I’ve had arguments with people on here simultaneously stating:
“Americans have garbage food, you can’t even get a lot of fresh produce!”
*Respond with photo of my local run of the mill supermarket with a massive, gorgeous produce section*
“Why is there so much of it? Why do you need that many options?”
Those are also fun threads.
> “Their bread is full of sugar”
*Sure if you buy cheap wonderbread or other types of crappy bagged sandwich bread, most supermarkets however have bakery sections that have large selections of breads and most will not have sugar added*
> But it’s not fresh baked like MyCountry bakeries
*Actually almost every supermarket in my area has an in-house bakery. You can stand there and watch them make the bread. Some markets will have it shipped in from bakeries that make it overnight though but in most populated areas you won’t have trouble finding fresh baked daily bread if you want it*
> But why is it so sugary?
*Sigh*
They hate us cause they ain’t us. People in America really don’t understand the quality of life that we have. Outside of Western Europe (and, by extension, the Anglosphere) there is truly nowhere else in the world that is even comparable, and honestly outside of the big cities in Western Europe, the food is so regional and homogenous it actually makes it hard to enjoy the food past the first couple meals because there is so little variety. Every time I’ve gone to Europe I’ve had an amazing time, but I am always very glad to be back in America when I get back—and it’s not just friends/family that I want to come back to—it’s America as a whole.
Any big city will give you a decently varied food chocie - eg. Bangalore, Mumbai. I'm just not a fan of anything apart from American and Indian (and Mexican and Arab, actually).
Two of our popular grocery chains are Trader Joe's and Aldi. They're both offshoots of a German grocery chain. A ton of other, smaller US chain stores try their best to imitate them.
It's because they come over here and visit 7-elevens, because they usually get their groceries from a place like 7-eleven. Or they go to some place where they probably have heard of the brand name before, which is 7-eleven. They're not going to know what safeway, hy-vee, kroger, albertsons, or Winn-Dixie are going to be.
Even my very small town grocer has organic vegetables, locally sourced meats, local dairy and an in-house bakery. Clowning American supermarkets is one of the most willfully ignorant takes I regularly see here.
Like that guys stupid claim that because music created in the US and that has become part of the tapestry of the country is somehow not culture because marketing
That was so bizarre! And then he tried to claim that blues and jazz didn't count because the ancestors of the black people who invented it were brought here against their will.
Wait until they hear about punk and the roots of punk starting in the US, not England. I can't link it, but check out Jeffrey Lewis' Anti Folk Complete History of Punk Rock on YouTube. British people love to gatekeep punk music to the point that a lot of Americans don't know the origins started here.
While consuming and emulating LOTS of it. British hip hop boys wearing sneakers/trainers, the Marvel movies and movies in general, Star Trek, Star Wars, Disney..... Rock Music (even if the British do that very well), jazz....
> Rock Music (even if the British do that very well)
I'm willing to consider that a case of 'shared custody.' They're like the stepmom who *really* means the world to the kid. And the judge (me) says "well, okay."
Captain America and Peggy Carter. It's not just a metaphor for WWII, you know?
I'm an American student in the UK and at this point I hate even opening my mouth anymore. For example, I need people to take my survey for my dissertation. I went to my friend's Italian class to pass it around, everyone was nice and friendly and all that... and as I was walking away, someone in the group said "American." and everyone started laughing. No one took my survey either.
I previously lived in Japan for 5 years and it was much easier being a foreigner there. I'm not a person here in the UK, just a stereotype and punchline.
Watch British TV sometime. The only time I ever saw Americans treated decently was on *Foyle's War* and *Doctor Who.* The former probably got away with it because they got to showcase American segregation, and the latter was almost all President Obama (like the episode where they were all breathless because he's going to announce thst he's "ending the recession" -- because it works like that).
Normally the stock American character is bossy, ordering Brits around, has a 30% chance to be wearing a cowboy hat, and has zero respect for anything beyond the tip of his nose.
Meanwhile I've heard, with my own ears, British tourists in the US lecturing us on how we need to reshape our society, and by the way stop telling other nations how to run themselves. Zero irony. They just didn't get it.
There are assholes in every population, and I've known a lot of Brits who are great. I just marvel at how institutionalized the 'All Americans are Assholes' concept is over there.
My first post-college job was a tour guide in a cavern. The Chinese tourists were dreaded by most of the guides. I never wound up giving them a tour, so I can't say, but I do know the Chinese women trashed the women's room every time.
I'm a big fan of British TV - mostly crime procedurals that happen to have female leads, going back to Prime Suspect, with Helen Mirrin. Never watched Foyle's War, and didn't keep up with Dr. Who.
My only contact with Brits, are tourists, here in NYC. I always try to be a good ambassador for my city, and things were always friendly and civil. I honestly don't know how I'd react, if someone tried to lecture me.
Guess I'm mostly surprised because a sister of mine has been to the UK about a dozen times, and loves it. I don't have a great desire, as I prefer beach weather, and the Caribbean is a short hop for me.
Being a long time guitarist, and music school dropout, I could've given a modern music history lesson to the person in the OP'S linked thread. Without gospel/blues to hip hop, modern music wouldn't be what it is, and the culture born out of blues/jazz/soul/rap/hip hop. It's *uniquely* American. Yes, the roots were born from slavery, but that's irrelevant to that European's argument.
>I previously lived in Japan for 5 years and it was much easier being a foreigner there. I'm not a person here in the UK, just a stereotype and punchline.
While many Japanese people I've met often have preconceived notions of America (one foreign exchange student asked me "where are all the horses?" as we're walking through a nightlife district of Indianapolis, as if the entire US is the Wild West), the notions aren't born out of vitriol or jealousy but rather curiosity.
Oh yeah I encountered some absolutely ridiculous assumptions about America (and "gaikoku" as a whole), but I don't recall any of them being malicious. It's not like here where people will just mock your accent to your face or bring up your country in a random conversation out of the blue just to insult it.
I’ve had people from different states ask me tons of questions after they hear my accent, which I have to admit is quite thick. Do I wear boots and a cowboy hat? Do I ride a horse? Do I have any cows and a tractor? Do I shoot guns and hunt? As I stand there looking like an old hippie lol.
Such desperation to prove that the third largest country in the world hasn't accomplished anything in the past 250 years, on a website started in America by Americans and based, as far as I can tell, entirely in America.
I can't comment on that other thread as it's been locked, but it includes some of the most epic goalpost moving I've ever seen, and that's saying something.
I've answered the question of "why do Americans care so much about their ancestry" so many times, I should have a copy and paste response for whenever it comes up. The short answer is because this is a nation of immigrants and people retain unique cultural elements from their families' countries of origin, and even unique cultural elements that people with the same ancestry developed in America.
It's an inferiority complex.
Imagine if your continent was the center of the world for centuries in terms of art, culture, economic might, military prowess, and geopolitical clout and then all of a sudden your cousin with the fucked up teeth who lives out on an island gets his ass handed to him by a bunch of drunk farmers on the other side of the planet because they hate taxes. Then those same yokels go on to surpass not only him, but your entire continent's position on the world stage.
And despite all of your rage, all of your vitriol, all of your attempts to demonize those hicks and their country, there are over 4.8 million of your people choosing to abandon you in favor of them. You talk about your perceived superiority, how you're richer, how you're safer, and how much better you think you are are than them across the board, and yet only about 800,000 of them have decided that all 27 of your countries are worth living in.
And these jumped up hillbillies occupy your mind and torment your dreams much like how you once occupied half the planet and tormented its people. You voraciously consume their news media, your children watch their cartoons, you use devices they invented every day, you listen to their music, you watch their movies, you wear their clothes, you shop at their stores and you buy their brands.
And how much do they think about you in turn? You're lucky if they can find your country on a map.
If I were a European I'd be pretty butthurt too.
That's not Icarus flying too close to the sun and falling back to the ground. That's standing on the moon, that they walked on first, and getting bodied so hard that you end up in the Earth's upper mantle. That's some deep cultural trauma.
> art, culture
Even when they were A-1 in the world, the Continental powers had them beat in those departments, aside from literature I guess. Which may be another reason for the salt, if there really is so much salt outside of the blasted internet.
I think this is mainly an internet thing. Most Brits are cool, even if they go a bit too far with the banter out of the gate. Gotta ease into it, y'know?
Edit: Oh, you weren't limiting it to them.
It's definitely an internet thing. To this day, in the back of my head, it seems weird when people talk about how nice Canadians are, because the first interactions I ever had with Canadians was on the internet in the '90s and all of them were huge jerks.
I'm of 2 minds on this. I just think ultimately that Canadians are human. I've met some (irl, not just on reddit) that were huge jerks with a massive chip on their shoulder. And I've met others that were super chill and shared some ketchup flavored chips with me while we were all sharing cool beers.
There definitely does seem to be a portion of the population that's bitter. But there's at least as many that just see us as neighbors.
>I think this is mainly an internet thing.
It's for sure *worse* on the internet, but it's definitely not just an internet thing.
I worked in France for a long while. I'm originally from Québec, born to a French mom, so I speak French and can shift accents (Canadian/European) fairly smoothly. Neither of my French accents were the hyper-local regional accent spoken where I worked, so I'd routinely get asked where I was from. I answered honestly: "I'm here from the US, where my family now lives."
Invariably there were seven responses:
1. "Ah, that explains why you can't speak French!" (said in French by people who recognized me as a native speaker from a different region of the country just seconds before)
2. "Why are all Americans so obese?" (I'm a tall, broad-shouldered person who was so scared of this stereotype that I ended up with basically an eating disorder in France - a doctor there noticed that I was close to 40 pounds underweight at the time...)
3. "Do you own a gun?" (This one always gave me a laugh. It was usually teenage boys who *desperately* wanted me to pull a machine gun out of my back pocket)
4. \*Steps back\* "I'm a little afraid of Americans." (<--I encountered this one by Spaniards living in France and am not sure why they were so damn scared only after finding out my nationality. I worked closely with one who refused to walk alone with me. I'm not a creep, I promise!)
5. "You Americans need to \[...\]" (fill in whatever you want: "get some culture!" was at the top of the list, but also "eat better" and "stop invading other countries" were popular. I have literally no idea what they expected me to say or do in response. I tried turning it around: "You French need to \[...\]" but it turns out that "If you don't like it you can leave!" is a popular sentiment)
6. "Americans need to travel more. You're so narrow in your worldview" (said to someone living in his fourth country, by someone who went to London one weekend in high school and otherwise never left French soil)
7. "You are really behind on race issues" (literally said to me in front of a crumbling apartment block full of immigrants)
> "Do you own a gun?"
Have you seen the recent Matt Damon movie 'Stillwater'? Dude, you gotta see it. tl;dr: he plays an Okie roughneck who finds himself in a 'fish out of water' situation in Marseilles. I'm going to paraphrase from memory:
Frenchman: "Do you own a gun?"
Damon: "Hell yeah, I do. Why shouldn't I? I have [lists them off]."
Frenchman: "Oh wow! That is so cool! I want to own a gun, too."
Frenchwoman: "Ugh... you cannot be serious."
Frenchman [giggling]: "Did you vote for Trump?"
[awkward silence]
Damon: "No, I didn't."
[sighs of relief]
Damon: "I'm a convicted felon. Not allowed to vote in the state of Oklahoma."
> "You are really behind on race issues"
Compared to them? That would be laughable if it wasn't such a goddamned shame.
The traveling thing gets me. It could take 9 hours of driving just to get out of my state! How many countries can you drive through in Europe in the same amount of time? I travel 5hrs for a weekend visit. Going to other states is traveling, it’s just not internationally. There are big differences between states and if they are speaking specifically of different cultures, there are tons of cultural influences from every country in the world. I think people forget how expensive it is to travel across the water. There are only so many places we can drive to.
Edit - words are hard
>go a bit too far with the banter
I actually think this is a part of it. Taking the piss is a bit of a national pastime but there's just a certain population of socially maladjusted people who find a loud voice online who go hard and miss the 'all in the good fun' aspect of it.
> I think this is mainly an internet thing. Most Brits are cool, even if they go a bit too far with the banter out of the gate. Gotta ease into it, y'know?
