It was
John Knowles Paine, however, who became the first
American composer to be accepted in Europe. Paine’s
example inspired the composers of the Second New Eng-
land School, which included such figures as Amy Beach,
Edward MacDowell, and Horatio Parker.[37]

Louis Moreau Gottschalk is perhaps the best-
remembered American composer of the 19th century,
said by music historian Richard Crawford to be known
for “bringing indigenous or folk, themes and rhythms
into music for the concert hall”. Gottschalk’s music
reflected the cultural mix of his home city, New Orleans,
Louisiana, which was home to a variety of Latin,
Caribbean, African American, Cajun and Creole musics.
He was well acknowledged as a talented pianist in his
lifetime, and was also a known composer who remains
admired though little performed.[38]
3.4.2 20th century
Philip Glass in Florence, 1993
The New York classical music scene included Charles
Griffes, originally from Elmira, New York, who began
publishing his most innovative material in 1914. His early
collaborations were attempts to use non-Western musi-
cal themes. The best-known New York composer was
George Gershwin. Gershwin was a songwriter with Tin
Pan Alley and the Broadway theatres, and his works were
strongly influenced by jazz, or rather the precursors to
jazz that were extant during his time. Gershwin’s work
made American classical music more focused, and at-
tracted an unheard of amount of international attention.
Following Gershwin, the first major composer was Aaron
Copland from Brooklyn, who used elements of American
folk music, though it remained European in technique and
form. Later, he turned to the ballet and then serial mu-
sic.[39]
Charles Ives was one of the earliest American clas-
sical composers of enduring international significance,
producing music in a uniquely American style, though his
music was mostly unknown until after his death in 1954.
Many of the later 20th-century composers, such as John
Cage, John Corigliano and Steve Reich, used modernist
and minimalist techniques. Reich discovered a technique
known as phasing, in which two musical activities begin
simultaneously and are repeated, gradually drifting out of
sync, creating a natural sense of development. Reich was
also very interested in non-Western music, incorporating
African rhythmic techniques in his compositions.[40]
Re-
cent composers and performers are strongly influenced by
the minimalist works of Philip Glass, a Baltimore native
based out of New York, Meredith Monk and others.[41]
3.5 Popular music
Main article: American popular music
The United States has produced many popular musicians
and composers in the modern world. Beginning with the
birth of recorded music, American performers have con-
tinued to lead the field of popular music, which out of “all
the contributions made by Americans to world culture...
has been taken to heart by the entire world”.[42]
Most his-
tories of popular music start with American ragtime or
Tin Pan Alley; others, however, trace popular music back
to the European Renaissance and through broadsheets,
ballads and other popular traditions.[43]
Other authors
typically look at popular sheet music, tracing American
popular music to spirituals, minstrel shows and vaudeville,
or the patriotic songs of the Civil War.
3.5.1 Early popular song
The patriotic lay songs of the American Revolution
constituted the first kind of mainstream popular mu-
sic. These included “The Liberty Tree”, by Thomas
Paine. Cheaply printed as broadsheets, early patriotic
songs spread across the colonies and were performed at
home and at public meetings.[44]
Fife songs were espe-
cially celebrated, and were performed on fields of bat-
tle during the American Revolution. The longest lasting
of these fife songs is "Yankee Doodle", still well known
today. The melody dates back to 1755 and was sung
by both American and British troops.[45]
Patriotic songs
were mostly based on English melodies, with new lyrics
added to denounce British colonialism; others, however,
used tunes from Ireland, Scotland or elsewhere, or did
not utilize a familiar melody. The song "Hail Columbia"
was a major work[46]
that remained an unofficial national
anthem until the adoption of "The Star-Spangled Ban-

3.5. POPULAR MUSIC 15
Sheet music for "Dixie"
ner". Much of this early American music still survives
in Sacred Harp.
