User:AJona1992/Music of the United States

The music of the United States began as a synthesis of various European cultures, mixed with African and Native American influences. Prior to the 20th century, music was dominated by occasional songs of great popularity. "Battle Hymn of the Republic", "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and "The Star Spangled Banner" are examples. In the 1890s, ragtime music started to become popular. Associated primarily with poor African Americans, ragtime was quickly denounced as degenerate. In spite of the denigration, however, the style continued to gain in popularity and was mainstream in the first few years of the century.

In the beginning of the 20th century, four primary genres of music were popular. African American jazz and blues performers diversified their sound and managed to achieve some success among white Americans. Folk and country music dominated the sound of white performers, and both managed to achieve some mainstream success. In addition to jazz, blues, folk and country, music from the Caribbean region also briefly became popular during the first half of the twentieth century. Calypso, merengue, zout and other styles influenced American popular music.

The blues began in rural communities, primarily in the south. During the 1920s, female blues singers like Mamie Smith dominated the genre's sound. For most white Americans, these female singers were their first exposure to black music, or "race music" as it was known. In the 1930s, a diversity of local blues styles developed in Memphis, Texas, Kansas City and, most importantly, Chicago. In the early 1930s, a style of piano-playing based on the blues, boogie woogie was briefly popular among mainstream audiences and blues listeners.

Jazz was more urban than the blues. Relying more on instrumentation, the sound was well-suited for listeners unfamiliar with the sound. In the 1920s, jazz bars became popular among white Americans, particularly the young ones. Like with ragtime before, and most major genres since, jazz was blamed for the moral degeneracy of the youth that visited jazz bars. In spite of the controversy, jazz emerged as the dominant sound of the country in the late 1920s in the form of swing music and big band. Though these, like jazz proper, had been blamed for crime and delinquency, they had become mainstream by the 1930s. In the 1940s, pure jazz began to become more popular, along with the blues, with artists like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday becoming nationally successful.

Folk music is based strongly off Celtic traditional music, and had been around for some time before folklorists like Cecil Sharpe began recording it in the 1910s. Country music evolved along somewhat the same lines as folk, but achieved much more mainstream success. Jug bands and other influences coalesced in the 1930s development of honky tonk.

In the 1940s, the major strands of American music combined to form rock and roll. Based most strongly off an electric guitar-based version of the Chicago blues, rock also incorporated jazz, country, folk, swing and other types of music; in particular, bebop jazz and boogie woogie blues were in vogue and greatly influenced the music's style. It had developed by 1949, and quickly became popular among blacks nationwide. Mainstream success was slow to develop, though, and didn't begin in earnest until Elvis Presley, a white man, began singing rock, R&B and rockabilly songs in a devoted black style. He quickly became the most famous and best-selling artist in American history, and a watershed point in the development of music.

The 1950s also saw the popular dominance of the Nashville sound in country music, as well as the beginning of popular folk music with groups like the Weavers. The Nashville sound was slick and soulful, and a movement of rough honky tonk developed in a reaction against the mainstream orientation of Nashville. This movement coalesced in Bakersfield, Californa with musicians like Buck Owens, Merle Haggard and Wynn Stewart helping to define the sound among the community, made up primarily of Oklahoman immigrants to California. In addition, gospel and doo wop achieved widespread popularity in the 1950s. Doo wop blended Italian folk traditions with jazz's vocal stylings, forming barbershop singing and a series of hits by groups like the Crows, the Ventures, the Orioles and the Teenagers. Gospel arose as a form of blues and jazz inflected Christian music performed primarily in churches until its commercial emergence in the 1950s with performers like the Staple Singers and Gladys Knight. In the late 1950s, gospel singers like Sam Cooke, and doo wop singers like Ben E. King, invented a sound that came to be called soul music. Soul was, at its root, very similar to gospel but with a secular orientation.

In the early 1960s, soul music and R&B dominated American audiences. Girl groups and blue eyed soul helped to popularize the music as mainstream, as well as polishing it and removing the grit of gospel. With the popularity of Elvis and other white singers (like Gene Vincent, Roy Acuff, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chet Atkins), as well as black vocalists like Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Chubby Checker, a new generation of teens began playing in their own rock bands. This sound developed primarily in two places: southern California, where musicians like Dick Dale invented surf rock, and Britain, where mod and merseybeat bands began playing their own version of rock.

The early 1960s saw four centers of American musical innovation: Southern California surf rock bands like the Beach Boys, Detroit-area Motown groups like Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and Al Green, country music's capital, Nashville, and the now mainstream Bakersfield sound, in addition to Britain's new generation of blues rock. The popularity of folk singers like Peter, Paul & Mary and Bob Dylan influenced all of these groups as they became more closely aligned with the counterculture and drugs. The national sound was moving towards an electric, psychedelic version of rock. In 1962, the Beatles emerged from England and popularized British rock, while the Beach Boys' success brought harmony-laden surf music to the forefront of the American scene. With country and soul musicians unable to maintain their hipness, both faded from mass consciousness. The mid 1960s saw the collapse of the Beach Boys as a result of singer and songwriter Brian Wilson's mental problems. The Beatles went on to lead the psychedelic revolution of the end of the decade.

