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The US has basically given the rest of the world folk, bluegrass, country, dixieland, gospel, blues, soul, folk, jazz, swing, rock'n'roll, rock, and was pretty instrumental in punk, prog-rock, electro, boy band type pop, synth-pop/new wave, dance.etc - pretty much most genre you can think of. Sure other nations have definitely contributed and even invented a few genres (arguably Kraftwerk and techno), and some of the greatest artists have originated from the UK, but what about America has made it so utterly dominant in terms of exporting musical styles/genres/and leading trends?
I know it's a unique fusion of European, African, Native and other influences, but that still doesn't explain it's utter dominance. Was it simply because of the sheer influence of the US in general, it being the wealthiest nation on earth for a long time, that it was best able to export it's indigenous genres? For instance, it Germany was as powerful as the US perhaps polka would be bigger than blues, or if Brazil had dominated Salsa would be the pre-eminent pop music genre of the world.
The US has basically given the rest of the world folk, bluegrass, country, dixieland, gospel, blues, soul, folk, jazz, swing, rock'n'roll, rock, and was pretty instrumental in punk, prog-rock, electro, boy band type pop, synth-pop/new wave, dance.etc - pretty much most genre you can think of. Sure other nations have definitely contributed and even invented a few genres (arguably Kraftwerk and techno), and some of the greatest artists have originated from the UK, but what about America has made it so utterly dominant in terms of exporting musical styles/genres/and leading trends?
I know it's a unique fusion of European, African, Native and other influences, but that still doesn't explain it's utter dominance. Was it simply because of the sheer influence of the US in general, it being the wealthiest nation on earth for a long time, that it was best able to export it's indigenous genres? For instance, it Germany was as powerful as the US perhaps polka would be bigger than blues, or if Brazil had dominated Salsa would be the pre-eminent pop music genre of the world.
The US most certainly can not claim credit for prog-rock. Virtually all of the early prog bands were from the UK and Europe.
Its pretty simple really. The United States has always been a melting pot, give me your tired your poor, yearning to be free. All the immigrants, both forced and freely coming here brought their music with them. Those musical styles mixed and merged to some degree giving birth to new styles. No other country in the world can boast the diversity of population and musical influences that the United States has. Great Britain is probably second on the list because of their once globe spanning empire.
Classical music was quite popular 200 years ago.
Quite an accomplishment for european music.
Folk music was very popular too, even just fifty years ago.
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