What Is Pop?

This anthology is a survey of popular music throughout the world, looking at specific countries and genres, examining how popular music throughout the world is connected. It considers some basic questions: to what music do people around the globe listen? What do they watch? How do they access music? Through the study of specific cultures and repertories, students will explore popular music in various cultural contexts in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The goal is to give students a broad understanding of what exactly is meant by popular music, how it can be defined, and the differences and similarities among diverse popular music traditions.

This anthology is designed to:

• Foment understanding and appreciation of the historical evolution of musical style, genre, and performance in various cultural contexts;
• Encourage the recognition and understanding of political, sociological, and cultural forces on music throughout the globe;
• Foster an understanding of the evolution of popular music in various cultural contexts;
• Examine local, regional, and global forces on the development of music and popular culture.

By the end of this anthology, students will be able to:

• Evaluate the impact of political, sociological, and cultural forces on popular music and the arts;
• Analyze and understand political and social forces in contemporary and historical popular music;
• Discuss the complex relationship among race, ethnicity, and class in the development of culture;
• Describe how technology has shaped the performance, composition, and consumption of music.

What is Popular Music?

This book is dedicated to global popular music. This brings up several questions: What is popular? What is global? How can we define either? What are the connections? How does popular music differ from classical? From folk? What separates classical, folk, and popular music is in many ways hard to define, but one thing that distinguishes all three is transmission: how music goes from person to person, from place to place, from time to time.

Classical Music

Classical music in most music cultures has some specific characteristics not present in folk or popular music. In most cases, in the Americas, Europe, Japan, India, or any other place with a strong classical music tradition, classical music tends to be the music of the elite. This may be the economic, social, or intellectual elite, a population that is generally educated and cultured. Classical music transmission in Western music culture is traditionally by means of notation, but this is not the case in many other classical music traditions, most of which do not have music notation system. Indian classical music, for example, differs in the North and South, but in either case this music is transmitted orally, not by means of notation. There is no traditional notation system in Indian music, although the Western notation system is used by many today. However, it does not function particularly well, due to the differences in scale and tuning in India compared to Western music. There is a developed and rigorous training system for Indian classical music, but it is learned by rote from master to apprentice, and although there is a standard repertory in Southern India (Northern Indian classical music is improvised based on very strict rules), pieces are passed down orally and undoubtedly have been subjected to changes due to this means of transmission.

Another common element in classical music traditions is training, which is for the most part by means of a master-apprentice relationship. In the Western classical music system, the study of classical music often begins at a young age, taking lessons either in school or with a private teacher. Who in today’s day and age doesn’t know someone who takes or has taken private lessons, be it for piano, singing, clarinet or what have you? This is also the case in many non-Western classical music traditions. For example, Indian children often take lessons with a guru, a teacher specializing in singing or one of many Indian classical instruments, usually with lessons in a group setting, studying for years by means of oral instruction. The common thread in all classical music is this idea of instruction, establishing a separate musician class, separating performer and audience, a phenomenon not common in folk music traditions in which audience and performer are often the same group of people.

Folk Music

“Folk music is music that has been submitted to the process of oral transmission; it is the product of evolution and is dependent on the circumstances of continuity, variation, and selection” (Karpeles 1955, 6; italics added):

• “Continuity, which links the present with the past;
• Variation, which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or the group;
• Selection by the community, which determines the form in which folk music survives” (International Folk Music Council 1955, 23).

This definition leaves out the origin of folk music, which in Western music evolved from rudimentary beginnings uninfluenced by art or classical music. It is also “music which has originated with an individual composer [or composers] and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten, living tradition of a community” (International Folk Music Council 1955). When a tune passes into oral tradition, it becomes subject to the forces of evolution and conforms to the demands of continuity, variation, and selection.

Folk music is not static but always changing. Often folk music is of communal authorship, in which time is a factor. It is constantly altered through time by means of oral transmission in the great, cosmic game of telephone whereby one person says something which gets passed from person to person, changing as it is transmitted; in folk music, this telephone game is from person to person, community to community, through time and space. It changes by evolution, not revolution. Art music and folk music exist side by side, and there is often an interaction between the two; one has only to listen to the music of Aaron Copland or Bela Bartok to understand this connection. Folk music informs art music, and vice-versa.