During the Civil War, when soldiers from across the
country commingled, the multifarious strands of Amer-
ican music began to cross-fertilize each other, a process
that was aided by the burgeoning railroad industry and
other technological developments that made travel and
communication easier. Army units included individuals
from across the country, and they rapidly traded tunes, in-
struments and techniques. The war was an impetus for the
creation of distinctly American songs that became and re-
mained wildly popular.[4]
The most popular songs of the
Civil War era included "Dixie", written by Daniel De-
catur Emmett. The song, originally titled “Dixie’s Land”,
was made for the closing of a minstrel show; it spread to
New Orleans first, where it was published and became
“one of the great song successes of the pre-Civil War
period”.[47]
In addition to popular patriotic songs, the
Civil War era also produced a great body of brass band
pieces.[48]
Following the Civil War, minstrel shows became the first
distinctively American form of music expression. The
minstrel show was an indigenous form of American en-
tertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, danc-
ing, and music, usually performed by white people in
blackface. Minstrel shows used African American el-
ements in musical performances, but only in simplified
ways; storylines in the shows depicted blacks as natural-
born slaves and fools, before eventually becoming asso-
ciated with abolitionism.[49]
The minstrel show was in-
vented by Dan Emmett and the Virginia Minstrels.[50]
19th-century song composer Stephen Foster
Minstrel shows produced the first well-remembered pop-
ular songwriters in American music history: Thomas D.
Rice, Dan Emmett, and, most famously, Stephen Fos-
ter. After minstrel shows’ popularity faded, coon songs,
a similar phenomenon, became popular.
The composer John Philip Sousa is closely associated
with the most popular trend in American popular mu-
sic just before the start of the 20th century. Formerly
the bandmaster of the United States Marine Band, Sousa
wrote military marches like "Stars and Stripes Forever"
that reflected his “nostalgia for [his] home and country”,
giving the melody a “stirring virile character”.[51]
In the early 20th century, American musical theater was
a major source for popular songs, many of which influ-
enced blues, jazz, country, and other extant styles of pop-
ular music. The center of development for this style was
in New York City, where the Broadway theatres became
among the most renowned venues in the city. Theatri-
cal composers and lyricists like the brothers George and
Ira Gershwin created a uniquely American theatrical style
that used American vernacular speech and music. Musi-
cals featured popular songs and fast-paced plots that often
revolved around love and romance.[52]
3.5.2 Blues and gospel
Main articles: Blues and gospel music
The blues is a genre of African American folk music that
is the basis for much of modern American popular mu-
sic. Blues can be seen as part of a continuum of musi-
cal styles like country, jazz, ragtime, and gospel; though

each genre evolved into distinct forms, their origins were
often indistinct. Early forms of the blues evolved in and
around the Mississippi Delta in the late 19th and early
20th centuries. The earliest blues-like music was primar-
ily call-and-response vocal music, without harmony or ac-
companiment and without any formal musical structure.
Slaves and their descendants created the blues by adapting
the field shouts and hollers, turning them into passionate
solo songs.[53]
When mixed with the Christian spiritual
songs of African American churches and revival meet-
ings, blues became the basis of gospel music. Modern
gospel began in African American churches in the 1920s,
in the form of worshipers proclaiming their faith in an im-
provised, often musical manner (testifying). Composers
like Thomas A. Dorsey composed gospel works that used
elements of blues and jazz in traditional hymns and spir-
itual songs.[54]
Ragtime was originally a piano style, featuring syn-
copated rhythms and chromaticisms.[25]
It is primar-
ily a form of dance music utilizing the walking bass,
and is generally composed in sonata form. Ragtime is
a refined and evolved form of the African American
cakewalk dance, mixed with styles ranging from Euro-
pean marches[55]
and popular songs to jigs and other
dances played by large African American bands in north-
ern cities during the end of the 19th century. The most fa-
mous ragtime performer and composer was Scott Joplin,
known for works such as “Maple Leaf Rag”.[56]
Blues singer Bessie Smith
Blues became a part of American popular music in the
1920s, when classic female blues singers like Bessie
Smith grew popular. At the same time, record compa-
nies launched the field of race music, which was mostly
blues targeted at African American audiences. The most
famous of these acts went on to inspire much of the
later popular development of the blues and blues-derived
genres, including the legendary delta blues artist Robert
Johnson and piedmont blues artist Blind Willie McTell.