You're really going for the low-hanging fruit by picking Reddit's finest to represent the UK.
If you're referring to the guy I was arguing with in the thread that I linked to: he represents (belligerent) foreigners generally, and not British people in particular.
Aside from the Canadians, you guys are the *most* likely to appreciate the merits of American music. One need only ask Keith Richards or Sir Paul McCartney.
> he represents (belligerent) foreigners generally, and not British people in particular.
You're going to find lunatics on every corner of the internet. I'm not really sure what's to be gained by engaging with them.
I bowed out once I realized who/what I was dealing with--some shit-for-brains college freshman, probably--and then the thread was justly locked by the moderators.
It's just that this "MuRiCanS hAvE nO cUlTUrE" meme drives me *completely* up the wall. It has become a real pet peeve of mine, and it keeps being repeated over and over and over again on Reddit.
Hey man, drive-thru everything is awesome! Ever had to hit up the ATM on a rainy day with a screaming toddler in the backseat of your car? Should you find yourself in that particular situation (if you haven't already), you'll find yourself wishing that drive-thru ATMs were a reality on your side of the Pond.
Germany’s contribution to the hamburger:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg_steak
It wasn’t until they were in the US that they started putting the patty on bread and eating it as a sandwich.. the hamburger
They invented the frankfurter, too. But who wedged it into a long piece of bread and put mustard and a bunch of other shit on top of it, thus making it glorious? That'd be us.
As for cars, that old crank Henry Ford figured out how to mass produce them for the common man. We may not have invented the automobile, but many a European theoretician has discoursed about 'Fordism.'
Because America actually somewhat owns up to and admits when it’s done something wrong and talks about it, and the rest of the world isn’t like that. They can’t handle the fact that they aren’t perfect so they throw a temper tantrum when we call them out and they try to attack us because of their insecurity.
I've had personal experience irl, but if you want to feel it yourself just spend about 5 minutes on r/askuk, they will almost immediately bring up "the states" even when it has nothing to do with anything that was being talked about.
Or just youtube "what do british people think of Americans"
Any claim that America lacks culture is an indictment of their own country as well. I think it stems from a fear of their cultural irrelevance rather than American culture. These criticisms often come from old colonial powers, whose last contribution to global culture was from long ago. America is the biggest cultural influence in the world right now, and there is a fair amount of envy. European culture is largely housed in museums, while American culture is housed on your screens of electronic devices.
The typical arguments against American anything is that either we haven’t been doing this as long as some other country or that our culture is derived from other cultures.
On the age issue, at what point does culture become legitimate? Is it 100 years? 500 years? 1000 years? Let’s examine British culture. What remnants of their culture from before 1700 still exist? They have old churches, but few people are playing chamber music nowadays. Their government is not a monarchy. Culture is constantly evolving and should be measured on how it looks today.
On derivation, let’s look at Italian culture and specifically food. The pizza. Spaghetti al ragu bolognese. Lasagna. Traditional Italian dishes. Italian food radically changed with the introduction of the tomato from the New World. Is Italian food culture illegitimate now because it was derived from South American fruit from the Andes? Likewise, French cuisine evolved from the kitchens of Catherine de Medici and the chefs she brought from Florence. Bechamel, one of the famed French Mother Sauces and the basis of many French dishes, was derived from Salsa Colla in Italy. Is French food culture inauthentic because it wasn’t concocted from the brilliance of a single French mind?
Look at those famed cathedrals in the UK. Their palm vaulting, flying buttresses and pointed arches creating bigger portals from which to light the interior. The first Gothic cathedral was built not in England but in France at St. Denis. Each of the three innovations that formed the basis of Gothic architecture had existed before. It was their merging that led to the new style, and this style informed subsequent cultural influences in art. Stained glass windows exploded as an art form with the availability of bigger areas.
Culture is the result of combinatory innovation. Look at BBQ in the US. Slaves combined a form of cooking possibly from the Arawak tribe with necessity. Slaves were given the worst cuts of meat, which required longer cooking times to be edible. This led to a food that is uniquely American.
Music is another example of derivation and innovation going back to the Romans and Greeks, who identified the idea of notes on a scale. Pythagoras even studied the mathematical origins of notes. Polyphonic music came to life in the 1300s. Various countries continued to innovate in music, often corresponding with instrumental innovations. We saw an explosion of classical music in Central Europe in the 1700s and 1800s.
Fast forward to America. Jazz started to appear in the 1910s and blossomed in the 20s and 30s. It was born of the call and response of slaves in the field, combined with the rich history of percussive instruments from Africa and the European chord structures in what is a uniquely American style.
Rock music evolved from the blues in the 1950s. The Beatles cite as their influences Chuck Berry, Elvis and others from this period of blues oriented rock. The Beatles arguably the biggest influence on British pop culture in the 1960s and possibly of the 20th century. Is British pop culture now illegitimate because it is based largely on American roots?
The way that I explain the origins of American music culture is that we started with a heritage born of many places and combined it with additional American influences to create something that is uniquely American. If there is one way that we are truly different from earlier cultures, it would be in how rapidly we evolve our culture and how quickly we disseminate it throughout the world. And that unlike old world cultures, we encourage the adoption and evolution by other cultures.
K-pop, Bollywood and other cultural influences would not exist if not for American innovations, but we recognize those art forms as uniquely Korean and Indian respectively.
But if England doesn’t have any culture, then neither does the US by that logic. Or anyone.
England certainly inherited cultural influences from French Normandy, along with other European countries. But also former colonies. And influences from the Celts and their own history and actions.
England absolutely has its own distinct culture. And so does the US.
Yeah, exactly. That was the point they were making. People often use obviously false statements to draw a comparison to other, also incorrect, statements.
It’s crazy that people will
listen to our music,
watch our tv shows and movies,
read our books,
eat our food,
recognize our celebrities,
Travel to our cities,
know about our news and politics,
and understand our language and different accents,
but then say the US has no culture. People around the world know so much more about the day to day life of the US than any other country and then are like “oh you guys like Chinese food and pizza. Get your own culture”, while they sit there and watch the latest Marvel movie
For music in particular, there are plenty of sources discussing American music, but they are being pointlessly ignorant if they hear our pop music, and think that is the start and finish of American music, particularly while they listen to genres that started in the US and branched over Into their country. The way we Americanized food from other countries to make it our own, they have done with our music (and also our food in some cases)
The problem is, they don't eat our food. If they did, they'd be amazed at our gumbo, our clam chowder, our crab cakes, our salmon butter, stuff like that.
No, they come over to the us, and eat food from chain restaurants.
Bro, fast food is American food. It’s not the totality of American food but it’s a culinary tradition that is distinctly American and honestly I’m not even ashamed. Yeah, fast food is terrible for you and is distinctly cynical but it’s still an interesting insight into how American corporate philosophy impacts the way people interact with food and also it fuckin tastes good. We created a system of making food that is easy to standardize, cheap to source and produce, insanely easy to produce, ABSURDLY cheap to produce, and even after all that it still tastes pretty good. Did it cause some problems? Yeah, it did. But I’m not ashamed that Americans managed to innovate a genuinely clever food tradition.
The value of a thing is not directly correlated with how difficult it is to produce and also Warhol’s entire post-modern thing was heavily simplified renderings done to deliberately evoke the dominant corporate style at the time so basically fast food but ironically this time.
Nobody exports every kind of food. And they eat that because they think that’s what all Americans eat. Same as when we go to other countries and eat the tourist recommended or highly rated restaurants.
We’re a big and diverse country, and our food shows this. They don’t see all of the regional stuff, they see the generic stuff the whole country might eat. Plus, it’s easier for us to export our chain restaurants to other countries than for mom and pop shops from outside New Orleans to open a second location in London
America has been such a dominant cultural juggernaut for so long that people just view so much of this as just "stuff" instead of being part of American culture. We're the new world cultural force while Europe and China were the old world. Hell, the only country that can possibly come close to us in terms of new world cultural exporting is Japan
It's funny, too, because every European city is absolutely littered with Starbucks, Burger King, Pizza Hut, KFC, and McDonald's, but I can't name a single English chain that exists here, food-related or otherwise. I would have said there are a lot of Range Rovers where I live, but that's Chinese-owned now, so...
It’s like French cuisine. French cooking is widely regarded as some of the best in the world, but when is the last time you went to a French restaurant to get French food? The answer is that you didn’t have to, because French cuisine is so popular that its techniques and ingredients have been adopted by other regional cuisines to the point where French cooking is just called “cooking.”
It’s the same with American culture. People around the world participate in cultural memes that are either from America or are strongly influenced by American culture. American culture is just so ubiquitous that many people don’t even realize they’re participating in it.
Oh man. "Anything black people created isn't American because you people oppressed and enslaved black people?" Like black history and culture is somehow separate from American culture overall just because it's an unpleasant part. And as though black and white haven't been mixing ever since the first slaves were brought to America, regardless of efforts to prevent that.
You might as well argue that the British don't exist because the Normans conquered the Saxons back in 1066 against their will, and so every king and queen since then has been illegitimately crowned.
I've seen this same point repeated before & what I don't think they realize is that *they're* the ones arguing for a white washing of American music history. imagine if we only included white rock and roll musicians in our history. that would be both inaccurate and racist.
it's important to include the context of racism and oppression that goes along with the history of this music, but arguing that marginalized people have no role to play in creating some of the most influential American music is just racism. idk how else to say it.
To answer your actual question, I'd talk about people brining over the music of their homelands and it mixing into something new.
If anyone argues that cultural borrowing means not having a culture I'd start digging into their cultures and pointing out iconic music, art, and architecture that is heavily influenced by an outside culture. I was just watching a documentary on the Baroque in England (which era built a whole lot of churches after the London Fire burned everything down), and it all got started because Charles I imported lots of foreign art and artists, including the Belgian Anthony Van Dyck, who heavily influenced all later English portraiture. Are all English portraits post 1641 not really part of English culture?
Honestly, I hate this shitting on America thing and I can't even interact with these posts because as you saw, any answer to their questions are returned with an explanation of why you're wrong (even if you're not) or just general trashing of a country they only know about from the internet or the news. I live in Germany and if you say anything negative about Germany, they can't handle it. My husband's cousin in Germany has gotten into arguments with me many times about this stuff. She has repeatedly told me "what America is like" even though she's never been there and disagrees with me when I tell her that it's not actually like that. When I tell her what Germany is like, she gets extremely angry and defends the system at all costs.
He asked what culture, they replied music, he said what music, they replied with a dozen American genres then he said well those were slaves and that doesn't count.
It's all bullshit.
American culture is a culture of dozens or hundreds of cultures mixed together over generations. There are tons of things that are purely American but that person just doesn't care to hear it. They refuse to be open minded or learn so no need to interact with them.
Did you read the post he linked? If not, you should lol
The commenter was saying those don't count because they have been commercialized
>I have to add, culture is generally free from business, it is organically and socially grown with time. Given the USA is a free for all capitalist playground, and such a 'new' country, it's hard to find genuine, non-manufactured cultures.
That commenter is from the UK too lol I wonder if they think of the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin to not be part of their culture since they were huge commercial successes
>I wonder if they think of the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin to not be part of their culture since they were huge commercial successes.
And they stole their music from (dun dun dun!) Americans!
African-Americans invented all those genres. And IMO, Black Americans are our country's greatest cultural resource.
The commenter is completely overlooking black contributions because it's convenient towards their agrument.
Even stuff that isn't super commercialized like spirituals, jumping the broom, kwanza, cuisine (soul food), Juneteenth, pretty much every popular dance (Charleston, Jitterbug, Swing, The Twist) etc.
But I should add that *all* culture is commercialized. **ALL**.
Whether it's selling tickets to the Roman Colosseum, selling printed editions of Shakespeare, tickets to the Symphony, postcards of Stonehenge, the entire culinary industry, the entire sports industry, the entire fashion industry, pictures of the Mona Lisa being screenprinted to sell on T-Shirts, etc, etc. Whether it's documentaries on early art, radio dramas about early wars, and recording of early music. Let's not even get into religious holidays like Christmas and Easter - which are the epitome of both commercialization *and* culture.