Some scholars connect folk music to rural culture, and in many traditions, this seems to be the case. In much of Europe, for example, folk music is connected for the most part to rural areas, where it is passed down from generation to generation, with variations having to do with the particular villages; the village could have the same repertory with local changes or might have a completely different repertory or even style. In Norway, folk fiddling traditions, style, and repertory vary greatly from village to village, sometimes only a few miles apart. In West Virginia of the past, the music from one valley might differ greatly from that of the next valley. Historically, rural communities tended not to go very far from home; in the 19th and 20th centuries, this changed dramatically especially with immigration from Europe to the New World, taking with them their folk music, often informing popular music as formerly rural folk settled in cities. This is the case with many of the musical genres discussed in this anthology, which were taken from their place or origin to various places in the Americas, mixing with other immigrant and indigenous traditions to form the musical fusions that make up so much of global popular music today.

Popular Music

Popular music can be difficult to define. Some consider it “to be of lower value and complexity than art music,” and it is “readily accessible to large numbers of musically uneducated listeners rather than to an elite” (Middleton 2001). The boundaries between pop, folk, and classical are often “hazy, with individual pieces or genres moving into or out of the category” (Middleton 2001, 129).

One means to determine if music is popular or not is through a scale of activity. In modern times, this can be measured through things like record or CD sales (or digital downloads) or sheet music sales. None of these criteria take into account qualitative factors but are by definition limited to quantitative factors. In this definition of “popular,” socially diverse audiences are treated as one, and repeat hearings are not counted. But sales figures and airplay measure sales and airplay, not popularity. It is easy to link popularity with specific means of dissemination, especially in an era of mass media, in which there are shifts in the definition of popularity by location. It is also convenient to link popularity with social groups; does it appeal to a mass audience or a particular class or demographic? Is a particular kind of music for young audiences or perhaps for working class audiences? “Popular music has no permanent musical characteristics or social connections” (Middleton 2001, 129). So what is popular music?

There are no hard and fast rules as to what determines if a genre is popular music or something else. A piece might be characteristic of several different genres. Few pieces if any have every characteristic of any one genre. Robert Walser, in his book Running with the Devil: Power, Gender and Madness in Heavy Metal Music, states:

Nowhere are the boundaries more fluid than in popular music. Just as it is impossible to point to a perfectly exemplary Haydn symphony, one that fulfills the “norm” in every respect, pieces within a popular genre rarely correspond slavishly to general criteria. Moreover, musicians are ceaselessly creating new fusions and extensions of popular genres. (Walser 1993, 27)

The performer plays little or no role in genre formation in classical music. That is the function of the composer. In popular music, the role of the performer is crucial in forming genre. Charles Hamm, in his article “Genre, Performance and Ideology in the Early Songs of Irving Berlin” makes this idea clear:

In much popular music the performer shapes, reinforces, and even changes genre. In this repertory, genre is defined most importantly neither by formal structure nor by fixed elements of style such as melody and harmony, but by audience perception of the meaning of a song, shaped at the moment of performance. (Hamm 1994, 374)

Popular music is nothing new. There was popular music in all eras of music history, often defined by transmission, class, and the “snob” factor. In the 19th and 20th centuries popular music went through the process of industrialization in terms of production and dissemination. Instruments, heretofore the domain of the wealthy and educated, became more available and affordable with developments in technology and mass production, meaning that the working class could participate in making music much more easily. The means of transmission changed greatly with technology, allowing for new, faster, and cheaper means of getting music to the people. Developments such as recordings, radio, film, television and the Internet changed the way music spread and was enjoyed, leading to increasing availability of music to the masses, redefining the means by which “popular” could be judged.

Global Popular Music: The Anthology

Each chapter in this anthology is dedicated to a specific musical genre, all of which have become popular not just in their countries of origin but in many other parts of the world. Chapters begin with an introduction, setting the context for the culture and the genre which is the focus of the chapter. This is followed by a discussion of the development of the genre, in most cases fusing multiple ideas and traditions into a new music that has become popular far beyond its original borders. Each chapter has one or two readings selected to highlight a specific aspect of the musical genre or the culture from which it originated. These readings are followed by questions for thought about the culture and genre, with the goal of clarifying the points, ideas, and concepts presented in the chapter and the readings. Each chapter ends with an activity that includes examples of the music covered, allowing the students to hear the music presented in order to get a deeper understanding of the diverse points presented in the text.

The anthology explores popular music in a global context, looking for the trends, tendencies, and similarities that connect music today. Much of the book examines specific genres of music in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, examining the connections that these genres have with music elsewhere, all contributing to the world popular music scene, which has changed and intensified with the developments in communications and dissemination that new technologies made possible. All of the chapters save one deal with music of fusion: music that has taken characteristics and repertories from two or more musical traditions to form a new, hybrid local form that had not existed before. These fusions, for many genres, mix African and European musical ideas; others blend local ideas with European or American music. In most cases, issues of race, slavery, and the history of slavery, class, migration, and immigration inform the discussion, with music moving from place to place through time in a variety of ways, with a variety of results.