By the end of the 1940s, however, pure blues was only a
minor part of popular music, having been subsumed by
offshoots like rhythm & blues and the nascent rock and
roll style. Some styles of electric, piano-driven blues, like
the boogie-woogie, retained a large audience. A bluesy
style of gospel also became popular in mainstream Amer-
ica in the 1950s, led by singer Mahalia Jackson.[57]
The
blues genre experienced major revivals in the 1950s with
Chicago blues artists such as Muddy Waters and Little
Walter,[58]
as well as in the 1960s in the British Invasion
and American folk music revival when country bluesmen
like Mississippi John Hurt and Reverend Gary Davis were
rediscovered. The seminal blues artists of these peri-
ods had tremendous influence on rock musicians such as
Chuck Berry in the 1950s, as well as on the British blues
and blues rock scenes of the 1960s and '70s, including
Eric Clapton in Britain and Johnny Winter in Texas.
3.5.3 Jazz
Main article: Jazz
Jazz is a kind of music characterized by swung and
blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and
improvisation. Though originally a kind of dance music,
jazz has been a major part of popular music, and has also
become a major element of Western classical music. Jazz
has roots in West African cultural and musical expression,
and in African American music traditions including blues
and ragtime, as well as European military band music.[59]
Early jazz was closely related to ragtime, with which it
could be distinguished by the use of more intricate rhyth-
mic improvisation. The earliest jazz bands adopted much
of the vocabulary of the blues, including bent and blue
notes and instrumental “growls” and smears otherwise not
used on European instruments. Jazz’s roots come from
the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, populated by Cajuns
and black Creoles, who combined the French-Canadian
culture of the Cajuns with their own styles of music in the
19th century. Large Creole bands that played for funerals
and parades became a major basis for early jazz, which
spread from New Orleans to Chicago and other northern
urban centers.
Though jazz had long since achieved some limited pop-
ularity, it was Louis Armstrong who became one of the
first popular stars and a major force in the development of
jazz, along with his friend pianist Earl Hines. Armstrong,
Hines and their colleagues were improvisers, capable of
creating numerous variations on a single melody. Arm-
strong also popularized scat singing, an improvisational
vocal technique in which nonsensical syllables (vocables)
are sung. Armstrong and Hines were influential in the

Trumpeter Miles Davis
rise of a kind of pop big band jazz called swing. Swing is
characterized by a strong rhythm section, usually consist-
ing of double bass and drums, medium to fast tempo, and
rhythmic devices like the swung note, which is common
to most jazz. Swing is primarily a fusion of 1930s jazz
fused with elements of the blues and Tin Pan Alley.[56]
Swing used bigger bands than other kinds of jazz, lead-
ing to bandleaders tightly arranging the material which
discouraged improvisation, previously an integral part of
jazz. Swing became a major part of African American
dance, and came to be accompanied by a popular dance
called the swing dance.
Jazz influenced many performers of all the major styles
of later popular music, though jazz itself never again be-
came such a major part of American popular music as
during the swing era. The later 20th-century American
jazz scene did, however, produce some popular crossover
stars, such as Miles Davis. In the middle of the 20th cen-
tury, jazz evolved into a variety of subgenres, beginning
with bebop. Bebop is a form of jazz characterized by
fast tempos, improvisation based on harmonic structure
rather than melody, and use of the flatted fifth. Bebop
was developed in the early and mid-1940s, later evolving
into styles like hard bop and free jazz. Innovators of the
style included Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, who
arose from small jazz clubs in New York City.[60]
3.5.4 Country music
Main article: Country music
Country music is primarily a fusion of African Amer-
ican blues and spirituals with Appalachian folk music,
adapted for pop audiences and popularized beginning in
the 1920s. The origins of country are in rural South-
ern folk music, which was primarily Irish and British,
with African and continental European musics.[61]
Anglo-
Celtic tunes, dance music, and balladry were the earli-
est predecessors of modern country, then known as hill-
billy music. Early hillbilly also borrowed elements of
the blues and drew upon more aspects of 19th-century
pop songs as hillbilly music evolved into a commer-
cial genre eventually known as country and western and
then simply country.[62]
The earliest country instrumen-
tation revolved around the European-derived fiddle and
the African-derived banjo, with the guitar later added.[63]
String instruments like the ukulele and steel guitar be-
came commonplace due to the popularity of Hawaiian
musical groups in the early 20th century.[64]
Neotraditional singer Randy Travis
The roots of commercial country music are generally
traced to 1927, when music talent scout Ralph Peer
recorded Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family.[65]
Popular success was very limited, though a small demand
spurred some commercial recording. After World War
II, there was increased interest in specialty styles like
country music, producing a few major pop stars.[66]
The
most influential country musician of the era was Hank
Williams, a bluesy country singer from Alabama.[57][67]
He remains renowned as one of country music’s great-
est songwriters and performers, viewed as a “folk
poet” with a “honky-tonk swagger” and “working-class
sympathies”.[68]
Throughout the decade the roughness of
honky tonk gradually eroded as the Nashville sound grew
more pop-oriented. Producers like Chet Atkins created
the Nashville sound by stripping the hillbilly elements
of the instrumentation and using smooth instrumentation
and advanced production techniques.[69]
Eventually, most
records from Nashville were in this style, which began to
incorporate strings and vocal choirs.[70]

By the early part of the 1960s, however, the Nashville
sound had become perceived as too watered-down by
many more traditionalist performers and fans, resulting
in a number of local scenes like the Bakersfield sound.