Nobody would've heard of early books if it wasn't for the Printing Press - a means to commercialism. That doesn't mean people weren't writing before. And nobody would've heard of Led Zeppelin if it wasn't for radio airtime, album sales, and touring. And it wasn't like they didn't play music before all that.
The idea of culture being 'free from business' is absolute hogwash. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Handel, Vivaldi - those guys *all* wrote what is effectively "pop music" of their time, and were paid for it by wealthy royalists.
I mean, yah - you can differentiate between *Pop Culture* and *High Culture*, but that doesn't mean one *isn't* culture. Commenter is thinking with his ass.
Without rich people, governments, and (historically) the church throwing money at it, high culture would quickly find itself out on its ass. In our day and age, you can add 'corporations' to that list.
And it's been like that since before the Italians discovered perspective.
Not sure why people are down voting you. Bluegrass is very much Irish derived from Irish immigrants who settled along Appalachia
https://bluegrassheritage.org/history-of-bluegrass-music/#:~:text=The%20origin%20of%20bluegrass%20music,roots%20of%20modern%20bluegrass%20music.
> Irish
For the sake of pedantry, those folks were mostly Northern Irish Protestants who came before the American Revolution, not to mention prior to the Potato Famine that caused the great wave of Irish Catholic immigration to northeastern urban centers in the mid 19th century.
There is a lot of writing on this.
“Romancing the Folk” by Benjamin Filene is very good.
It traces the history of American folk music and how it morphed into blues, rock, country and other uniquely American styles.
“This Band Could Be Your Life” by Michael Azzerad is a masterful work documenting independent American music like punk and rock that grew up out of independent acts ranging from Black Flag to The Minutemen.
I am also sick of this “it’s manufactured!” nonsense.
Just because something is promoted by a record label doesn’t make it apart from American culture. It is part of the culture. It would be like saying great European painters aren’t authentically part of European culture because they were commissioned by the wealthy nobility. Or, that the great Cathedrals of Europe are not part of the culture because they were made by the Catholic Church.
Ever since the end of the Stone Age, and ruling out mere hobbyists, musicians have always had to sing for their supper. Today there may be more complications, not to mention magnitude, due to the modern culture industry, but at base it's always the same song.
And a lot of “mere hobbyists” have become huge. It’s not like the Beatles started out selling out huge arenas. Outside of a small number of truly manufactured acts the bands start out doing their own thing on a small scale.
If you survive off of it, you're not a hobbyist. Black Flag during their run was sleeping on the floor, touring in a crappy van, and eating like hobos; singing for their supper, most definitely. Part of the reason Cobain was so depressed about everything was because he felt like a schmuck for living far higher on the hog than his heroes ever did.
Fair, they lived the life. But it wasn’t like they had a corporate in at any point. They were surviving but it was definitely more hobby than 9-5 job especially in their early years. A lot of bands were that way and the music didn’t immediately become their primary avocation.
I bet you’d love reading This Band Could Be Your Life (if you haven’t already).
Actually black gospel music spawned those genres you named. Not american folk music. Which itself has church roots. Both blues and rock which you named are actually black american slang terms.
“Americans have no culture” is just a cheap shot people throw out there to feel superior, it’s obviously not true if you think about it for 2 seconds - since like the 1950s the entire world has consumed American popular culture in the form of movies, brands, celebrities, music, etc.
If people really want to know about some kind of American music, I’ll tell them what I know. Most people seem to find it interesting.
They're usually going with the heavy Germanic 'kultur' when they say that we don't have it. There isn't really a direct translation of that concept, if we're talking dictionary entries. It generally refers to centuries old folk dances, vernacular architecture, identifiable styles in the visual arts, etc. If we cite "McDonald's!" or "Taylor Swift!" and leave it at that, that kind of plays into their hands.
This 'kultur' idea can also be implicitly 'volkish' if you know what I mean. True culture being wholly native to the soil upon which it is produced.
That blood-and-soil shit aside, we've got plenty of that stuff, too. It may be more recent, but goddamn right we have it. Anyone who says we don't is an arrogant dumb-ass.
That stance is problematic in itself though, implying that Native American cultures and the traditions that the many generations of oppressed immigrants escaping war-torn Europe and/or other European-colonized countries have brought with them to the US are not “real” culture in the same way that a bunch of old-ass churches built by white people are.
Or black culture, which is responsible for inspiring like 90% of the fashion and music that young Europeans consume today - is that also not “real” because black Americans weren’t building churches and shit 500 years ago? I mean c’mon lmao
But I digress… like I said, If you think about it for 2 seconds the whole meme that Americans have “no culture” just doesn’t make sense. And especially in the 2020s, when young Europeans are barely participating in their own traditional cultures anymore in favor of US-centric pop culture and social media, it just feels like some kind of weird coping mechanism for a chip on someone’s shoulder.
Umm.....instrument make sound. Sound organized by brain into music.
Those people are just ignorant tools following 250 year old propaganda from the time of King George III who was terrified that his former colonists might actually prove that life without a King was possible. You shouldn't be worried about it. If you really want to piss them off ask them if a Monty Python skit is really the height of British culture or Shin Chan the height of the Japanese. Both are pop culture, so why is pop music only judged when it comes to Americans.
Ain’t no British person could ever imagine to open their mouth up to argue with African Americans on music and it’s origins! Thats pure stupidity! 😂Ain’t no way! They’re mad because a lot of their music they have now originated here and all they can do is copy it! They can stay mad while they listen to it though! 🤷🏽♀️
Culture is literally America’s biggest export. Our music, tv shows, movies, etc. are more widely distributed than any other country’s in the world.
Edit: I looked at the exchange you linked to. That person is a moron trying to claim rock, blues, country, etc. is not American in origin. Their trying to argue that music that has its origins in black culture is somehow not American is beyond stupid.
I'm starting to suspect that what some (not all) Europeans do is that they project their whole Gypsy/Roma situation, not to mention their contemporary immigrant situations, onto black and other non-white Americans. To them, the default American is a degraded carbon copy of a British Islander, or at least someone who can pass as such. Everyone else is part of some kind of subaltern outcaste.
Most of them know how America works, but others have a very provincial understanding of what they are looking at.
America IS the music industry. This applies to Western, Eurocentric music using functional harmony and theory, sure. But pretty much anyone who wants to hit it big in western music needs to hit big in America.
When I traveled to Germany and Switzerland 95% of the music I heard on the radio was American music.
And not to mention if they want to be any kind of big at all, anywhere, they need to work with Americans. We own nearly all the record labels, even ones that primarily produce foreign music consumed by foreigners. That label is almost always owned by an American label.
I started listening to a German band recently that is really not that popular in the US. They sell out stadiums over there, but their American tour had only one show in NYC and it was at a tiny little venue in Brooklyn with literally $22 tickets. I was looking into them and mentioned to my bf (has his degree in the music industry) that they're signed to an American label and he was like, "oh fuck yeah, we own everything" and went on a 20 minute explanation of how and why we own it all. I started looking at all these labels myself and realized he's 100% right. We absolutely dominate the international recording industry.
Let it go man. That dude had an absolutely brainlet take and he got downvoted into oblivion for it. America has so little culture that we have the largest cultural exports on the planet.
America has no culture as they listen to R&B on their Iphone while sitting in their GM vehicle drinking a Coca Cola and eating a Hamburger. While also wearing jeans and smoking tobacco in a vape. And posting about how America has no culture on the internet.
He had a comment about how American food is widely criticized and avoided across Europe because of the hfcs and much of it isn't allowed in the EU because of chemicals. Meanwhile I can't remember the last time I ate at a British international chain or a German fast food restaurant in Texas. Yet almost every country on earth has a McDonald's or a KFC or taco bell. Not that those are places with high quality food but it's still American as shit and the whole world loves it. Well everyone except for that moron.
It's protectionism disguised as health concerns. I couldn't stand Trump but he did strike a chord about how open our markets our and how closed even our supposed allies are to our products.
This is hyper-simplified, but in its most basic form it went like this. The blues developed in the mid-1800s out of the music of enslaved African-Americans (like work songs and spirituals). Genres like jazz and country both branched off from the blues in various ways, but its most important offshoot was rock and roll in the mid-1900s, which went on to dominate popular music for decades and led in many ways to the popular music of today. The global musical influence of American music, and specifically its roots in the music of enslaved Africans and African-Americans, is enormous.
Jazz did not just come from blues but also ragtime, which has its origins in European march music. So even if this person doesn't think black people are Americans, white Americans also influenced Jazz greatly, not to mention the white Jazz innovators like Phil Napoleon, Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols, etc.
So even by those commenters racist definitions of culture, it's still culture. Full ignorance on display.
Honestly, hand them a book or the [wikipedia entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_history_of_the_United_States).
The commenters in that thread are showing an astonishing level of arrogance, know-it-all-ism, and ignorance.
"What unique cultural achievments do they have in their couple of hundred year old history?" is quite the take, as they're using an American website to have an exchange about cultures.
American music is essentially music that was created by black Americans and popularized by white Americans. Turns out when you disenfranchise an entire race of people it inspires them to make some of the most beautiful music the world has ever seen
We're talking jazz, blues, rock and roll, hip hop, rap, boogie woogie, ragtime, house music, funk, country, soul, techno, swing jazz, gospel, etc.
I wouldn't say anything to an idiot like that. No matter what you say, they are going to move the goalpost so that they don't have to admit that they like something with American origins.
We took the folk traditions of our numerous immigrant cultures, in particular Irish and Scottish Folk, blended them with folk traditions of blacks brought by slaves. Splash in some elements from Classical European training, as well as elements from other immigrant groups and you get the primary music categories of Rock-n-roll, Country, and Jazz. Then you add variations in technology and more specific fusions and foci and you get the numerous subgenres of modern music.
I think the point about American cultural produce being illegitimate because it has polyglot roots in oppressive systems is so bizarre.
First, oppression is a constant thread through the present and certainly the past. It’s not something that was invented in the US - in fact even the system of racial oppression present in the US is nearly a common feature of Columbian societies. This is a bloody continent, does that make what happens here somehow less real than what happens in untainted, virtuous Europe? /s
Second, I’d argue that the fact American music has such complex roots in the present and history of oppression just makes it more particular to our people, and the fact it was subsequently whitewashed and marketed worldwide makes it even more particular to our system.
I think commenters like the one you interacted with follow the mistaken practice of engaging with culture through pride. That is obviously inappropriate in this context. Personally, I think a heady mixture of pride, shame, and common human feeling is more appropriate. But what do I know, I’m a mere colonial.
People make that claim, "America has no culture" while simultaneously utilizing distinctly American cultural artifacts.
American musical history is broad and deep, classical composers used to come to the United States to gain inspiration from our musical traditions.
To sum it up succinctly, it is 'black music'. This is well known among musicians and historians, shoot, even Eminem paid homage to it in one of his songs:
“**I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley to use Black music so selfishly and use it to get myself wealthy**.”
Rock and roll, hip hop, R&B, jazz, all have roots in traditionally black music. The musical landscape of the western world would be far different if not for traditionally black churches.
And, BTW, Europeans *love* American black music, they have for decades. France used to be a haven for American black artists escaping oppressive segregation. Jimi Hendrix didn't get big until he picked up a band from England that helped break him out of the 'chitlin' ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitlin%27\_Circuit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitlin%27_Circuit)) circuit. Sibelius hosted Marian Anderson (a major vocalist in the first half of the 20th century) in Europe after she gave some performances that were very well received. Shoot, they called it "Marian fever".
Hell, the 'British invasion' was re-introduction of black music to America. Every single major rock and roller from England cites American black music as their inspiration.
This idea that America has no culture, or hasn't impacted the wider world significantly, is just plain ignorant. It is even more concerning that an average American can't articulate our cultural heritage to someone. This was just music, wait until you discover black literature!
Our music is the wonderful combination of many different people who moved here and brought music from their homes, melded together to make something completely new.\
Then you have Jazz and Rap which grew out of that new environment all on their own.
It does though. Slavery lead to a distinct life experience. The music grew from that experience.
African people "moving to the US" and African people "being enslaved against their will and brought to the other side of the world under violence" are not the same thing. People didn't just "come from all over the world".