The first chapter of this anthology is an exploration of African-American music, beginning with the roots of American music and the influences of European and African music. The history of African-American music is linked to slavery and the slave trade, which is true of the music of much of the Americas, as will be covered in this anthology. American popular music resulted in a cross-pollination that is unique to the United States and that distinguishes American music from European and African music. The makeup of the population of the United States, having to do with colonial and African populations mixed with continuing immigration throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, created a music that is uniquely American. Other countries in the Americas had similar circumstances, but the differences in the European colonial forces, with differences in language and culture, and the differences in the numbers and origins of the slaves taken to different parts of the Americas, made for musical traditions with some similarities but many more differences. The chapter includes discussions of music of worship and music of play in the African-American community and goes on to discuss traditions connected in different ways to African-American culture: minstrelsy, ragtime and the blues.

The reading for this chapter is on the blues, the most important and influential African-American musical tradition, which influenced American and world music throughout the 20th century and beyond. The blues had a great impact on most American popular music forms, including jazz, bluegrass, rock and roll and others. The blues, and subsequent American popular music, had a great impact on popular music globally; many of the genres covered in this anthology owe a great debt to American music of African roots. It, therefore, is the first musical tradition examined.

The next chapter is dedicated to Brazilian music, focusing on the country’s most important musical genre, samba, and Brazil’s most important cultural event, Carnaval. As is the case with American popular music, Brazilian music has its roots in Europe and Africa. What distinguishes the development of this music from American music are the differences in European colonial powers—England and Portugal—and the differences in the origins and numbers of Africans forced into slavery—Brazil imported more than ten times as many slaves as the United States/British North America—as well as the differences in the ways slaves were treated.

Samba developed in Brazil among slave populations principally in the Northeast of the country, and like the blues, went from black culture to the mainstream. Samba and Afro-Brazilian religious traditions are connected, and patterns of migration after emancipation led to its moving from rural Brazil to the major cities in the Southeast. In cities such as Rio de Janeiro, the samba became the most important genre and came to be the dominant music in Carnaval, eventually becoming the musical genre used in all aspects of Carnaval, most notably in the most important Carnaval tradition, samba school competitions. Samba took on influences from other musical traditions in the Americas, and one of the readings is dedicated to samba-reggae, one of many such musical hybrids. The other covers the history of Samba School competitions from its roots in black communities in Rio de Janeiro to the cultural powerhouse that it is today.

The Brazil discussion is followed by a chapter on tango, the national dance of Argentina that has been embraced in many parts of the world to the point that it is a truly global genre. The discussion begins with the birth of tango in Buenos Aires, again representing a mixture of African and European musical traditions. It began in the poor neighborhoods of the Argentine capital, moving into the mainstream by the end of the 19th century. Tango developed and evolved, adding words in the early 20th century as the tango-cancíon and moving out of dance clubs to the stage and the concert hall by the middle of the century with nuevo tango.

Tango was an international dance from early in its history, introduced to Europe by the beginning of the 20th century, eventually embraced in countries in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The readings for this chapter focus on tango as a global phenomenon; the first one is about tango in Finland, the country in which the dance is most popular after Argentina and a country which frowns upon public displays of affection and touching. The other reading is about the globalization of tango, tracing how it became important globally historically.

The tango discussion is followed by a chapter dedicated to Mexican music in Mexico and elsewhere. Many musical traditions that came together to make up Mexican music, including Spanish, indigenous, African and Northern European, blending into genres that have local, regional, national and transnational implications today. Much of Mexico’s music developed from similar sources, leading to regional genres in what can be referred to as the son complex. The focus of the chapter is on two genres that are important on both sides of the Rio Grande, mariachi and música norteña.

Mariachi is probably the most recognized Mexican genre, popular on both sides of the border. It developed from the son jalisciense, from the Western state of Jalisco, and was a rural music that featured strings and harp for much of its history. Modern mariachi, which is more an urban music, includes the use of trumpets and guitarrón, a large acoustic bass guitar. Mariachi is popular throughout Mexico and the American Southwest, and can be found throughout the United States. Música norteña, as the name implies, comes from northern Mexico but is equally popular in the Southwest of the United States. It features the accordion as part of its sound. Both genres are often heard in Mexican restaurants in throughout the United States as part of the ambiance. The reading for this chapter discusses music of a “nation between nations,” using música norteña as a model for the transnational nature of Mexican music.