A few performers retained popularity, however, such as
the long-standing cultural icon Johnny Cash.[71]
The Bak-
ersfield sound began in the mid to late 1950s when per-
formers like Wynn Stewart and Buck Owens began us-
ing elements of Western swing and rock, such as the
breakbeat, in their music.[72]
In the 1960s performers
like Merle Haggard popularized the sound. In the early
1970s, Haggard was also part of outlaw country, along-
side singer-songwriters such as Willie Nelson and Waylon
Jennings.[60]
Outlaw country was rock-oriented and lyri-
cally focused on the criminal antics of the performers, in
contrast to the clean-cut country singers of the Nashville
sound.[73]
By the middle of the 1980s, the country mu-
sic charts were dominated by pop singers, alongside a
nascent revival of honky-tonk-style country with the rise
of performers like Dwight Yoakam. The 1980s also
saw the development of alternative country performers
like Uncle Tupelo, who were opposed to the more pop-
oriented style of mainstream country. At the beginning
of the 2000s, rock-oriented country acts remained among
the best-selling performers in the United States, espe-
cially Garth Brooks.[74]
3.5.5 R&B and soul
Main articles: Rhythm and blues, soul music and funk
R&B, an abbreviation for rhythm and blues, is a style
that arose in the 1930s and 1940s. Early R&B consisted
of large rhythm units “smashing away behind screaming
blues singers (who) had to shout to be heard above the
clanging and strumming of the various electrified instru-
ments and the churning rhythm sections”.[77]
R&B was
not extensively recorded and promoted because record
companies felt that it was not suited for most audiences,
especially middle-class whites, because of the sugges-
tive lyrics and driving rhythms.[78]
Bandleaders like Louis
Jordan innovated the sound of early R&B, using a band
with a small horn section and prominent rhythm instru-
mentation. By the end of the 1940s, he had had sev-
eral hits, and helped pave the way for contemporaries
like Wynonie Harris and John Lee Hooker. Many of the
most popular R&B songs were not performed in the rol-
licking style of Jordan and his contemporaries; instead
they were performed by white musicians like Pat Boone
in a more palatable mainstream style, which turned into
pop hits.[79]
By the end of the 1950s, however, there
was a wave of popular black blues rock and country-
influenced R&B performers like Chuck Berry gaining un-
precedented fame among white listeners.[80][81]
Soul music is a combination of rhythm and blues and
gospel which began in the late 1950s in the United States.
