European and American pop music culture
4 min read
Music has a close relationship with culture and has been deeply rooted in culture since its emergence. They blend with each other, depend on each other and promote each other. At the same time, music reflects a culture to some extent, which can reflect the civilization, cultural characteristics and local customs of a region or nation. Let’s learn more about European and American music and better understand British and American culture.
One of the representative types of European and American music is pop music, whose exact concept should be commercial music, which refers to the music created for the main purpose of profit. Its marketability is primary, its artistry secondary. Pop music originated in the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. From the perspective of music system, pop music developed on the basis of the American popular music structure, such as Ding Bang camp music, Blues, Tunze music, rock music, Saul music. It has a variety of styles and rich forms, and can generally refer to Jazz, Rock, Soul,Blues,Reggae, Rap,Hip-Hop, Disco, New Age and other urban mass music born after the 20th century. The style and form of Chinese pop music are mainly influenced by Europe and America, and on this basis, the local style is gradually formed. The so-called popular music refers to those instrumental music and songs that are short in structure, popular in content, lively in form and sincere in emotion, and are loved by the masses, widely sung or appreciated, popular for a while and even handed down to later generations. These music and songs are rooted in the rich soil of popular life. Therefore, it is also called “popular music”.
Rhythm and blues The forerunner of R&B, which appeared in black America in the 1940s. At that time, few people could afford colorful entertainment. Black people who loved music liked to gather in the street after dinner to play simple instruments such as guitars and harmonicas to express their feelings about life, work, and being away from home.
This led to the development of Blues, the forerunner of R&B. Radio radio appeared, and blues music began to jump out of black circles and become popular in Chicago. Whether it’s because the blues have been talked about for too long, music fans are eager to hear blues songs that have a strong rhythm, a bright rhythm, and a content that is not too sad.
Rock ‘n’ roll, which emerged in the mid-1950s, was influenced by rhythm and blues, country music, and Ding Bang Alley. Much of early rock and roll was based on cover versions of black R&B, so R&B was its main base. Rock music has many branches and complex forms. The main styles include folk rock, art rock, psychedelic rock, rockcountry rock, heavy metal, punk, etc. The representative figures include Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, etc., which is an important symbol of the maturity of American mass music in the 20th century.
Jazz, with its dynamic syncopated rhythms, distinctive jazz harmonies and unbroken improvisation (or singing), has won the popularity of audiences and the recognition of people from all walks of life in the field of music. It originated in the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. It was born in the southern port city of New Orleans. Its music roots come from blues and ragtime. Jazz is improvisational and based on a swing rhythm. It is a combination of black African culture and white European culture. In the first dozen years of the 20th century, jazz mainly developed in New Orleans, then moved to Chicago after 1917, and then to New York in the 1930s, until today, jazz is popular all over the world. The main styles of jazz are: New Orleans Jazz, swing, Bebop, cold jazz, free jazz, Latin jazz, fusion, etc.
Rap (sometimes also translated as “rap” or “rap”), originally meaning black but the language equivalent of speaking or talking, is a form of popular music that originated in poor black housing estates outside New York City in the 1970s. It is characterized by the rapid recitation of a series of rhyming words in a mechanical rhythm. One source of this form is the rapid, rhyming jargon used by radio jockeys in the past to introduce records. The rhythms of rap or rap music, blues styles such as vocals, are nicely blended with the music. Accompaniments typically involve electronic drum beats with samples (digitally isolated vinegar-bites) that are combined with recordings from other music. The first rap record was set in 1979 and the style rose to prominence in the mid-1920s. Although term rap interchangeably is often used with rhythmically chanted music, the latter term contains subcultures where rap music is simply a piece of rap music that is rhythmically chanted and rhythmically chanted. Pop rap, Southern rap, West Coast rap, hardcore rap, comedy rap.
From the perspective of American popular culture, it is not difficult to find that contemporary popular music is a very complex concept, which represents many factions with completely different positions and views. Some factions flash in the pan, some change to be completely different from their original propositions, and some factions’ propositions are not always consistent with their own practices. Especially for a country with a short history but rich content like the United States, it is necessary to face with a tolerant attitude.
