American Popular Music Essay

Document Type:Essay

Subject Area:Media

Document 1

As a result, there was no common music that could be associated with all the inhabitants of the United States. Nevertheless, the European immigrants were the majority, being recognized as the first class citizens of America (Ewan 1977, p. Consequently, music in the United States revolved around English music conventions that had been imported from the dominant European culture. However, as the nation transformed over time, an intermixing of the cultures of the different ethnicities living in the American continent and their consequent liberty transformed the American music industry. African Americans and the Caribbean people similar began to take part in the American music industry, bring huge impact in terms of changing American music from the conventional European style. The popular music produced during the world wars had an effect on the will of the American people to participate in the great wars (Frith 1996, p.

Sign up to view the full document!

In the First World War, a song like “over there” encouraged Americans to remain neutral to the European crisis by depicting the war as a European affair. However, songs released prior to the 1917 American entry into the First World War encouraged many Americans to be drafted into the military and to take part in the Great War (Pieslak 2009, p. Other songs that had an impact on America’s effort into the Second World War were “every boy should be a soldier” by Elven Al Bryan and “We shall never surrender the old glory”. Similarly, the American popular music also played a central role in the Second World War as it was employed by the American government to help gather support from the American citizens for its war efforts (Frith 1996, p.

Sign up to view the full document!

F. Sloan in 1965. The song was banned by various radio stations. However, the song still managed to finds its way to the top 100 popular music chart in the billboard. Since then, more and more songs were composed to criticise America’s involvement in the Vietnamese conflict (Andresen 2003, p. In other words, American popular music has had the ability to reach the hearts of the American people and hence arising their spirit of liberty. Consequently, music has therefore motivated the American people to demand their democratic rights. Furthermore, pop music played a crucial role in enhancing democratic movements that have been able to improve racial discrimination problems which are common in the United States (Gillett 2011, p. The popularity of the various popular music genres has led to the intermingling of the different American races.

Sign up to view the full document!

For instance, the hip-hop music was mainly started by African Americans who were unable to fit in the pop music genre which was popular then. For the first time in American history, a popular music genre meant for the African American race began to gain acceptance by white individuals. The performance of the rock and roll music by a white individual, Presley Elvis, had a great impact in enhancing the spread of that particular music genre to the Caucasian race. The role of rock and roll music in the creation of an American popular culture was important since the genre emerged at a time when the racism problem in the United States was beginning to take a new face. At the time of the popularity of the genre, Black civil rights movements were emerging in the nation.

Sign up to view the full document!

Other than bringing together black and white audiences, the rock and roll music impacted greatly on the youthful generations of the 1940s and the 1950s. One of the most influential genres after the rock and roll music was hip-hop. First of all, the hip-hop music was developed to mostly entertain a black audience in New York City. Hip-hop music was one of the most impactful causes of the changes in social culture that the American society experienced in the 90s (Kitwana 2002, p. The rise in hip-hop can be attributed to the social and economic problems that faced the African American community at the time of its emergence. Hip-hop music was a channel through which the black community, among the marginalized communities at the time, expressed its discontent with the discriminatory practices in the United States.

Sign up to view the full document!

S having a different culture with the eastern coast. Hip-hop artists from the two different regions developed a rivalry that turned from simple music rivalry to actual violence. One of the most famous hip-hop artist involved in the rivalry was Tupac Shakur. Tupac was in a bitter hip-hop rivalry with “The Notorious B. I. Music has the capability of reaching the hearts of people. For this reason, music can influence how people behave and react to social phenomena. Traditionally, music in America was only able to have influence in certain regions or to certain ethnic groups in the American nation. However, the emergence of the American popular music has meant that American music could have an influence in the entire nation.

Sign up to view the full document!

From $10 to earn access

Only on Studyloop

Original template

Downloadable