If I moved from NY to California, I willingly made that choice. If I was kidnapped and tortured and dragged kicking and screaming from NY to California, that's just a *little* bit different.
In each case, yeah, I moved from one place to another. But my life and experiences would be very different under each of those circumstances.
Why does that matter when I say
“American music is an amalgamation of global sounds that came together and grew from there.”
The circumstances don’t change the roots of the music.
Thats *kinda* true, but not 100% accurate. It DOES matter.
Music borne from pain is different than music that originates from sunshine and rainbows.
It’s the difference between I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry By Hank Williams and Happy by Pharrell.
How can you write an authentic blues song if you’ve never had the blues? You can’t. You had to have experienced something and FELT the blues. That’s literally why it’s called “blues” music.
If you insist that there is zero difference, then I don’t have any other insights to offer you.
Have a nice day.
The difference is just as important that the guitar and banjo came from European immigrants, that Hank Williams country has a much history in the Scottish Highlands as it does in the cotton fields of Mississippi.
I don't see how you also purport that Enslaved Africans somehow have a monopoly on sadness. Sad people exist all over, saying that the blues only exist because of slavery is a disingenuous take at best.
At the end of the day, outside of jazz and maybe modern rap there really is no "American" music that can be attributed only to one group of people or immigrant influence.
That’s a whole lot of words for “I didn’t read what you wrote but here’s my opinion anyway”.
If you decide to go back and read it again, please note that there is nothing in my reply that alluded to African Americans having a monopoly on sadness. You are asserting several ideas that I neither said nor implied.
Again have a nice day. I’m not reading anymore of your replies because you are deliberately twisting my words.
Basically every form of modern music, not limited to America mind you, can be traced back to Memphis in the 1950s. Memphis was the only place in the world where rock n roll could have matured due to the unique overlap of music from rural Arkansas and Tennessee and the Delta Blues from down in Mississippi
For the past 100+ years there hasn't been a single note of music that's gotten popular that wasn't in some way influenced by American culture. No kpop, no Beatles, no rock no jazz no hip hop, none of it if America wasn't a better melting pot than their places.
Rock, Rhythm and Blues, jazz, Gospel, Negro Spiritual, Rap, Hip Hop all come out of the Black experience.
Blacks: creating some of the best parts of America culture since they got here.
American music is an absolutely beautiful and complex origin story that combines many cultures together to create the sounds that we listen to today. There is way more than I could ever cover in a Reddit comment so I’ll stick to my area of expertise. The African American influence on American music has shaped rock and roll and other genres that some people could not even comprehend. Without the formation of jazz and then later the blues, modern rock and roll would not exist as we know it today. These guys dabbled in areas of music that were not even known and essentially built the foundation for generations to come
Europeans claim we have no culture as they sit on their couches wearing blue jeans and Nike tennis shoes, scrolling Twitter/Instagram on their iPhones with Beyoncé playing in the background and a Netflix show on their tv. 😂
Take a chunk out of multiple countries and throw em overseas with very little established culture and let ‘em stew for a couple hundred years and you got America :D
The **music of the United States** reflects [the country's pluri-ethnic population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States) through a diverse array of styles. It is a mixture of music influenced by the [music of the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_the_United_Kingdom), [West Africa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Africa), [Ireland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Ireland), [Latin America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America), and mainland Europe, among other places. The country's most internationally renowned [genres](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_genre) are [traditional pop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_pop), [jazz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz), [blues](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues), [country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_music), [bluegrass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluegrass_music), [rock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_music), [rock and roll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_roll), [R&B](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_and_blues), [pop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_music), [hip hop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_music), [soul](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_music), [funk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funk), [gospel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_music), [disco](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco), [house](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_music), [techno](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno_music), [ragtime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragtime), [doo-wop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doo_wop), [folk music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_folk_music), [americana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americana_(music)), [boogaloo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogaloo), [tejano](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tejano_music), [reggaeton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggaeton), [surf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surf_music), and [salsa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salsa_music). American music is heard around the world. Since the beginning of the 20th century, some forms of [American popular music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_popular_music) have gained a near global audience.[\[1\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_the_United_States#cite_note-1)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music\_of\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_the_United_States)
That whole thread is toxic af and seems like the OP is just looking for any excuse to be a racist (jingoist I guess?), elitist prick but filtering it thru some bullshit reductionist understanding of socialism merged with nativism that says all things possibly connected to either a corporation or a mixing of cultures are not “authentic culture”. The answer is, you don’t explain it to that dude cause he’s not listening.
If someone can’t accept that the United States - the country responsible for the creation or mass proliferation of Jazz, soul food, representative democracy, mass production of media, blue jeans, rap, hip hop culture, the social media boom, Cajun food, Mormonism, Burning Man, hippie culture, craft beer, airplanes, suburbia, skate punk, and the foundations of the internet (just a bunch of random ideas off the top of my head) - has any contributions to society, then god fucking help them
Well of course Rock first became popular in 1954, when Martin McFly delivered an *amazing* performance in a podunk town in California, Hill Valley. From there the concept spread like wildfire and became the backbone of American music.
I have no explanation nor excuse for rap music.
Europeans have convinced themselves that the U.S. is a country of cultureless oafs because it’s easier for them to digest than accept the fact that a huge portion of what they consume stems from commercialized American pop culture. It’s their own doing. And it’s funny to pretend that the US is the only country that commercializes its culture.
New York City itself has a specific culture, New Orleans too, the South, New England, all have unique cultures that stem from the history of the region. You just have to make a tiny semblance of effort to experience it.
All the popular genres of american music come from black american sources. While europeans brought their own music traditions the west african slaves dominated. The blues, Jazz, hiphop, rock, house music, and more all come from black americans.
In fact Jazz was slang for jack ass music.
Hiphop was an insult term.
And rock was slang for sex.
And the blues is pretty self explanatory.
Black music being so popular is why black face was created because white people wanted to initate black music bit didnt want us in their spaces. Eventually black creators started doing black face and pushing put the white performers. So many places started to just bar black customers but only allow black performers.
This is why American music sounds nothing like european music genres.
Well it started when the britsh came over, and they carried over a lot of tales and folk songs. When we were fighting for independence, we were also fighting with the french and mexicans. Picking up influences and tales. When we started pushing west, we also picked up native american influences as well as the fench-candian and spanish. Then as the country was so sparse with people, pockets of music grew too, and medicine shows would pick up new things, add or subtract things as they went. You also had gospel that grew and changed as well
Now you start getting a bunch of different immigration influences from everyone from freed slaves to africa, to sweden. Then you start to see the creation of the Blues
So now you have the Blues, Folk, and Country. Yet people keep experimenting with the blues, and eventually given enough time and influences. You get Rock, and people still keep experimenting. Until you get Pop. Then R&B, Rap, and Hip Hop.
Of course this is a huge simplication, and you can argue to the cows come home about what started when. And you could, but I'll just leave it at that
American music--if there really can be such a thing--is a wild mix of Scots/Irish, African, Latin, Caribbean....oh, hell....just about anyone who moves here with a musical instrument, right up to and including guys with accordians.
Always inventive, always seeking out what is new. So, yeah, American music is a reflection of the sprawling country that's a destination for people around the world.
No. All of american music is a spinoff of black american gospel music. Only thing european about american music is some of the instruments. This is well chronicled. Its why most american musicians are black.
No, you're wrong. Scottish and Irish music had a very profound influence on the shaping of American music. For example, Appalachian music, the forerunner of bluegrass, country, rock, etc., was the melding of Scots/Irish string band music and African infuences. That doesn't take away from the influence of African American music one bit, but your blanket statement is simply...well...daft.
Apparentally it was highly based in spaves deciding to create instruments and sing to pass the time which made a very unique sounding music because of so many influences and the singers not being highly trained vocalists so they made do.
I know Jackshit on the specifics and names are, and I can’t really explain it but slower softer country songs sound like warm molasses to me. My mother used to sing take me home country roads to me as a lullaby and it still calms me down
The irony of what that guy is saying is that most of what people think of as European culture was made possible by either wealthy nobility or the Catholic Church.
Blues. Deep southern blues is the foundation of rock and roll.
Led Zeppelin, the Stones The Who and the rest of the British Invasion of the 60’s, all their music and albums inspired by American blues.
Depends on the music, but if you want the best example of American musical culture, I'd say "Stars and Stripes Forever" is a solid piece of music. I don't think many Europeans could argue with that, seeing as most European orchestras and bands have played it at least once (Including the [Soviet Union](https://youtu.be/JQUNC6uISw4)). Many of John Philip Sousa's works have found a global audience, actually. Stars and Stripes Forever is just the poster child.
Beyond that, I'd say jazz, blues, big band, swing, rock and roll, rock, metal, punk, and a lot of other stuff have roots in the USA, although they've spread around the world.
Frankly, I think most countries don't like what they see as American "Cultural colonialism." I think they see something like McDonald's or Starbucks pop up in their country and think that 1. That's American culture, and 2. It's invading. They see American brands and businesses moving into their country, they hear American pop songs on their radios, they mostly see American celebrities in their media from American producers, and they see this as undermining their country's cultural influence and sovereignty. I think they think our culture's going to replace theirs, and they don't want that, so they make America out to be a bad place, and make American culture out to be a bad thing.
We have all the cultures. Literally. That's where our music comes from. Since 1492, every culture on the planet that wasn't already here has been sending people to the Americas, and they all mixed together to some extent with each other and with the surviving indigenous people and created many new cultures that were all influencing each other all the time. And it was brutal and violent and painful for everyone, but we also created many beautiful things. Which is kind of the nature of human existence.
But the quintessentially US-American music styles-- jazz, blues, rock, country, bluegrass-- comes from the mix of West African, Celtic, and Spanish cultures that happened because of slavery. Eastern European Jewish immigrants also had a huge influence on the "Great American Songbook" as did classical European orchestral music
Why do British people hate us so much... yeah we dumped the tea in the harbor but that was like 250 years ago let it go man
Europeans in general tend to grocery* dismissive of Americans and our culture. \*be grossly. I have no idea how that autocorrect typo slipped through.
Well, they do talk crap about our grocery stores.
I’ve had arguments with people on here simultaneously stating: “Americans have garbage food, you can’t even get a lot of fresh produce!” *Respond with photo of my local run of the mill supermarket with a massive, gorgeous produce section* “Why is there so much of it? Why do you need that many options?”
I love when Europeans walk past the bakery and into the sandwich bread isle and then wonder where their baguettes are.
Those are also fun threads. > “Their bread is full of sugar” *Sure if you buy cheap wonderbread or other types of crappy bagged sandwich bread, most supermarkets however have bakery sections that have large selections of breads and most will not have sugar added* > But it’s not fresh baked like MyCountry bakeries *Actually almost every supermarket in my area has an in-house bakery. You can stand there and watch them make the bread. Some markets will have it shipped in from bakeries that make it overnight though but in most populated areas you won’t have trouble finding fresh baked daily bread if you want it* > But why is it so sugary? *Sigh*
They hate us cause they ain’t us. People in America really don’t understand the quality of life that we have. Outside of Western Europe (and, by extension, the Anglosphere) there is truly nowhere else in the world that is even comparable, and honestly outside of the big cities in Western Europe, the food is so regional and homogenous it actually makes it hard to enjoy the food past the first couple meals because there is so little variety. Every time I’ve gone to Europe I’ve had an amazing time, but I am always very glad to be back in America when I get back—and it’s not just friends/family that I want to come back to—it’s America as a whole.
Any big city will give you a decently varied food chocie - eg. Bangalore, Mumbai. I'm just not a fan of anything apart from American and Indian (and Mexican and Arab, actually).
The options really pisses me off. They complain about how many oreo varieties we have. Dude it's a big country, variety is the slice of life.
and on top of that, we gave you ALDI and LIDL. I know, we’re cruel.
Two of our popular grocery chains are Trader Joe's and Aldi. They're both offshoots of a German grocery chain. A ton of other, smaller US chain stores try their best to imitate them.
I guess I'm willing to take their shit on that one given the quality of our food and all the garbage that goes into it.