Continuing with music in Latin America, the next chapter is dedicated to salsa and the many musical traditions that came together to form this very popular music. As is the case for much of the music covered in this anthology, salsa represents a fusion of many musical traditions, including Spanish, Northern European, indigenous and African. Among its roots are Cuban music, including the Afro-Cuban religion Santería. The various genres that came together to form salsa have unifying elements, most notably the clave pattern, a recurring rhythm from African roots that is common in many Latin American genres.

Salsa is one of several Latin American genres that have been popular in the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries, coming to the country in various stages of assimilation. Salsa got its start in the Latino communities of New York and Miami and spread in popularity throughout the country. Its popularity today is worldwide, and one can find salsa clubs and hear salsa music throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The reading for this chapter places salsa in a global context. Salsa’s roots are in Cuba and Puerto Rico, but it has become a pan-Latin genre, embraced throughout the world.

Concluding the discussions on music in the Western Hemisphere, the next chapter is dedicated to music in the Caribbean, focusing on Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The popular music of both of these countries developed in the 20th century, once again blending African, European, and indigenous musical traditions to form music unique to the Caribbean but with similarities between the music of these two countries. Jamaican popular music today has its roots in the 1940s, with a genre known as mento, which is often confused for Trinidadian calypso. Mento is the first Jamaican genre to incorporate the skank rhythm, which has strong emphasis on the offbeat and is a feature of all the popular music genres that followed: ska, rock steady and reggae, which is probably Jamaica’s most recognized musical export, exerting a great influence on the music of the United States, Brazil, much of Europe, and Asia. Also included in this chapter is calypso, the first Trinidadian genre with a global reach, and the more recent genre that developed from it, soca, or soul calypso.

One of the readings for this chapter looks at reggae, arguing that it is the most important and influential Caribbean musical genre. The author contends that reggae came to dominate Latin music because of Jamaica’s booming tourist industry and Cuba’s isolation following the Communist revolution of the late 1950s. The other article examines aspects of the unity and diversity of Caribbean culture and music. It explores the African connections to music throughout the Caribbean, regardless of language and the colonial powers that settled each country, presenting the Caribbean, its music, and its culture as coming from an “island continent.”

With the next chapter this anthology turns from music in the Americas, which owes much to its legacy of African music, to the music of Africa itself, focusing on two of the many genres originating on the continent, both of which fused elements of African and European music. The first genre covered is highlife, a West African genre with roots in Ghana and Nigeria that was one of the earliest successful fusions of African, European, and New World music in Africa. It first appeared in the 1920s as Ghanaian and Nigerian musicians started incorporating foreign influences from genres such as the foxtrot. The reading about highlife in this chapter explores the history and development of the genre. Included in the discussion are the genres and ensembles that merged to form highlife, as well as the most important musicians in the history of the genre, including the great E.T. Mensah.

The other musical tradition discussed in this chapter is the South African a cappella choir tradition that fuses Christian hymnody and other European ideas with the music of the Zulu choral tradition of mbube. This music has been around since the 1920s and evolved into its current form known as isicathamiya, which can be translated as “tip-toe guys” or “walking softly.” The most famous group in this tradition, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, has been around since the 1960s, and like many groups in this tradition, got its start in the migrant mineworker communities of South Africa. In 1986, the group collaborated with Paul Simon on his album Graceland, which helped give Ladysmith Black Mambazo international recognition. The other reading for this chapter takes a close look at the making of this album and the political context of this collaboration, which took place before the end of Apartheid, and explores how musical traditions and ideas were blended in the process of making the album.

Indian music is the topic of the next chapter, which features Bollywood music and bhangra, two musical traditions than mix Indian classical and popular music with American genres such as rock and roll. Bollywood takes its name from Hollywood, reflective of the importance of the Indian film industry, which produces more films than the American film industry. An overwhelming majority of Indian films are musicals, and the music from these movies, known as filmi, is one of the most important popular music traditions in India. The first reading in this chapter covers the history of Indian classical music, its influence on film music, and the importance of film and filmi in Indian culture at home and abroad.

The other genre discussed in this chapter is bhangra, which also fuses Indian and Western music. The original version of bhangra, which developed in the state of Punjab in the North of India, was a celebratory music used frequently at festivals and weddings. Modern bhangra developed in the 1970s and was first popular in the Punjabi community in England. The other reading for this chapter places bhangra in the mix of the globalization of music, beginning with a discussion of imperialism and its impact on music. The reading contends that bhangra demonstrates how local cultures not only encounter global imperialism but can appropriate it for reinventing themselves.