It is characterized by its use of gospel-music devices,
with a greater emphasis on vocalists and the use of sec-
ular themes. The 1950s recordings of Ray Charles,
Sam Cooke,[82]
and James Brown are commonly con-
sidered the beginnings of soul. Charles’ Modern Sounds
(1962) records featured a fusion of soul and country mu-
sic, country soul, and crossed racial barriers in music at
the time.[83]
One of Cooke’s most well-known songs "A
Change Is Gonna Come" (1964) became accepted as a
classic and an anthem of the civil rights movement of the
1960s.[84]
According to AllMusic, James Brown was crit-
ical, through “the gospel-impassioned fury of his vocals
and the complex polyrhythms of his beats”, in “two rev-
olutions in black American music. He was one of the
figures most responsible for turning R&B into soul and
he was, most would agree, the figure most responsible for
turning soul music into the funk of the late '60s and early
'70s.”[85]
The Motown Record Corporation of Detroit,
Michigan became highly successful during the early and
mid-1960s by releasing soul recordings with heavy pop
influences to make them palatable to white audiences,
allowing black artists to more easily crossover to white
audiences.[86][87]
James Brown was critical in the transition of rhythm and blues
to soul music and pioneering funk music.[85]
Pure soul was popularized by Otis Redding and the other
artists of Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee. By
the late 1960s, Atlantic recording artist Aretha Franklin
had emerged as the most popular female soul star in
the country.[88][89]
Also by this time, soul had splintered

into several genres,[90]
influenced by psychedelic rock
and other styles. The social and political ferment of the
1960s inspired artists like Marvin Gaye and Curtis May-
field to release albums with hard-hitting social commen-
tary, while another variety became more dance-oriented
music, evolving into funk. Despite his previous affin-
ity with politically and socially-charged lyrical themes,
Gaye helped popularize sexual and romance-themed mu-
sic and funk,[91]
while his 1970s recordings, including
Let’s Get It On (1973) and I Want You (1976) helped de-
velop the quiet storm sound and format.[92]
One of the
most influential albums ever recorded, Sly & the Fam-
ily Stone's There’s a Riot Goin' On (1971) has been con-
sidered among the first and best examples of the ma-
tured version of funk music, after prototypical instances
of the sound in the group’s earlier work.[93]
Artists such as
Gil Scott-Heron and The Last Poets practiced an eclectic
blend of poetry, jazz-funk and soul, featuring critical po-
litical and social commentary with afrocentric sentiment.
Scott-Heron’s proto-rap work, including "The Revolution
Will Not Be Televised" (1971) and Winter in America
(1974), has had a considerable impact on later hip hop
artists,[94]
while his unique sound with Brian Jackson in-
fluenced neo soul artists.[95]
During the mid-1970s, highly slick and commercial
bands such as Philly soul group The O'Jays and blue-
eyed soul group Hall & Oates achieved mainstream suc-
cess. By the end of the 1970s, most music genres, in-
cluding soul, had been disco-influenced. With the in-
troduction of influences from electro music and funk in
the late 1970s and early 80s, soul music became less raw
and more slickly produced, resulting in a genre of mu-
sic that was once again called R&B, usually distinguished
from the earlier rhythm and blues by identifying it as
contemporary R&B.
The first contemporary R&B stars arose in the 1980s,
with the dance-pop star Michael Jackson, funk-
influenced singer Prince, and a wave of female vocalists
like Tina Turner and Whitney Houston.[74]
Michael
Jackson and Prince has been described as the most
influential figures in contemporary R&B and popular
music because of their eclectic use of elements from
a variety of genres.[96]
Prince was largely responsible
for creating the Minneapolis sound: “a blend of horns,
guitars, and electronic synthesizers supported by a
steady, bouncing rhythm.”[97]
Jackson’s work focused on
smooth balladry or disco-influenced dance music; as an
artist, he “pulled dance music out of the disco doldrums
with his 1979 adult solo debut, Off the Wall, merged
R&B with rock on Thriller, and introduced stylized steps
such as the robot and moonwalk over the course of his
career.”[98]
Janet Jackson collaborated with former Prince associates
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis on her third studio album
Control (1986); the album’s second single "Nasty" has
been described as the origin of the new jack swing sound,
a genre innovated by Teddy Riley.[96]
Riley’s work on
Alicia Keys won numerous awards and established herself as
one of the best-selling artists of her time,[99][100][101]
while dis-
tinguishing herself from her R&B contemporaries as a multi-
instrumentalist and singer-songwriter.[102]
Keith Sweat's Make It Last Forever (1987), Guy's Guy
(1988), and Bobby Brown's Don't Be Cruel (1998) made
new jack swing a staple of contemporary R&B into the
mid-1990s.[96]
New jack swing was a style and trend
of vocal music, often featuring rapped verses and drum
machines.[57]
The crossover appeal of early contempo-
rary R&B artists in mainstream popular music, includ-
ing works by Prince, Michael and Janet Jackson, Whit-
ney Houston, Tina Turner, Anita Baker and The Pointer
Sisters became a turning point for black artists in the in-
dustry, as their success “was perhaps the first hint that
the greater cosmopolitanism of a world market might
produce some changes in the complexion of popular
music.”[103]
The use of melisma, a gospel tradition adapted by vo-
calists Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey would be-
come a cornerstone of contemporary R&B singers be-
ginning in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s.[96]
Hip hop came to influence contemporary R&B later in
the 1980s, first through new jack swing and then in a
related series of subgenres called hip hop soul and neo
soul. Hip hop soul and neo soul developed later, in the
1990s. Typified by the work of Mary J. Blige and R.