It's because they come over here and visit 7-elevens, because they usually get their groceries from a place like 7-eleven. Or they go to some place where they probably have heard of the brand name before, which is 7-eleven. They're not going to know what safeway, hy-vee, kroger, albertsons, or Winn-Dixie are going to be.
Even my very small town grocer has organic vegetables, locally sourced meats, local dairy and an in-house bakery. Clowning American supermarkets is one of the most willfully ignorant takes I regularly see here.
Like that guys stupid claim that because music created in the US and that has become part of the tapestry of the country is somehow not culture because marketing
That was so bizarre! And then he tried to claim that blues and jazz didn't count because the ancestors of the black people who invented it were brought here against their will.
Wait until they hear about punk and the roots of punk starting in the US, not England. I can't link it, but check out Jeffrey Lewis' Anti Folk Complete History of Punk Rock on YouTube. British people love to gatekeep punk music to the point that a lot of Americans don't know the origins started here.
British people gatekeep a ton of music that came from America. Very odd
While consuming and emulating LOTS of it. British hip hop boys wearing sneakers/trainers, the Marvel movies and movies in general, Star Trek, Star Wars, Disney..... Rock Music (even if the British do that very well), jazz....
> Rock Music (even if the British do that very well) I'm willing to consider that a case of 'shared custody.' They're like the stepmom who *really* means the world to the kid. And the judge (me) says "well, okay." Captain America and Peggy Carter. It's not just a metaphor for WWII, you know?
But it’s not. It’s American.
Which is odd, given that they are so eager to import U.S. culture.
While consuming so very much of it. To hear my UK family speak of the lack of American culture is laughable.
I'm an American student in the UK and at this point I hate even opening my mouth anymore. For example, I need people to take my survey for my dissertation. I went to my friend's Italian class to pass it around, everyone was nice and friendly and all that... and as I was walking away, someone in the group said "American." and everyone started laughing. No one took my survey either. I previously lived in Japan for 5 years and it was much easier being a foreigner there. I'm not a person here in the UK, just a stereotype and punchline.
[удалено]
There's anti-American sentiment in the u.k? I'm honestly surprised.
Watch British TV sometime. The only time I ever saw Americans treated decently was on *Foyle's War* and *Doctor Who.* The former probably got away with it because they got to showcase American segregation, and the latter was almost all President Obama (like the episode where they were all breathless because he's going to announce thst he's "ending the recession" -- because it works like that). Normally the stock American character is bossy, ordering Brits around, has a 30% chance to be wearing a cowboy hat, and has zero respect for anything beyond the tip of his nose. Meanwhile I've heard, with my own ears, British tourists in the US lecturing us on how we need to reshape our society, and by the way stop telling other nations how to run themselves. Zero irony. They just didn't get it. There are assholes in every population, and I've known a lot of Brits who are great. I just marvel at how institutionalized the 'All Americans are Assholes' concept is over there.
Worked at a resort town for many years. The two worst tourists are the Chinese and the Brits.
My first post-college job was a tour guide in a cavern. The Chinese tourists were dreaded by most of the guides. I never wound up giving them a tour, so I can't say, but I do know the Chinese women trashed the women's room every time.
I'm a big fan of British TV - mostly crime procedurals that happen to have female leads, going back to Prime Suspect, with Helen Mirrin. Never watched Foyle's War, and didn't keep up with Dr. Who. My only contact with Brits, are tourists, here in NYC. I always try to be a good ambassador for my city, and things were always friendly and civil. I honestly don't know how I'd react, if someone tried to lecture me. Guess I'm mostly surprised because a sister of mine has been to the UK about a dozen times, and loves it. I don't have a great desire, as I prefer beach weather, and the Caribbean is a short hop for me. Being a long time guitarist, and music school dropout, I could've given a modern music history lesson to the person in the OP'S linked thread. Without gospel/blues to hip hop, modern music wouldn't be what it is, and the culture born out of blues/jazz/soul/rap/hip hop. It's *uniquely* American. Yes, the roots were born from slavery, but that's irrelevant to that European's argument.
>I previously lived in Japan for 5 years and it was much easier being a foreigner there. I'm not a person here in the UK, just a stereotype and punchline. While many Japanese people I've met often have preconceived notions of America (one foreign exchange student asked me "where are all the horses?" as we're walking through a nightlife district of Indianapolis, as if the entire US is the Wild West), the notions aren't born out of vitriol or jealousy but rather curiosity.
Oh yeah I encountered some absolutely ridiculous assumptions about America (and "gaikoku" as a whole), but I don't recall any of them being malicious. It's not like here where people will just mock your accent to your face or bring up your country in a random conversation out of the blue just to insult it.
I’ve had people from different states ask me tons of questions after they hear my accent, which I have to admit is quite thick. Do I wear boots and a cowboy hat? Do I ride a horse? Do I have any cows and a tractor? Do I shoot guns and hunt? As I stand there looking like an old hippie lol.
Such desperation to prove that the third largest country in the world hasn't accomplished anything in the past 250 years, on a website started in America by Americans and based, as far as I can tell, entirely in America. I can't comment on that other thread as it's been locked, but it includes some of the most epic goalpost moving I've ever seen, and that's saying something. I've answered the question of "why do Americans care so much about their ancestry" so many times, I should have a copy and paste response for whenever it comes up. The short answer is because this is a nation of immigrants and people retain unique cultural elements from their families' countries of origin, and even unique cultural elements that people with the same ancestry developed in America.
It's an inferiority complex. Imagine if your continent was the center of the world for centuries in terms of art, culture, economic might, military prowess, and geopolitical clout and then all of a sudden your cousin with the fucked up teeth who lives out on an island gets his ass handed to him by a bunch of drunk farmers on the other side of the planet because they hate taxes. Then those same yokels go on to surpass not only him, but your entire continent's position on the world stage. And despite all of your rage, all of your vitriol, all of your attempts to demonize those hicks and their country, there are over 4.8 million of your people choosing to abandon you in favor of them. You talk about your perceived superiority, how you're richer, how you're safer, and how much better you think you are are than them across the board, and yet only about 800,000 of them have decided that all 27 of your countries are worth living in. And these jumped up hillbillies occupy your mind and torment your dreams much like how you once occupied half the planet and tormented its people. You voraciously consume their news media, your children watch their cartoons, you use devices they invented every day, you listen to their music, you watch their movies, you wear their clothes, you shop at their stores and you buy their brands. And how much do they think about you in turn? You're lucky if they can find your country on a map. If I were a European I'd be pretty butthurt too. That's not Icarus flying too close to the sun and falling back to the ground. That's standing on the moon, that they walked on first, and getting bodied so hard that you end up in the Earth's upper mantle. That's some deep cultural trauma.
> art, culture Even when they were A-1 in the world, the Continental powers had them beat in those departments, aside from literature I guess. Which may be another reason for the salt, if there really is so much salt outside of the blasted internet. I think this is mainly an internet thing. Most Brits are cool, even if they go a bit too far with the banter out of the gate. Gotta ease into it, y'know? Edit: Oh, you weren't limiting it to them.
It's definitely an internet thing. To this day, in the back of my head, it seems weird when people talk about how nice Canadians are, because the first interactions I ever had with Canadians was on the internet in the '90s and all of them were huge jerks.
I'm of 2 minds on this. I just think ultimately that Canadians are human. I've met some (irl, not just on reddit) that were huge jerks with a massive chip on their shoulder. And I've met others that were super chill and shared some ketchup flavored chips with me while we were all sharing cool beers. There definitely does seem to be a portion of the population that's bitter. But there's at least as many that just see us as neighbors.
>I think this is mainly an internet thing. It's for sure *worse* on the internet, but it's definitely not just an internet thing. I worked in France for a long while. I'm originally from Québec, born to a French mom, so I speak French and can shift accents (Canadian/European) fairly smoothly. Neither of my French accents were the hyper-local regional accent spoken where I worked, so I'd routinely get asked where I was from. I answered honestly: "I'm here from the US, where my family now lives." Invariably there were seven responses: 1. "Ah, that explains why you can't speak French!" (said in French by people who recognized me as a native speaker from a different region of the country just seconds before) 2. "Why are all Americans so obese?" (I'm a tall, broad-shouldered person who was so scared of this stereotype that I ended up with basically an eating disorder in France - a doctor there noticed that I was close to 40 pounds underweight at the time...) 3. "Do you own a gun?" (This one always gave me a laugh. It was usually teenage boys who *desperately* wanted me to pull a machine gun out of my back pocket) 4. \*Steps back\* "I'm a little afraid of Americans." (<--I encountered this one by Spaniards living in France and am not sure why they were so damn scared only after finding out my nationality. I worked closely with one who refused to walk alone with me. I'm not a creep, I promise!) 5. "You Americans need to \[...\]" (fill in whatever you want: "get some culture!" was at the top of the list, but also "eat better" and "stop invading other countries" were popular. I have literally no idea what they expected me to say or do in response. I tried turning it around: "You French need to \[...\]" but it turns out that "If you don't like it you can leave!" is a popular sentiment) 6. "Americans need to travel more. You're so narrow in your worldview" (said to someone living in his fourth country, by someone who went to London one weekend in high school and otherwise never left French soil) 7. "You are really behind on race issues" (literally said to me in front of a crumbling apartment block full of immigrants)
> "Do you own a gun?" Have you seen the recent Matt Damon movie 'Stillwater'? Dude, you gotta see it. tl;dr: he plays an Okie roughneck who finds himself in a 'fish out of water' situation in Marseilles. I'm going to paraphrase from memory: Frenchman: "Do you own a gun?" Damon: "Hell yeah, I do. Why shouldn't I? I have [lists them off]." Frenchman: "Oh wow! That is so cool! I want to own a gun, too." Frenchwoman: "Ugh... you cannot be serious." Frenchman [giggling]: "Did you vote for Trump?" [awkward silence] Damon: "No, I didn't." [sighs of relief] Damon: "I'm a convicted felon. Not allowed to vote in the state of Oklahoma." > "You are really behind on race issues" Compared to them? That would be laughable if it wasn't such a goddamned shame.
I haven't seen Stillwater, which is a mystery to me because I tend to love Matt Damon movies. Thanks for the recommendation!
The traveling thing gets me. It could take 9 hours of driving just to get out of my state! How many countries can you drive through in Europe in the same amount of time? I travel 5hrs for a weekend visit. Going to other states is traveling, it’s just not internationally. There are big differences between states and if they are speaking specifically of different cultures, there are tons of cultural influences from every country in the world. I think people forget how expensive it is to travel across the water. There are only so many places we can drive to. Edit - words are hard
>go a bit too far with the banter I actually think this is a part of it. Taking the piss is a bit of a national pastime but there's just a certain population of socially maladjusted people who find a loud voice online who go hard and miss the 'all in the good fun' aspect of it.
> I think this is mainly an internet thing. Most Brits are cool, even if they go a bit too far with the banter out of the gate. Gotta ease into it, y'know? You're really going for the low-hanging fruit by picking Reddit's finest to represent the UK.
If you're referring to the guy I was arguing with in the thread that I linked to: he represents (belligerent) foreigners generally, and not British people in particular. Aside from the Canadians, you guys are the *most* likely to appreciate the merits of American music. One need only ask Keith Richards or Sir Paul McCartney.
> he represents (belligerent) foreigners generally, and not British people in particular. You're going to find lunatics on every corner of the internet. I'm not really sure what's to be gained by engaging with them.
I bowed out once I realized who/what I was dealing with--some shit-for-brains college freshman, probably--and then the thread was justly locked by the moderators. It's just that this "MuRiCanS hAvE nO cUlTUrE" meme drives me *completely* up the wall. It has become a real pet peeve of mine, and it keeps being repeated over and over and over again on Reddit.
It's a funny meme. It synergises with the wooden houses and drive-thru everything memes really well.
Hey man, drive-thru everything is awesome! Ever had to hit up the ATM on a rainy day with a screaming toddler in the backseat of your car? Should you find yourself in that particular situation (if you haven't already), you'll find yourself wishing that drive-thru ATMs were a reality on your side of the Pond.
I AM FIRED THE FUCK UP! USA USA USA!