In the late 1960s, popular music underwent a sea change. Psychedelia-inflected rock dominated black and white audiences. During this period, most of American musical styles for the next forty years began in one form or another. Perhaps most importantly were two developments. First was the popularization of the LP as a distinct artistic statement. Prior to the early 1960s (and later in most cases), an LP was nothing more than a collection of singles bound together with filler. As the psychedelic revolution progressed, however, lyrics grew more complex and LPs developed to enable the artists to make a more in depth statement than a single song could allow. In addition, rules as to what could be allowed in popular music were lessened -- singles lasted longer than three minutes; singing could be gruff, guttural and not classically beautiful and lyrics could focus on more than simple tales of youth, love songs and ballads to include politically and socially aware lyrics. The idea that popular music could and should change the way one feels and lead social change largely developed during this period, though it was certainly not unheard of before.

Black music in the late 1960s diversified. Artists that had previously been best-sellers found themselves unpopular with the new sound. Many, such as the Temptations and the Supremes, never fully recovered. Soul music, led at the time by singers like James Brown, developed into psychedelia-influenced funk. Bands like Parliament, War and Funkadelic merged soul with psychedelic rock. Meanwhile, Sly Stone and other similar artists successfuly merged soul with psychedelia and emerged at the forefront of the political scene in music. The move towards socially aware lyrics in black music could be said to have begun with the success of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On and Curtis Mayfield's Superfly. They both described the gritty realities of ghetto life with funky, danceable beats and led to the dominant sounds of soul in the 1970s, such as Philadelphia soul.

A few bands popular among only a small crowd of devoted followers emerged in the late 1960s. The Nice and the Moody Blues (both British) began releasing a series of complex, classical tinged concept albums that began a sound known as progressive rock. Other British bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath emerged with a form of hard-edged electric blues that came to be known as heavy metal music. The Velvet Underground, Blue Cheer and the Stooges also emerged with fatalistic, artsy lyrics and a fast-driving energetic sound; this was the beginning of punk rock.

In the early 1970s, singer-songwriters like James Taylor and Carol King topped the charts while prog rock, heavy metal and punk began to differentiate themselves from mainstream music. Heavy metal bands like Blue Oyster Cult began to attract some mainstream attention, while punk influenced the developing glam rock scene. Taking its cue from the energetic, dirty psychedelia of the Doors, glam musicians like David Bowie rose to prominence in the early 1970s. The mid 1970s saw the development of power pop, the marriage of glam and heavy metal to form glam metal and the emergence of disco. By the late 1970, disco, an electronically-based dance music, dominated the sound of the US, aided by the breakthrough success of Saturday Night Fever. Originally associated with urban blacks and gay white males, disco spent a few years at the top of the charts just as country rock and prog rock achieved their greatest mainstream success. Country rock bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd and pop-prog bands like Chicago and Styx dominated the portion of the market not listening to disco with long, bizarre progressive pieces and electric blues based southern rock. Country rock had developed primarily from British blues, and added an element of popular country. At the time, outlaw country artists like Willie Nelson, David Allan Coe and Johnny Cash dominated the charts with tales of cowboys and rebels.

The late 1970s also saw a coalescence of what eventually became known as punk music. Arty singers like Patti Smith and grungy bands like the Ramones emerged from New York, based out of the popular club CBGB's. Just as the Clash and the Sex Pistols defined and popularized the sound of punk in the UK, a similar scene was developing throughout the US. In the early 1980s, disco died a quick death. The popular reaction against disco was swift and final, and the music had ended its reign of commercial influence by 1982. New Wave filled in as the dominant American sound. It had developed out of arty punk bands like the Talking Heads, and was popularized by Depeche Mode, Duran Duran and others.

New Wave's mainstream popularity was brief. By 1984, hair metal, long a dormant part of the Los Angeles music scene, started its reign on the charts. Led by hypermasculine bands like Quiet Riot, Van Halen and Motley Crue, glam metal reached its popular peak in the late 1980s with Guns 'n' Roses' Appetite for Destruction and Def Leppard's Pyromania.

Black music in the 1980s focused on two developments. A smooth, ballad-oriented pop-soul evolved and dominated the pop charts, especially in the early part of the decade. Lionel Hampton, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Prince exemplified this field. The other major development in black music was the rise of hip hop as a commercial force. Arising from various sources in the 1970s in Harlem, including the Last Poets, funk and dub, hip hop began its course to mainstream popularity with occasional fringe success in the 80s -- Kurtis Blow and LL Cool J introduced the sound to white listeners, while Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash cemented the sound of rap.

