Flag

An official website of the United States government

American Popular Music
2 MINUTE READ
July 7, 2016

The American Popular Music book cover illustrates the broad appeal of American music.

American popular music spans a range of human experience, from matters of the heart to political protest. The United States is a perfect musical laboratory: Take people from every corner of the globe, give them freedom to create and distribute their effort. And what results! European ballads recast with African polyrhythmic textures or blended with a Cuban-flavored habanera. “Cold” bop. “Hot” jazz. “Acid” rock. “Gangsta” rap. We might speak less of a singular American popular music than of a constellation of American popular “musics.”

PDF – web English (9 MB)