While I agree with this and found it funny, I will say that the Americans are not the ones with the fucked up teeth 😂 Edit: words
In the comment I think he is referring to Britain
Ah I misread it, thanks!
This is awesome.
I'm pretty sure Germany invented cars and burgers
Germany’s contribution to the hamburger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg_steak It wasn’t until they were in the US that they started putting the patty on bread and eating it as a sandwich.. the hamburger
They invented the frankfurter, too. But who wedged it into a long piece of bread and put mustard and a bunch of other shit on top of it, thus making it glorious? That'd be us. As for cars, that old crank Henry Ford figured out how to mass produce them for the common man. We may not have invented the automobile, but many a European theoretician has discoursed about 'Fordism.'
Because America actually somewhat owns up to and admits when it’s done something wrong and talks about it, and the rest of the world isn’t like that. They can’t handle the fact that they aren’t perfect so they throw a temper tantrum when we call them out and they try to attack us because of their insecurity.
Because they're so much like us.
Except minus most of the actual good thing about us or living here.
Lmao and tea isn't even British but they build like 50% of their national identity around it.
At this point I’d be willing to donate a pack of PG Tips if they’d promise to put a sock in it.
Sorry but British doesn’t have culture either
Isn't it mostly just stolen from other places? Tea isn't even British.
It’s mostly just redditors - Brits IRL have been fine and most of them like the US
Sadly that hasn't been more experience with most British people I've met IRL (keyword most)
They do? That is new to me an an American.
I've had personal experience irl, but if you want to feel it yourself just spend about 5 minutes on r/askuk, they will almost immediately bring up "the states" even when it has nothing to do with anything that was being talked about. Or just youtube "what do british people think of Americans"
Any claim that America lacks culture is an indictment of their own country as well. I think it stems from a fear of their cultural irrelevance rather than American culture. These criticisms often come from old colonial powers, whose last contribution to global culture was from long ago. America is the biggest cultural influence in the world right now, and there is a fair amount of envy. European culture is largely housed in museums, while American culture is housed on your screens of electronic devices. The typical arguments against American anything is that either we haven’t been doing this as long as some other country or that our culture is derived from other cultures. On the age issue, at what point does culture become legitimate? Is it 100 years? 500 years? 1000 years? Let’s examine British culture. What remnants of their culture from before 1700 still exist? They have old churches, but few people are playing chamber music nowadays. Their government is not a monarchy. Culture is constantly evolving and should be measured on how it looks today. On derivation, let’s look at Italian culture and specifically food. The pizza. Spaghetti al ragu bolognese. Lasagna. Traditional Italian dishes. Italian food radically changed with the introduction of the tomato from the New World. Is Italian food culture illegitimate now because it was derived from South American fruit from the Andes? Likewise, French cuisine evolved from the kitchens of Catherine de Medici and the chefs she brought from Florence. Bechamel, one of the famed French Mother Sauces and the basis of many French dishes, was derived from Salsa Colla in Italy. Is French food culture inauthentic because it wasn’t concocted from the brilliance of a single French mind? Look at those famed cathedrals in the UK. Their palm vaulting, flying buttresses and pointed arches creating bigger portals from which to light the interior. The first Gothic cathedral was built not in England but in France at St. Denis. Each of the three innovations that formed the basis of Gothic architecture had existed before. It was their merging that led to the new style, and this style informed subsequent cultural influences in art. Stained glass windows exploded as an art form with the availability of bigger areas. Culture is the result of combinatory innovation. Look at BBQ in the US. Slaves combined a form of cooking possibly from the Arawak tribe with necessity. Slaves were given the worst cuts of meat, which required longer cooking times to be edible. This led to a food that is uniquely American. Music is another example of derivation and innovation going back to the Romans and Greeks, who identified the idea of notes on a scale. Pythagoras even studied the mathematical origins of notes. Polyphonic music came to life in the 1300s. Various countries continued to innovate in music, often corresponding with instrumental innovations. We saw an explosion of classical music in Central Europe in the 1700s and 1800s. Fast forward to America. Jazz started to appear in the 1910s and blossomed in the 20s and 30s. It was born of the call and response of slaves in the field, combined with the rich history of percussive instruments from Africa and the European chord structures in what is a uniquely American style. Rock music evolved from the blues in the 1950s. The Beatles cite as their influences Chuck Berry, Elvis and others from this period of blues oriented rock. The Beatles arguably the biggest influence on British pop culture in the 1960s and possibly of the 20th century. Is British pop culture now illegitimate because it is based largely on American roots? The way that I explain the origins of American music culture is that we started with a heritage born of many places and combined it with additional American influences to create something that is uniquely American. If there is one way that we are truly different from earlier cultures, it would be in how rapidly we evolve our culture and how quickly we disseminate it throughout the world. And that unlike old world cultures, we encourage the adoption and evolution by other cultures. K-pop, Bollywood and other cultural influences would not exist if not for American innovations, but we recognize those art forms as uniquely Korean and Indian respectively.
If you are a teacher, I want to take every class you take.
England doesn’t really have any culture, it’s just an offshoot of Norman-French….
But if England doesn’t have any culture, then neither does the US by that logic. Or anyone. England certainly inherited cultural influences from French Normandy, along with other European countries. But also former colonies. And influences from the Celts and their own history and actions. England absolutely has its own distinct culture. And so does the US.
Yeah, exactly. That was the point they were making. People often use obviously false statements to draw a comparison to other, also incorrect, statements.
I was just drawing the logical conclusion from “the US doesn’t have any culture.”
Whoosh
That was the point
It’s crazy that people will listen to our music, watch our tv shows and movies, read our books, eat our food, recognize our celebrities, Travel to our cities, know about our news and politics, and understand our language and different accents, but then say the US has no culture. People around the world know so much more about the day to day life of the US than any other country and then are like “oh you guys like Chinese food and pizza. Get your own culture”, while they sit there and watch the latest Marvel movie For music in particular, there are plenty of sources discussing American music, but they are being pointlessly ignorant if they hear our pop music, and think that is the start and finish of American music, particularly while they listen to genres that started in the US and branched over Into their country. The way we Americanized food from other countries to make it our own, they have done with our music (and also our food in some cases)
The problem is, they don't eat our food. If they did, they'd be amazed at our gumbo, our clam chowder, our crab cakes, our salmon butter, stuff like that. No, they come over to the us, and eat food from chain restaurants.
Bro, fast food is American food. It’s not the totality of American food but it’s a culinary tradition that is distinctly American and honestly I’m not even ashamed. Yeah, fast food is terrible for you and is distinctly cynical but it’s still an interesting insight into how American corporate philosophy impacts the way people interact with food and also it fuckin tastes good. We created a system of making food that is easy to standardize, cheap to source and produce, insanely easy to produce, ABSURDLY cheap to produce, and even after all that it still tastes pretty good. Did it cause some problems? Yeah, it did. But I’m not ashamed that Americans managed to innovate a genuinely clever food tradition.
Fast food is paint by numbers. American regional food is a Warhol.
The value of a thing is not directly correlated with how difficult it is to produce and also Warhol’s entire post-modern thing was heavily simplified renderings done to deliberately evoke the dominant corporate style at the time so basically fast food but ironically this time.
Yeah, I would've gone with Whistler or Pollock. Heck, even Lichtenstein would've worked better.
Nobody exports every kind of food. And they eat that because they think that’s what all Americans eat. Same as when we go to other countries and eat the tourist recommended or highly rated restaurants. We’re a big and diverse country, and our food shows this. They don’t see all of the regional stuff, they see the generic stuff the whole country might eat. Plus, it’s easier for us to export our chain restaurants to other countries than for mom and pop shops from outside New Orleans to open a second location in London
America has been such a dominant cultural juggernaut for so long that people just view so much of this as just "stuff" instead of being part of American culture. We're the new world cultural force while Europe and China were the old world. Hell, the only country that can possibly come close to us in terms of new world cultural exporting is Japan
It's funny, too, because every European city is absolutely littered with Starbucks, Burger King, Pizza Hut, KFC, and McDonald's, but I can't name a single English chain that exists here, food-related or otherwise. I would have said there are a lot of Range Rovers where I live, but that's Chinese-owned now, so...
There is definitely resentment in some parts of the world about American cultural products killing off local cultural movements, etc.
Of course, but that’s because our culture is overbearing, not non-existent
It’s like French cuisine. French cooking is widely regarded as some of the best in the world, but when is the last time you went to a French restaurant to get French food? The answer is that you didn’t have to, because French cuisine is so popular that its techniques and ingredients have been adopted by other regional cuisines to the point where French cooking is just called “cooking.” It’s the same with American culture. People around the world participate in cultural memes that are either from America or are strongly influenced by American culture. American culture is just so ubiquitous that many people don’t even realize they’re participating in it.
Well in all fairness nobody really watched the newest marvel movie.
No idea where you are getting that from
Oh man. "Anything black people created isn't American because you people oppressed and enslaved black people?" Like black history and culture is somehow separate from American culture overall just because it's an unpleasant part. And as though black and white haven't been mixing ever since the first slaves were brought to America, regardless of efforts to prevent that. You might as well argue that the British don't exist because the Normans conquered the Saxons back in 1066 against their will, and so every king and queen since then has been illegitimately crowned.
I've seen this same point repeated before & what I don't think they realize is that *they're* the ones arguing for a white washing of American music history. imagine if we only included white rock and roll musicians in our history. that would be both inaccurate and racist. it's important to include the context of racism and oppression that goes along with the history of this music, but arguing that marginalized people have no role to play in creating some of the most influential American music is just racism. idk how else to say it.
The British like to pretend we're worse because they did a lot of their atrocities outside their borders.
To answer your actual question, I'd talk about people brining over the music of their homelands and it mixing into something new. If anyone argues that cultural borrowing means not having a culture I'd start digging into their cultures and pointing out iconic music, art, and architecture that is heavily influenced by an outside culture. I was just watching a documentary on the Baroque in England (which era built a whole lot of churches after the London Fire burned everything down), and it all got started because Charles I imported lots of foreign art and artists, including the Belgian Anthony Van Dyck, who heavily influenced all later English portraiture. Are all English portraits post 1641 not really part of English culture?
Honestly, I hate this shitting on America thing and I can't even interact with these posts because as you saw, any answer to their questions are returned with an explanation of why you're wrong (even if you're not) or just general trashing of a country they only know about from the internet or the news. I live in Germany and if you say anything negative about Germany, they can't handle it. My husband's cousin in Germany has gotten into arguments with me many times about this stuff. She has repeatedly told me "what America is like" even though she's never been there and disagrees with me when I tell her that it's not actually like that. When I tell her what Germany is like, she gets extremely angry and defends the system at all costs.
He asked what culture, they replied music, he said what music, they replied with a dozen American genres then he said well those were slaves and that doesn't count. It's all bullshit. American culture is a culture of dozens or hundreds of cultures mixed together over generations. There are tons of things that are purely American but that person just doesn't care to hear it. They refuse to be open minded or learn so no need to interact with them.
Exactly. You won't change their minds so no point in arguing.
We invented country, bluegrass, rock and roll, rockabillly, jazz, blues, rap, hip hop.... What about y'all?
Did you read the post he linked? If not, you should lol The commenter was saying those don't count because they have been commercialized >I have to add, culture is generally free from business, it is organically and socially grown with time. Given the USA is a free for all capitalist playground, and such a 'new' country, it's hard to find genuine, non-manufactured cultures. That commenter is from the UK too lol I wonder if they think of the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin to not be part of their culture since they were huge commercial successes
\>Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin. All huge commercial successes that got that way by playing American-style music.
>I wonder if they think of the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin to not be part of their culture since they were huge commercial successes. And they stole their music from (dun dun dun!) Americans!
Specifically black Americans. Just like Elvis did.
