The Century of American Pop

In the closing moments of the 1900s it needs to be said: This was the century of American popular music. That sound -- from the blues and jazz to rock & roll, from soul music to hip-hop -- has done more to transform the world's cultural landscape than art of any other kind. It's been an amazing ride and, as the Twenty-first Century dawns, it's barreling forward with as much force as ever.

American rock & roll was the shot heard round the world. What else has even come close to its pervasive, widespread influence? Television and the movies have had a tremendous impact, to be sure, but moreso than Elvis Presley? Think about it. The early rock pioneers caught the ear of the four young men in Liverpool who would become the Beatles and launch a cultural revolution more encompassing than any seen before or since. African American blues musicians inspired the Rolling Stones and, by extension, the thousands of bands in dozens of countries who were influenced by them.

More important, however, rock & roll's impact has extended well beyond culture. Its sound of freedom, specifically embodied in the bold work of the Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa, inspired Eastern European revolutionaries like Vaclav Havel, now the leader of the Czech Republic, during the Cold War. That helped smash the Berlin Wall and melt the Iron Curtain. American soul music filled the heart of Bob Marley in Jamaica, and he went on to spread his redemption song around the world. Brazilian artists like Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil found a model in the songs of Bob Dylan for music that could combine aesthetic beauty with messages that speak the eloquent truth to oppressive governments.

And then, of course, there's rap, which has become a new international language. I spoke with Chuck D. earlier this year about this, and he described his experience on the front lines. "I've gone to as many as forty countries, many of them over and over and again," he said. "And I've seen that hip-hop, with its use of words, has taught many people how to speak American English -- specifically, black American English. I've gone to Germany, and white German kids will come up to me, 'Yo, wassup, man, you aw'ight?' I go to Asia, and kids will be, like, 'I gotta get that new Wu-Tang, you know what I'm sayin'? Chuck, yo, you made me think about myself.' In Africa, where there's very little commonality among the dialects, rap has bridged the gap. There's a world out there that hip-hop has illuminated."

Why has all this music spoken so profoundly to so many people? Because it's given them a voice -- the very same reason why it changed things so dramatically in this country. Black people, working-class Southern whites and young people were the primary creators and audiences for popular music in the United States, and none of those groups historically had much access to the media -- or any way, really, to convey their vision of the world to the larger populations around them. That's why the music has always been perceived as such a threat by the powers that be -- a moral peril in this country, and a danger to totalitarian regimes around the world.

That's the most compelling argument against people who believe that American popular music has merely been another form of colonization, overrunning local cultures in the name of profit. No doubt -- plenty of people in this country make plenty of money from the worldwide popularity of our music. And the corporations are now a far greater threat to the life of the music than right-wing conservatives (or the leftwing politically correct brain police) have ever been.

But the message that people around the world have always heard in this music is a message of freedom. It hasn't taught people to be Americans -- it's taught them to be themselves. "Let freedom ring -- but you have to fight for it": Bruce Springsteen used to end his shows with those words. That's a powerful, irresistible message, one with serious implications far beyond the concert hall.

As we enter the next century, the waves music has made are crashing back upon our shores -- just as they did in earlier decades from England, from the Caribbean and, of course, from Africa, where so many of the music's sources originated in the first place. The Latin music explosion is underway and it's eventually going to mean far more than Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez. The ability of American music to absorb new styles and influences, which it has done so far with stunning success, will be essential to its survival.

But that's the future. Who knows what will happen, or where the next big thing, or the next big thing after that will come from? For now, everybody in this country who loves popular music has something to be proud of. The past hundred years have often been called the "American Century." Most of the politicians and journalists who use that term don't take popular music into account when they say it. But they should, because it's the export that is the greatest reflection of our democracy and creativity, the one that has spoken the best for us and the one that is the most deeply loved.

ANTHONY DECURTIS
(December 13, 1999)