Kelly, the former is a mixture of contemporary R&B with
hip hop beats, while the images and themes of gangsta
rap may be present. The latter is a more experimen-
tal, edgier and generally less mainstream combination of
'60s and '70s-style soul vocals with some hip hop in-
fluence, and has earned some mainstream recognition
through the work of D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, Alicia Keys,
and Lauryn Hill.[104]
D'Angelo’s critically acclaimed al-
bum Voodoo (2000) has been recognized by music writ-
ers as a masterpiece and the cornerstone of the neo soul
genre.[105][106][107]
3.5.6 Rock, metal and punk
Main articles: Rock music, heavy metal music and punk
rock

See also: New Wave of American Heavy Metal
Rock and roll developed out of country, blues, and
R&B. Rock’s exact origins and early influences have
been hotly debated, and are the subjects of much schol-
arship. Though squarely in the blues tradition, rock
took elements from Afro-Caribbean and Latin musical
techniques.[108]
Rock was an urban style, formed in the
areas where diverse populations resulted in the mixtures
of African American, Latin and European genres rang-
ing from the blues and country to polka and zydeco.[109]
Rock and roll first entered popular music through a style
called rockabilly,[110]
which fused the nascent sound with
elements of country music. Black-performed rock and
roll had previously had limited mainstream success, but it
was the white performer Elvis Presley who first appealed
to mainstream audiences with a black style of music, be-
coming one of the best-selling musicians in history, and
brought rock and roll to audiences across the world.[111]
Joan Baez and Bob Dylan were primary figures in the early-
1960s American folk music revival.[112]
Dylan subsequently ven-
tured into folk rock after being inspired by the British Invasion,
particularly The Animals' hit recording of the folk song "The
House of the Rising Sun".[113]
The 1960s saw several important changes in popular mu-
sic, especially rock. Many of these changes took place
through the British Invasion where bands such as The
Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones,[114]
and later Led
Zeppelin became immensely popular and had a profound
effect on American culture and music.These changes in-
cluded the move from professionally composed songs to
the singer-songwriter, and the understanding of popular
music as an art, rather than a form of commerce or pure
entertainment.[115]
These changes led to the rise of musi-
cal movements connected to political goals, such as civil
rights and the opposition to the Vietnam War. Rock was
at the forefront of this change.
In the early 1960s, rock spawned several subgenres, be-
ginning with surf. Surf was an instrumental guitar genre
characterized by a distorted sound, associated with the
Southern California surfing youth culture.[116][117]
In-
spired by the lyrical focus of surf, The Beach Boys be-
gan recording in 1961 with an elaborate, pop-friendly
and harmonic sound.[118][119]
As their fame grew, The
Beach Boys’ songwriter Brian Wilson experimented with
new studio techniques and became associated with the
counterculture. The counterculture was a movement that
embraced political activism, and was closely connected
to the hippie subculture. The hippies were associated
with folk rock, country rock, and psychedelic rock.[120]
Folk and country rock were associated with the rise of
politicized folk music, led by Pete Seeger and others, es-
pecially at the Greenwich Village music scene in New
York.[121]
Folk rock entered the mainstream in the mid-
dle of the 1960s, when the singer-songwriter Bob Dy-
lan began his career. AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas
Erlewine attributes The Beatles’ shift toward introspec-
tive songwriting in the mid-1960s to Bob Dylan’s influ-
ence at the time.[113]
He was followed by a number of
country-rock bands and soft, folky singer-songwriters.
