Do You Like American Music?

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• Ceit

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Here, play this as a soundtrack to your reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag0XRlEvap8 The 20th Century seems like the Century of America, at least from our perspective, and it's hard to argue that we did not dump our influence on the world like a bucket of blood at a prom. One area we were particularly good with is music. While there has been evolution and innovation over the years in the past, there doesn't seem to have been anything like the 20th Century in terms of the number of styles developed and changes made to them in a short time, and the US was right in the thick of it. What kind of musical world would we have without blues, jazz, rock, rap, hell, even Broadway musicals? https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/20th-century-music/ Not that there hasn't been some input and resistance from other areas. In decades past, it was more common, apparently, to have a non-English language pop hit now and then: https://slate.com/culture/2012/11/gangnam-style-we-need-more-foreign-language-pop-songs.html Even Europe's biggest celebration of its own weirdness tends to be very English-heavy, although not monolingual: https://www.johnthego.com/2018/04/16/rise-english-use-national-languages-eurovision/ Certainly, there are international (and non-US national) stars, making music that delights millions, one only has to look at K- and J-pop fans. But where would those styles have come from without American music spreading over the world? But what about the British invasion, you might ask? Didn't those musicians from across the pond give US musicians a run for their money? Yes, to a certain extent, but the biggest of those groups was very openly influenced by American musicians, some of which had not been so respected in their homeland. So, back to the question: Do you like American music? If you don't, what kind of music at all can you like?