Pop music’s impact on the greater culture is also largely over. There will never be another Beatles or Rolling Stones. That’s because “American culture” is over. Prior to the two great industrial wars of the 20th century, America did not have a unified national culture. It was federation of regions. New England may as well have been a different country from the Deep South or the Southwest. The South was very different from Appalachia. There was no unified “American” culture to which all the regional cultures submitted.
The great national project of conquering Europe and Asia opened the door for the flowering of an American culture after the war. Into it was drawn anything that could be sold as celebrating this new world power. It is why what we think of as American pop culture blew up after the war. In music, for example, producers scoured the land looking for authentic American sounds to package up and sell, in order to meet the demand of this new growing thing called Americana. It even went global, in search of spice to ad to the mix.
Like the music business itself, the great unifying national culture that blossomed in the 20th century has run its course. America is, to a great degree, falling back to its natural, regional state. Just look at the popularity of movies and TV shows by region and you see old weird America emerging again. Live acts now setup their tours to reflect the fact that they have greater appeal in some regions than in others. If you are a country act, for example, there’s no point in booking a lot of dates in the north, outside of the one-off festivals in the summer that feature a variety of acts.
That’s another lesson from pop music. The past is the actualized, the present is the actualizing and the future in the potential. Culture is that middle part, standing on the past in an effort to realize the potential that lies in the future. Once culture attains its natural end, it dies. What’s left is what it created. The grand unified pop culture of the Cold War era is now like an old factory building that has been renovated to be lofts, shops and boutique restaurants. It’s influence on what comes next is purely utilitarian.
The Z Man, “The Cycle of Life”, The Z Blog, 2017-03-01.
March 12, 2017
QotD: The waning influence of pop music
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And I thought it was because pop music had run out of ideas c.1980.
Also, interesting that the Beatles get classified as American culture.
Comment by Patrick Crozier — March 12, 2017 @ 03:43
I also wonder if the Z Man ever noticed that the Stones were Brits. What made you think his analysis was worth repeating?
Comment by Steve Muhlberger — March 12, 2017 @ 07:35
I found it interesting that he presumes the expansion of “American culture” after the Second World War was in any way a coherent, intentional thing. Perhaps he’s including the Beatles and the Rolling Stones as “American” in this sense due to the fact that both groups abandoned Britain for tax reasons? I dunno.
Comment by Nicholas — March 12, 2017 @ 09:54