Psychedelic rock was a hard-driving kind of guitar-based
rock, closely associated with the city of San Francisco.
Though Jefferson Airplane was the only local band to
have a major national hit, the Grateful Dead, a coun-
try and bluegrass-flavored jam band, became an iconic
part of the psychedelic counterculture, associated with
hippies, LSD and other symbols of that era.[120]
Some
say that the Grateful Dead were truly the most Ameri-
can patriotic rock band to have ever existed; forming and
molding a culture that defines Americans today.[122]
Following the turbulent political, social and musical
changes of the 1960s and early 1970s, rock music di-
versified. What was formerly a discrete genre known
as rock and roll evolved into a catchall category called
simply rock music, which came to include diverse styles
like heavy metal and punk rock. During the 1970s most
of these styles were evolving in the underground music
scene, while mainstream audiences began the decade with
a wave of singer-songwriters who drew on the deeply
emotional and personal lyrics of 1960s folk rock. The
same period saw the rise of bombastic arena rock bands,
bluesy Southern rock groups and mellow soft rock stars.
Beginning in the later 1970s, the rock singer and song-
writer Bruce Springsteen became a major star, with an-
themic songs and dense, inscrutable lyrics that celebrated
the poor and working class.[74]
Punk was a form of rebellious rock that began in the
1970s, and was loud, aggressive and often very simple.
Punk began as a reaction against the popular music of
the period, especially disco and arena rock. American
bands in the field included, most famously, The Ramones
and Talking Heads, the latter playing a more avant-garde
style that was closely associated with punk before evolv-
ing into mainstream new wave.[74]
Other major acts in-
clude Blondie, Patti Smith and Television. In the 1980s
some punk fans and bands became disillusioned with the
growing popularity of the style, resulting in an even more
aggressive style called hardcore punk. Hardcore was a
form of sparse punk, consisting of short, fast, and in-
tense songs that spoke to disaffected youth, with such in-

Jimi Hendrix is widely regarded as one of the most influential
electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the
most celebrated musicians of the 20th century.[123]
The Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame describes him as “arguably the greatest instru-
mentalist in the history of rock music”.[124]
fluential bands as Bad Religion, Bad Brains, Black Flag,
Dead Kennedys, and Minor Threat. Hardcore began in
metropolises like Washington, D.C., though most ma-
jor American cities had their own local scenes in the
1980s.[125]
Hardcore, punk, and garage rock were the roots of
alternative rock, a diverse grouping of rock subgenres
that were explicitly opposed to mainstream music, and
that arose from the punk and post-punk styles. In the
United States, many cities developed local alternative
rock scenes, including Minneapolis and Seattle.[126]
Seat-
tle’s local scene produced grunge music, a dark and
brooding style inspired by hardcore, psychedelia, and al-
ternative rock.[127]
With the addition of a more melodic
element to the sound of bands like Nirvana and Pearl
Jam, grunge became wildly popular across the United
States[128]
in 1991. Three years later, bands like Green
Day, The Offspring, Rancid, Bad Religion and NOFX hit
the mainstream (with their respective then-new albums
Dookie, Smash, Let’s Go, Stranger than Fiction and Punk
in Drublic) and brought the California punk scene expo-
sure worldwide.
Heavy metal is characterized by aggressive, driving
Metallica was one of the most influential bands in heavy metal,
as they bridged the gap between commercial and critical success
for the genre.[129]
The band became the best-selling rock act of
the 1990s.[130]
rhythms, amplified and distorted guitars, grandiose lyrics
and virtuosic instrumentation. Heavy metal’s origins lie
in the hard rock bands who took blues and rock and cre-
ated a heavy sound built on guitar and drums. Most of the
pioneers in the field were British; the first major Ameri-
can bands came in the early 1970s, like Blue Öyster Cult,
KISS and Aerosmith. Heavy metal remained, however,
a largely underground phenomenon. During the 1980s
the first major pop-metal style arose and dominated the
charts for several years kicked off by metal act Quiet Riot
and dominated by bands such as Mötley Crüe and Ratt;
this was glam metal, a hard rock and pop fusion with
a raucous spirit and a glam-influenced visual aesthetic.