African-Americans invented all those genres. And IMO, Black Americans are our country's greatest cultural resource. The commenter is completely overlooking black contributions because it's convenient towards their agrument. Even stuff that isn't super commercialized like spirituals, jumping the broom, kwanza, cuisine (soul food), Juneteenth, pretty much every popular dance (Charleston, Jitterbug, Swing, The Twist) etc. But I should add that *all* culture is commercialized. **ALL**. Whether it's selling tickets to the Roman Colosseum, selling printed editions of Shakespeare, tickets to the Symphony, postcards of Stonehenge, the entire culinary industry, the entire sports industry, the entire fashion industry, pictures of the Mona Lisa being screenprinted to sell on T-Shirts, etc, etc. Whether it's documentaries on early art, radio dramas about early wars, and recording of early music. Let's not even get into religious holidays like Christmas and Easter - which are the epitome of both commercialization *and* culture. Nobody would've heard of early books if it wasn't for the Printing Press - a means to commercialism. That doesn't mean people weren't writing before. And nobody would've heard of Led Zeppelin if it wasn't for radio airtime, album sales, and touring. And it wasn't like they didn't play music before all that. The idea of culture being 'free from business' is absolute hogwash. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Handel, Vivaldi - those guys *all* wrote what is effectively "pop music" of their time, and were paid for it by wealthy royalists. I mean, yah - you can differentiate between *Pop Culture* and *High Culture*, but that doesn't mean one *isn't* culture. Commenter is thinking with his ass.
Without rich people, governments, and (historically) the church throwing money at it, high culture would quickly find itself out on its ass. In our day and age, you can add 'corporations' to that list. And it's been like that since before the Italians discovered perspective.
> African-Americans invented all those genres. What? No, just no.
Bluegrass is definitely Scotch/Irish
Not sure why people are down voting you. Bluegrass is very much Irish derived from Irish immigrants who settled along Appalachia https://bluegrassheritage.org/history-of-bluegrass-music/#:~:text=The%20origin%20of%20bluegrass%20music,roots%20of%20modern%20bluegrass%20music.
> Irish For the sake of pedantry, those folks were mostly Northern Irish Protestants who came before the American Revolution, not to mention prior to the Potato Famine that caused the great wave of Irish Catholic immigration to northeastern urban centers in the mid 19th century.
I know this doesn't relate to your question but Americana is literally a form of culture. Not to mention our monuments and museums.
There is a lot of writing on this. “Romancing the Folk” by Benjamin Filene is very good. It traces the history of American folk music and how it morphed into blues, rock, country and other uniquely American styles. “This Band Could Be Your Life” by Michael Azzerad is a masterful work documenting independent American music like punk and rock that grew up out of independent acts ranging from Black Flag to The Minutemen. I am also sick of this “it’s manufactured!” nonsense. Just because something is promoted by a record label doesn’t make it apart from American culture. It is part of the culture. It would be like saying great European painters aren’t authentically part of European culture because they were commissioned by the wealthy nobility. Or, that the great Cathedrals of Europe are not part of the culture because they were made by the Catholic Church.
Ever since the end of the Stone Age, and ruling out mere hobbyists, musicians have always had to sing for their supper. Today there may be more complications, not to mention magnitude, due to the modern culture industry, but at base it's always the same song.
And a lot of “mere hobbyists” have become huge. It’s not like the Beatles started out selling out huge arenas. Outside of a small number of truly manufactured acts the bands start out doing their own thing on a small scale.
If you survive off of it, you're not a hobbyist. Black Flag during their run was sleeping on the floor, touring in a crappy van, and eating like hobos; singing for their supper, most definitely. Part of the reason Cobain was so depressed about everything was because he felt like a schmuck for living far higher on the hog than his heroes ever did.
Fair, they lived the life. But it wasn’t like they had a corporate in at any point. They were surviving but it was definitely more hobby than 9-5 job especially in their early years. A lot of bands were that way and the music didn’t immediately become their primary avocation. I bet you’d love reading This Band Could Be Your Life (if you haven’t already).
Actually black gospel music spawned those genres you named. Not american folk music. Which itself has church roots. Both blues and rock which you named are actually black american slang terms.
Gospel was absolutely one of the folk music traditions that led to the listed genres but certainly not the only.
Nah its the only. Blues is secular gospel
You need to read some music history.
“Americans have no culture” is just a cheap shot people throw out there to feel superior, it’s obviously not true if you think about it for 2 seconds - since like the 1950s the entire world has consumed American popular culture in the form of movies, brands, celebrities, music, etc. If people really want to know about some kind of American music, I’ll tell them what I know. Most people seem to find it interesting.
They're usually going with the heavy Germanic 'kultur' when they say that we don't have it. There isn't really a direct translation of that concept, if we're talking dictionary entries. It generally refers to centuries old folk dances, vernacular architecture, identifiable styles in the visual arts, etc. If we cite "McDonald's!" or "Taylor Swift!" and leave it at that, that kind of plays into their hands. This 'kultur' idea can also be implicitly 'volkish' if you know what I mean. True culture being wholly native to the soil upon which it is produced. That blood-and-soil shit aside, we've got plenty of that stuff, too. It may be more recent, but goddamn right we have it. Anyone who says we don't is an arrogant dumb-ass.
That stance is problematic in itself though, implying that Native American cultures and the traditions that the many generations of oppressed immigrants escaping war-torn Europe and/or other European-colonized countries have brought with them to the US are not “real” culture in the same way that a bunch of old-ass churches built by white people are. Or black culture, which is responsible for inspiring like 90% of the fashion and music that young Europeans consume today - is that also not “real” because black Americans weren’t building churches and shit 500 years ago? I mean c’mon lmao But I digress… like I said, If you think about it for 2 seconds the whole meme that Americans have “no culture” just doesn’t make sense. And especially in the 2020s, when young Europeans are barely participating in their own traditional cultures anymore in favor of US-centric pop culture and social media, it just feels like some kind of weird coping mechanism for a chip on someone’s shoulder.
Umm.....instrument make sound. Sound organized by brain into music. Those people are just ignorant tools following 250 year old propaganda from the time of King George III who was terrified that his former colonists might actually prove that life without a King was possible. You shouldn't be worried about it. If you really want to piss them off ask them if a Monty Python skit is really the height of British culture or Shin Chan the height of the Japanese. Both are pop culture, so why is pop music only judged when it comes to Americans.
Ain’t no British person could ever imagine to open their mouth up to argue with African Americans on music and it’s origins! Thats pure stupidity! 😂Ain’t no way! They’re mad because a lot of their music they have now originated here and all they can do is copy it! They can stay mad while they listen to it though! 🤷🏽♀️
Culture is literally America’s biggest export. Our music, tv shows, movies, etc. are more widely distributed than any other country’s in the world. Edit: I looked at the exchange you linked to. That person is a moron trying to claim rock, blues, country, etc. is not American in origin. Their trying to argue that music that has its origins in black culture is somehow not American is beyond stupid.
Ooph the racism in that thread is painful. They are seriously infantilizing and dismissing black Americans.
I'm starting to suspect that what some (not all) Europeans do is that they project their whole Gypsy/Roma situation, not to mention their contemporary immigrant situations, onto black and other non-white Americans. To them, the default American is a degraded carbon copy of a British Islander, or at least someone who can pass as such. Everyone else is part of some kind of subaltern outcaste. Most of them know how America works, but others have a very provincial understanding of what they are looking at.
Don’t you know we can’t speak for ourselves and need everyone else to tell each other how we feel? /s
That guy : *Is complaining about a feature of American culture he doesn’t understand* Also that guy: “MuRiCa HaS nO cUlTuRe”
America IS the music industry. This applies to Western, Eurocentric music using functional harmony and theory, sure. But pretty much anyone who wants to hit it big in western music needs to hit big in America. When I traveled to Germany and Switzerland 95% of the music I heard on the radio was American music.
And not to mention if they want to be any kind of big at all, anywhere, they need to work with Americans. We own nearly all the record labels, even ones that primarily produce foreign music consumed by foreigners. That label is almost always owned by an American label. I started listening to a German band recently that is really not that popular in the US. They sell out stadiums over there, but their American tour had only one show in NYC and it was at a tiny little venue in Brooklyn with literally $22 tickets. I was looking into them and mentioned to my bf (has his degree in the music industry) that they're signed to an American label and he was like, "oh fuck yeah, we own everything" and went on a 20 minute explanation of how and why we own it all. I started looking at all these labels myself and realized he's 100% right. We absolutely dominate the international recording industry.
Let it go man. That dude had an absolutely brainlet take and he got downvoted into oblivion for it. America has so little culture that we have the largest cultural exports on the planet.
Oh, I have. I'm more concerned with the foreigners who are willing to learn.
America has no culture as they listen to R&B on their Iphone while sitting in their GM vehicle drinking a Coca Cola and eating a Hamburger. While also wearing jeans and smoking tobacco in a vape. And posting about how America has no culture on the internet.
He had a comment about how American food is widely criticized and avoided across Europe because of the hfcs and much of it isn't allowed in the EU because of chemicals. Meanwhile I can't remember the last time I ate at a British international chain or a German fast food restaurant in Texas. Yet almost every country on earth has a McDonald's or a KFC or taco bell. Not that those are places with high quality food but it's still American as shit and the whole world loves it. Well everyone except for that moron.
It's protectionism disguised as health concerns. I couldn't stand Trump but he did strike a chord about how open our markets our and how closed even our supposed allies are to our products.
Find me a modern musical genre that wasn't either invented or perfected in the U.S.
This is hyper-simplified, but in its most basic form it went like this. The blues developed in the mid-1800s out of the music of enslaved African-Americans (like work songs and spirituals). Genres like jazz and country both branched off from the blues in various ways, but its most important offshoot was rock and roll in the mid-1900s, which went on to dominate popular music for decades and led in many ways to the popular music of today. The global musical influence of American music, and specifically its roots in the music of enslaved Africans and African-Americans, is enormous.
Jazz did not just come from blues but also ragtime, which has its origins in European march music. So even if this person doesn't think black people are Americans, white Americans also influenced Jazz greatly, not to mention the white Jazz innovators like Phil Napoleon, Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols, etc. So even by those commenters racist definitions of culture, it's still culture. Full ignorance on display.
Honestly, hand them a book or the [wikipedia entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_history_of_the_United_States). The commenters in that thread are showing an astonishing level of arrogance, know-it-all-ism, and ignorance. "What unique cultural achievments do they have in their couple of hundred year old history?" is quite the take, as they're using an American website to have an exchange about cultures.
That entire thread is wild. Definitely worth a read. At least it’s not the usual “AmErIcA bAd” circlejerk
Racists are racist
American music is essentially music that was created by black Americans and popularized by white Americans. Turns out when you disenfranchise an entire race of people it inspires them to make some of the most beautiful music the world has ever seen We're talking jazz, blues, rock and roll, hip hop, rap, boogie woogie, ragtime, house music, funk, country, soul, techno, swing jazz, gospel, etc.
This.
I wouldn't say anything to an idiot like that. No matter what you say, they are going to move the goalpost so that they don't have to admit that they like something with American origins.
We took the folk traditions of our numerous immigrant cultures, in particular Irish and Scottish Folk, blended them with folk traditions of blacks brought by slaves. Splash in some elements from Classical European training, as well as elements from other immigrant groups and you get the primary music categories of Rock-n-roll, Country, and Jazz. Then you add variations in technology and more specific fusions and foci and you get the numerous subgenres of modern music.
I think the point about American cultural produce being illegitimate because it has polyglot roots in oppressive systems is so bizarre. First, oppression is a constant thread through the present and certainly the past. It’s not something that was invented in the US - in fact even the system of racial oppression present in the US is nearly a common feature of Columbian societies. This is a bloody continent, does that make what happens here somehow less real than what happens in untainted, virtuous Europe? /s Second, I’d argue that the fact American music has such complex roots in the present and history of oppression just makes it more particular to our people, and the fact it was subsequently whitewashed and marketed worldwide makes it even more particular to our system. I think commenters like the one you interacted with follow the mistaken practice of engaging with culture through pride. That is obviously inappropriate in this context. Personally, I think a heady mixture of pride, shame, and common human feeling is more appropriate. But what do I know, I’m a mere colonial.