In recent years, no music has been more global in its impact than K-pop, the topic of the next chapter, a modern form of South Korean popular music that developed in the 1990s and has spread throughout the world. As is true for all of the music discussed in this anthology, K-pop fuses local musical ideas with foreign musical influences, in this case American and European popular music including electronic dance music, disco, the blues and rock and roll. K-pop is audio and visual in performance, which is common in the post-MTV world. Performers, both soloist and bands, usually go through an extensive and expensive training process in order to have a chance at fame and fortune, building massive debt to the entertainment companies that provide this training and represent the potential recording stars.

Although K-pop is most popular in Asia, in recent years it has garnered a huge following around the world, relying heavily on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. The reading for this chapter focuses on the history and development of K-pop, touching on the recruitment and training of K-pop musicians, as well as the finances and popularity of the genre. K-pop has positioned itself to appeal to worldwide audiences; it has the potential to be a global force in the music industry for some time.

The next chapter is a departure from the pattern of this anthology. It focuses on the English progressive rock band Radiohead. Unlike the other chapters, which deal with local musical genres that blend ideas and traditions from other parts of the world, this chapter deals with a band that changed the world. Finding itself without a recording contract and with a studio and the technology necessary to record, produce, and disseminate music independently, the group posted its music on its website for free, telling fans to pay what they want. The results were extraordinary: the group made more money from the pay-what-you-want model than it had for any of its previous albums. The reading for this chapter discusses the band’s importance and the impact it had on popular culture. The author compares Radiohead to a British band from the previous generation, Pink Floyd, itself an innovative band that used technology in new and exciting ways. Both bands pushed the technology of the time to the edge and set the model for other bands for years to come.

The final chapter in this anthology is about the globalization of hip-hop culture and rap music. This American music has been borrowed, adopted, and adapted by diverse music cultures throughout the world, at first in its original form and later modified to local tastes, languages, politics, and culture. The focus is on hip-hop in Europe as a model for the ways in which this phenomenon became an important part of global music culture, found throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Hip-hop in Europe is strongest in several countries among immigrant people who make up much of the lower classes. In France and Germany, for instance, which have had a great deal of immigration from the Middle East and Africa, as well as from other countries in Europe, hip-hop culture is dominated by people of Arab, African, and Turkish origins. Language is the most important part of rap, and in Europe the use of language is in some ways similar to American rap, often borrowing English or using literal translations of English. European rap tends to reproduce many of the themes of American rap, including politics, oppression of minorities, and the hardship of everyday life in the marginal neighborhoods where so many immigrants reside.

The discussion turns to hip-hop in France, which has a long history of American cultural influence, particularly after the Great War and World War II. French rap artists borrowed heavily from the American models, including attitude, dress, bling, break dancing, and tagging, or graffiti. The focus of French rap has been on social criticism, including topics such as xenophobia and discrimination. The reading for this chapter examines hip-hop and rap in this global context, focusing on Continental Europe, England, and the United States. It traces the history and development of hip-hop from its roots in New York City’s rough neighborhoods, spreading throughout the country and eventually the world.

Conclusion

By examining specific countries, musical traditions, and genres, this anthology examines the state of global popular music at local, regional, and global levels. What connects the music discussed is the fusion of diverse musical elements that moved from place to place with the migration and immigration of peoples, with changes in communications and technologies, and with the cultural mélange that these changes brought. Global popular music is about borrowing from one’s own culture, adopting ideas and concepts from other cultures, and adapting these influences into a new and vibrant musical culture. These changes have taken place around the world, blending old and new, familiar and foreign, traditional and progressive. Your adventure with these popular musical traditions, and your understanding of the way these musical traditions developed and evolved, begins.

References

Hamm, Charles. “Genre, Performance and Ideology in the Early Songs of Irving Berlin.” Popular Music 13, no. 2 (May 1994): 143–150.

International Folk Music Council. “Resolutions.” Journal of the International Folk Music Council 7 (1955): 23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/834530.

Karpeles, Maud. “Definition of Folk Music.” Journal of the International Folk Music Council 7 (1955): 6–7. http://www.jstor.org/stable/834518.

Middleton, Richard. “Popular Music.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Edited by Stanley Sadie and and J. Tyrrel. London: Macmillan, 2001. xx: 128-153.

Walser, Robert. Running with the Devil: Power, Gender and Madness in Heavy Metal Music. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1993.