Some of these bands, like Bon Jovi, became international
stars. The band Guns N' Roses rose to fame near the end
of the decade with an image that was a reaction against
the glam metal aesthetic.
By the mid-1980s heavy metal had branched in so
many different directions that fans, record companies,
and fanzines created numerous subgenres. The United
States was especially known for one of these sub-
genres, thrash metal, which was innovated by bands
like Anthrax, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Testament,
Exodus, Nuclear Assault, Death Angel and Overkill, with
Metallica being the most commercially successful.[131]
The United States was known as one of the birthplaces
of Death Metal during the mid to late 1980s. The
Florida scene was the most well-known, featuring bands
like Death, Morbid Angel, Deicide, Cannibal Corpse,
Malevolent Creation, Obituary and many others. There
are now countless death metal and deathgrind bands
across the country.
3.5.7 Hip hop
Main article: Hip hop music
Hip hop is a cultural movement, of which music

Jay-Z (right) became an internationally renowned hip hop icon
in the wake of the deaths of The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac
Shakur in the mid-1990s.[132]
Kanye West (left) was mentored
by Jay-Z and produced for him,[133]
before attaining a similar
level of success.[134]
is a part. Hip hop music for the most part is it-
self composed of two parts: rapping, the delivery of
swift, highly rhythmic and lyrical vocals; and DJing
and/ or producing, the production of instrumentation ei-
ther through sampling, instrumentation, turntablism or
through beatboxing, the production of musical sounds
through vocalized tones.[135]
Hip hop arose in the early
1970s in The Bronx, New York City. Jamaican immi-
grant DJ Kool Herc is widely regarded as the progenitor
of hip hop; he brought with him from Jamaica the prac-
tice of toasting over the rhythms of popular songs. Em-
cees originally arose to introduce the soul, funk and R&B
songs that the DJs played, and to keep the crowd excited
and dancing; over time, the DJs began isolating the per-
cussion break of songs (when the rhythm climaxes), pro-
ducing a repeated beat that the emcees rapped over.
By the beginning of the 1980s, there were popular hip
hop songs, and the celebrities of the scene, like LL Cool
J, gained mainstream renown. Other performers exper-
imented with politicized lyrics and social awareness, or
fused hip hop with jazz, heavy metal, techno, funk and
soul. New styles appeared in the latter part of the 1980s,
like alternative hip hop and the closely related jazz rap
fusion, pioneered by rappers like De La Soul.
Gangsta rap is a kind of hip hop, most importantly char-
acterized by a lyrical focus on macho sexuality, physical-
ity and a dangerous criminal image.[136]
Though the ori-
gins of gangsta rap can be traced back to the mid-1980s
style of Philadelphia’s Schoolly D and the West Coast’s
Ice-T, the style broadened and came to apply to many
different regions in the country, to rappers from New
York, such as Notorious B.I.G and influential hip hop
group Wu-Tang Clan, and to rappers on the West Coast,
such as Too Short and N.W.A. A distinctive West Coast
rap scene spawned the early 1990s G-funk sound, which
paired gangsta rap lyrics with a thick and hazy sound, of-
ten from 1970s funk samples; the best-known proponents
were the rappers 2Pac, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and Snoop
Dogg. Gangsta rap continued to exert a major presence
in American popular music through the end of the 1990s
and early into the 21st century.
3.5.8 Other niche styles
See also: Latin music in the United States
The American music industry is dominated by large com-
Latin music in the United States
panies that produce, market and distribute certain kinds
of music. Generally, these companies do not produce,
or produce in only very limited quantities, recordings in
styles that do not appeal to very large audiences. Smaller
companies often fill in the void, offering a wide variety
of recordings in styles ranging from polka to salsa. Many
small music industries are built around a core fanbase who
may be based largely in one region, such as Tejano or
Hawaiian music, or they may be widely dispersed, such
as the audience for Jewish klezmer.
Marc Anthony
The single largest niche industry is based on Latin mu-
sic. Latin music has long influenced American popular

A world of music

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (19)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to A world of music

Similar to A world of music (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

A world of music