In the 1980s, punk music began incorporating reggae and other international influences, while heavy metal diversified in the wake of the success of hair metal. Thrash, death and power metal emerged. U2 and R.E.M. also led an interest in the alternative rock scene. All around the country, pop and hard rock oriented bands evolving in a state of popular dismissal but critical acclaim had developed a unique sound. Bands like the Pixies and Husker Du made only minor waves on the charts, but fomented a serious revolution in music. A new generation of listeners hated the bombastic, corporate sterility of hair metal, and reacted against it.

The result was the grunge explosion in the early 1990s. By 1992, hair metal bands were massively unpopular as grunge groups like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains dominated the charts. Their success lasted only a few years, however, as bands found it difficult to maintain their "alternative" sound after going mainstream. In addition, Run-D.M.C. and N.W.A. brought gangsta rap to the pop audiences. By the mid 90s, alternative rock groups had died out among mainstream listeners, and gangsta rap took over. The middle of the decade also saw a boom in techno music's popularity. Developed primarily in Britain (though Detroit and Chicago were also influential), techno's many permutations achieved some mainstream success throughout the last half of the decade. Bubblegum pop like the Spice Girls also returned after a decade of more-or-less dormance during the period of hair metal and grunge, both highly opposed to clean, slick and shiny content.

Gangsta rap in the 1990s focused on the two coasts originally. East Coast rappers like Slick Rick had defined that coast's sound in the late 80s, and it had been far and away the center for hip hop until Dr. Dre's The Chronic put the West Coast on the hip hop map. Boasting a radio-friendly G funk sound, based primarily off funk samples, West Coast rap soon became the dominant sound among pop audiences with rappers like Snoop Doggy Dogg and Tupac Shakur achieving mainstream success. East Coast rappers like Notorious B.I.G. and Nas tended to be more well-received critically, but were consistently unable to match the West Coast in pop sales. The rivalry between the two coasts came to a head by 1996, when the deaths of Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur rocked the world of hip hop. With West Coast head Suge Knight imprisoned (unrelated to the murders) and East Coast quickly becoming dominated by Puff Daddy's releases aimed at purely pop audiences, rap music splintered. A new generation of southern rappers like OutKast and Goodie Mob emerged from Atlanta, as well as vibrant scenes in St. Louis and New Orleans. The Fugees' also fused hip hop sounds with dub, dancehall and reggae, popular Jamaican forms, to great mainstream success. East Coast rap's reputation among critics was saved by the Wu Tang Clan, Nas, DMX, Busta Rhymes and other rappers that used a distinctively East Coast sound without catering to mainstream markets. On the West Coast, a period of relatively poor sales for Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg led to a drought in mainstream popularity; this ended in the late 1990s with the rise of Eminem to superstardom. The Detroit born rapper achieved success early in his career with radio-friendly hooks and funky beats; he quickly became the first white rapper to cross over to mainstream audiences without losing his critical viability.

The 1990s saw several other trends as well. Power pop bands like Weezer, jam bands like Phish and punk-pop and ska groups like Green Day and Sublime rose to some prominence, with late punk and ska bands achieving the most mainstream success. No Doubt, Rancid and similar bands released blockbuster albums in the middle of the decade. Soul music, languishing since the popular demise of Michael Jackson and Prince some ten years earlier, re-emerged with a return to the sounds early 70s soul; Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu and D'Angelo spearheaded this movement. In hard rock, multiple trends developed. Thrash metal, invented in the late 80s by bands like Metallica, achieved some mainstream success before mutating into nu metal (such as System of a Down and Tool) in the middle of the decade. Rapcore bands (that mix hip hop and metal) also emerged; Limp Bizkit and Korn were the most popular, drawing heavily upon early pioneers in the field like Pantera, Faith No More and Anthrax. The 1990s also saw a boom in funk metal bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers and female singer-songwriters like Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan, relying on late 80s pioneers like Tracy Chapman and P.J. Harvey. The other major musical style of the 1990s was pop-country groups, beginning with honky tonk crooners like Clint Black, Alan Jackson and Garth Brooks, the sound exploded into mainstream audiences with the crossover success of Shania Twain, the Dixie Chicks, Faith Hill and other female singers in the middle of the decade.

Since the turn of the millenium, two major developments in American popular music have occurred. The dominance of bubblegum pop like 'N Sync and Backstreet Boys continued from the 90s, and also grew to include Latin stars like Shakira, Ricky Martin, Christina Aguilera, Selena and Julio Iglesias. In addition to these slick sounds, a growing number of domestic and foreign garage rock bands have achieved notable success, including the Strokes, the Hives and the Stone Roses.

Category:Music by nationality Category:United States