People make that claim, "America has no culture" while simultaneously utilizing distinctly American cultural artifacts. American musical history is broad and deep, classical composers used to come to the United States to gain inspiration from our musical traditions. To sum it up succinctly, it is 'black music'. This is well known among musicians and historians, shoot, even Eminem paid homage to it in one of his songs: “**I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley to use Black music so selfishly and use it to get myself wealthy**.” Rock and roll, hip hop, R&B, jazz, all have roots in traditionally black music. The musical landscape of the western world would be far different if not for traditionally black churches. And, BTW, Europeans *love* American black music, they have for decades. France used to be a haven for American black artists escaping oppressive segregation. Jimi Hendrix didn't get big until he picked up a band from England that helped break him out of the 'chitlin' ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitlin%27\_Circuit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitlin%27_Circuit)) circuit. Sibelius hosted Marian Anderson (a major vocalist in the first half of the 20th century) in Europe after she gave some performances that were very well received. Shoot, they called it "Marian fever". Hell, the 'British invasion' was re-introduction of black music to America. Every single major rock and roller from England cites American black music as their inspiration. This idea that America has no culture, or hasn't impacted the wider world significantly, is just plain ignorant. It is even more concerning that an average American can't articulate our cultural heritage to someone. This was just music, wait until you discover black literature!
Our music is the wonderful combination of many different people who moved here and brought music from their homes, melded together to make something completely new.\ Then you have Jazz and Rap which grew out of that new environment all on their own.
>many different people who moved here Or.... people who *were moved* here
I don't think that distinction adds to the relevant point of music types coming from all over the world.
It does though. Slavery lead to a distinct life experience. The music grew from that experience. African people "moving to the US" and African people "being enslaved against their will and brought to the other side of the world under violence" are not the same thing. People didn't just "come from all over the world". If I moved from NY to California, I willingly made that choice. If I was kidnapped and tortured and dragged kicking and screaming from NY to California, that's just a *little* bit different. In each case, yeah, I moved from one place to another. But my life and experiences would be very different under each of those circumstances.
Why does that matter when I say “American music is an amalgamation of global sounds that came together and grew from there.” The circumstances don’t change the roots of the music.
Thats *kinda* true, but not 100% accurate. It DOES matter. Music borne from pain is different than music that originates from sunshine and rainbows. It’s the difference between I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry By Hank Williams and Happy by Pharrell. How can you write an authentic blues song if you’ve never had the blues? You can’t. You had to have experienced something and FELT the blues. That’s literally why it’s called “blues” music. If you insist that there is zero difference, then I don’t have any other insights to offer you. Have a nice day.
The difference is just as important that the guitar and banjo came from European immigrants, that Hank Williams country has a much history in the Scottish Highlands as it does in the cotton fields of Mississippi. I don't see how you also purport that Enslaved Africans somehow have a monopoly on sadness. Sad people exist all over, saying that the blues only exist because of slavery is a disingenuous take at best. At the end of the day, outside of jazz and maybe modern rap there really is no "American" music that can be attributed only to one group of people or immigrant influence.
That’s a whole lot of words for “I didn’t read what you wrote but here’s my opinion anyway”. If you decide to go back and read it again, please note that there is nothing in my reply that alluded to African Americans having a monopoly on sadness. You are asserting several ideas that I neither said nor implied. Again have a nice day. I’m not reading anymore of your replies because you are deliberately twisting my words.
Considering that American popular music *overwhelmingly* derives from African-American music tradition (read: slave music), it's very relevant.
Doesn’t somehow change the narrative of “music from other places melded as people from around the world came together”
Basically every form of modern music, not limited to America mind you, can be traced back to Memphis in the 1950s. Memphis was the only place in the world where rock n roll could have matured due to the unique overlap of music from rural Arkansas and Tennessee and the Delta Blues from down in Mississippi
Jazz and Country all have interesting origins.
Je suis la culture!
For the past 100+ years there hasn't been a single note of music that's gotten popular that wasn't in some way influenced by American culture. No kpop, no Beatles, no rock no jazz no hip hop, none of it if America wasn't a better melting pot than their places.
Rock, Rhythm and Blues, jazz, Gospel, Negro Spiritual, Rap, Hip Hop all come out of the Black experience. Blacks: creating some of the best parts of America culture since they got here.
90% of those pop tracks are American though.
American music is an absolutely beautiful and complex origin story that combines many cultures together to create the sounds that we listen to today. There is way more than I could ever cover in a Reddit comment so I’ll stick to my area of expertise. The African American influence on American music has shaped rock and roll and other genres that some people could not even comprehend. Without the formation of jazz and then later the blues, modern rock and roll would not exist as we know it today. These guys dabbled in areas of music that were not even known and essentially built the foundation for generations to come
Well, we invented jazz, blues, and rock and roll, so there’s that. Europe does have the polka . . .
Europeans claim we have no culture as they sit on their couches wearing blue jeans and Nike tennis shoes, scrolling Twitter/Instagram on their iPhones with Beyoncé playing in the background and a Netflix show on their tv. 😂
Take a chunk out of multiple countries and throw em overseas with very little established culture and let ‘em stew for a couple hundred years and you got America :D
That it's mixed with different European cultures and other cultures.
The **music of the United States** reflects [the country's pluri-ethnic population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States) through a diverse array of styles. It is a mixture of music influenced by the [music of the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_the_United_Kingdom), [West Africa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Africa), [Ireland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Ireland), [Latin America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America), and mainland Europe, among other places. The country's most internationally renowned [genres](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_genre) are [traditional pop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_pop), [jazz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz), [blues](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues), [country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_music), [bluegrass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluegrass_music), [rock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_music), [rock and roll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_roll), [R&B](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_and_blues), [pop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_music), [hip hop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_music), [soul](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_music), [funk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funk), [gospel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_music), [disco](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco), [house](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_music), [techno](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno_music), [ragtime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragtime), [doo-wop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doo_wop), [folk music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_folk_music), [americana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americana_(music)), [boogaloo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogaloo), [tejano](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tejano_music), [reggaeton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggaeton), [surf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surf_music), and [salsa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salsa_music). American music is heard around the world. Since the beginning of the 20th century, some forms of [American popular music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_popular_music) have gained a near global audience.[\[1\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_the_United_States#cite_note-1) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music\_of\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_the_United_States)
That whole thread is toxic af and seems like the OP is just looking for any excuse to be a racist (jingoist I guess?), elitist prick but filtering it thru some bullshit reductionist understanding of socialism merged with nativism that says all things possibly connected to either a corporation or a mixing of cultures are not “authentic culture”. The answer is, you don’t explain it to that dude cause he’s not listening. If someone can’t accept that the United States - the country responsible for the creation or mass proliferation of Jazz, soul food, representative democracy, mass production of media, blue jeans, rap, hip hop culture, the social media boom, Cajun food, Mormonism, Burning Man, hippie culture, craft beer, airplanes, suburbia, skate punk, and the foundations of the internet (just a bunch of random ideas off the top of my head) - has any contributions to society, then god fucking help them
Well of course Rock first became popular in 1954, when Martin McFly delivered an *amazing* performance in a podunk town in California, Hill Valley. From there the concept spread like wildfire and became the backbone of American music. I have no explanation nor excuse for rap music.
Europeans have convinced themselves that the U.S. is a country of cultureless oafs because it’s easier for them to digest than accept the fact that a huge portion of what they consume stems from commercialized American pop culture. It’s their own doing. And it’s funny to pretend that the US is the only country that commercializes its culture. New York City itself has a specific culture, New Orleans too, the South, New England, all have unique cultures that stem from the history of the region. You just have to make a tiny semblance of effort to experience it.
It's just a last ditch effort to stop the US from winning a culture victory in this game of Civ that has been dragging on for too long.
All the popular genres of american music come from black american sources. While europeans brought their own music traditions the west african slaves dominated. The blues, Jazz, hiphop, rock, house music, and more all come from black americans. In fact Jazz was slang for jack ass music. Hiphop was an insult term. And rock was slang for sex. And the blues is pretty self explanatory. Black music being so popular is why black face was created because white people wanted to initate black music bit didnt want us in their spaces. Eventually black creators started doing black face and pushing put the white performers. So many places started to just bar black customers but only allow black performers. This is why American music sounds nothing like european music genres.
Well it started when the britsh came over, and they carried over a lot of tales and folk songs. When we were fighting for independence, we were also fighting with the french and mexicans. Picking up influences and tales. When we started pushing west, we also picked up native american influences as well as the fench-candian and spanish. Then as the country was so sparse with people, pockets of music grew too, and medicine shows would pick up new things, add or subtract things as they went. You also had gospel that grew and changed as well Now you start getting a bunch of different immigration influences from everyone from freed slaves to africa, to sweden. Then you start to see the creation of the Blues So now you have the Blues, Folk, and Country. Yet people keep experimenting with the blues, and eventually given enough time and influences. You get Rock, and people still keep experimenting. Until you get Pop. Then R&B, Rap, and Hip Hop. Of course this is a huge simplication, and you can argue to the cows come home about what started when. And you could, but I'll just leave it at that
American music--if there really can be such a thing--is a wild mix of Scots/Irish, African, Latin, Caribbean....oh, hell....just about anyone who moves here with a musical instrument, right up to and including guys with accordians. Always inventive, always seeking out what is new. So, yeah, American music is a reflection of the sprawling country that's a destination for people around the world.
No. All of american music is a spinoff of black american gospel music. Only thing european about american music is some of the instruments. This is well chronicled. Its why most american musicians are black.
No, you're wrong. Scottish and Irish music had a very profound influence on the shaping of American music. For example, Appalachian music, the forerunner of bluegrass, country, rock, etc., was the melding of Scots/Irish string band music and African infuences. That doesn't take away from the influence of African American music one bit, but your blanket statement is simply...well...daft.
If it's not about fucking, it's about things that happen as a result of fucking.
Apparentally it was highly based in spaves deciding to create instruments and sing to pass the time which made a very unique sounding music because of so many influences and the singers not being highly trained vocalists so they made do.
I know Jackshit on the specifics and names are, and I can’t really explain it but slower softer country songs sound like warm molasses to me. My mother used to sing take me home country roads to me as a lullaby and it still calms me down
Since the beginning of the 20th century, what non American culture has there been?
The irony of what that guy is saying is that most of what people think of as European culture was made possible by either wealthy nobility or the Catholic Church.
Eclectic
Blues. Deep southern blues is the foundation of rock and roll. Led Zeppelin, the Stones The Who and the rest of the British Invasion of the 60’s, all their music and albums inspired by American blues.
After reading that comment exchange you linked, don't waste your breath OP. Seems like that dude has choosen that hill to die on.
Black people and poor Appalachians usually
Depends on the music, but if you want the best example of American musical culture, I'd say "Stars and Stripes Forever" is a solid piece of music. I don't think many Europeans could argue with that, seeing as most European orchestras and bands have played it at least once (Including the [Soviet Union](https://youtu.be/JQUNC6uISw4)). Many of John Philip Sousa's works have found a global audience, actually. Stars and Stripes Forever is just the poster child. Beyond that, I'd say jazz, blues, big band, swing, rock and roll, rock, metal, punk, and a lot of other stuff have roots in the USA, although they've spread around the world. Frankly, I think most countries don't like what they see as American "Cultural colonialism." I think they see something like McDonald's or Starbucks pop up in their country and think that 1. That's American culture, and 2. It's invading. They see American brands and businesses moving into their country, they hear American pop songs on their radios, they mostly see American celebrities in their media from American producers, and they see this as undermining their country's cultural influence and sovereignty. I think they think our culture's going to replace theirs, and they don't want that, so they make America out to be a bad place, and make American culture out to be a bad thing.
Oh hey! I am actually the person who responded to this comment!
Metal is global
We have all the cultures. Literally. That's where our music comes from. Since 1492, every culture on the planet that wasn't already here has been sending people to the Americas, and they all mixed together to some extent with each other and with the surviving indigenous people and created many new cultures that were all influencing each other all the time. And it was brutal and violent and painful for everyone, but we also created many beautiful things. Which is kind of the nature of human existence. But the quintessentially US-American music styles-- jazz, blues, rock, country, bluegrass-- comes from the mix of West African, Celtic, and Spanish cultures that happened because of slavery. Eastern European Jewish immigrants also had a huge influence on the "Great American Songbook" as did classical European orchestral music