The role of music in the life of American society cannot be overemphasized. Today, we are seeing, how the music made its way into all sectors of society and is wholly or partially present in the various activities of ordinary Americans. It is hard to find anyone in the US and around the world, who would not love to listen to music. Ever since the Ancient Greeks, people began knowing music not only as just a set of sounds, but as the whole phenomenon with its complicated structure, classification and other things. Throughout the conscious history, music accompanied mankind, taking a variety of forms, progressing and influencing generations of people. There are such sciences as musicology and sociology of music. Most of the works of art were created either with the participation of music, that is, with its direct or indirect use, or under its influence. Among Americans, we can meet people, who will tell you that the music is a drug for them. And they are right, even if this comparison sounds very strange (DeNora 5).
Compared with other continents, the music has begun to penetrate into North America recently. In the beginning, it was the music, which came from Western Europe. Then, with the expansion of the ethnic component of the United States, the origin of the music was varied from tribal drums to Asian Americans’ wind instruments. Since then, it has been believed that the American music culture is always open to the new trends of various world cultures. However, this does not mean that the music in the United States is only acquired or borrowed musical clichés. On the contrary, in this case we are talking about the fact that American culture and the music in this case, is conducting an effective expansion of the global music industry. Absorbing various ethnic musical features of the people all over the world, in America there were born whole musical genres such as jazz, blues, funk, which then gave birth to a number of sub-genres. Active market uptake is due to the foreign policy, pursued by the United States. Starting with the "red thirties", the government is actively encouraging music figures. A lot of organizations have been established to protect copyright, various foundations and organizations were created for cultural activities, etc.
In the second half of the 20th century, the music in the United States takes a political character, and then, with the advent of pop music, the nature of idolatry. The first musical genre with a strong idea became jazz. The main theme was the idea of anti-racism, the protection of the rights of African Americans. The Vietnam War gives rise to the appearance of a number of movements, such as hippie, sweeping as many as three generations of Americans. The hippie movement has given rise to a lot of rock groups, highlighting the rock from the blues. The main topics were the ideas of pacifism, love and so on. Separately, Vietnam raised the topic as one of the problems, especially the American society’s corrosive. In this case, the music brought together hundreds of thousands of young Americans around the world. Music has become a tool, with which different views, teachings, moral values, and so on, have been distributed. Then, there was a punk revolution, which replaced the hippie culture. Punk culture opposed to the hippie movement, but rather the hippie musical groups, which over time evolved from bands, filled with revolutionary ideas, into the mainstream. If the hippies tried to be not similar to all due to their special outlook on life, which was intertwined with the Eastern learning, the punks were just trying to look brighter than the rest. However, like all musical trends before and after, punk music evolved into the mainstream and became popular.
With the advent of pop culture, informative, ideological significance of music in the United States has become devalued. Music is becoming increasingly more popular and acquired sensational character. Music began to grow into a variety of additional attributes, turning into a show. These changes have had a significant impact on the American society. People stopped to look for meaning in contemporary music, instead, they began to imitate. Since the 90s, the number of sub-genres of music in the United States began to grow exponentially, and every sub-genre makes its attributes in the US society. The music became inextricably connected with fashion. New trends in the world of music were created artificially to attract more consumers. With the advent of a number of communications, such as Internet, for the large record companies, labels and distributors it became much easier to dictate fashion trends with the help of music. If in the 50s the music was the main pivot around which there was lined one or another subculture, today we can see the situation, when the music is gone by the wayside, making room for external attributes. The main differences between the subcultures became clothing. Rockers began to dress in their own way; the hip hoppers established their style, and so on. Fans of pop and other mainstream altogether adopted a point of each subculture on a slice. It is just enough to look at how a subculture of SWAG artificially created and developed. Everything started with rap, when hip hop acquired a new sound by beginning to use Trap bits. Then, there began to appear external attributes, such as the gold insert in the mouth, called Grillz, black clothes, gold jewelry, twerk booty motion like Nicki Minaj. SWAG instantly seized the masses, as it was in the time when the movements of emo, tectonics, and other subspecies of the main cultures. And in each of these cases, the new music that was amazing new subculture seemed revolutionary; people found it similar ideological views and began to follow them. As a general rule, any such a surge lasted until the music on the basis of which the subculture was born, did not become a mainstream. Then, the reverse process began, i.e. sleeping of public interest in a particular musical phenomenon. Large labels and record companies in the United States, in turn, have long understood that people need constant movement, more and more new revolution. Students caught on the idea of "you're not like everyone else", and the industry is willing to give them what they want, artificially creating a new branch in the modern history of music, and letting people feel special. (Heintze and Saffle 27)
We would like to highlight a number of factors, due to which the music rather than any other art form has a significant social impact on the American society. Firstly, with the advent of new technologies, such as music players, mobile phones, headphones, music took place in the background of everyday’s life of an ordinary American. There is no doubt that the overwhelming number of Americans listen to music on the way to work, on a trip, during jogging, and similar activities. Secondly, music is the foundation of the art of dance, and dance, as we know, brings people together by allowing them to throw out the accumulated energy. Thirdly, music is one of the most accessible art forms for employment practices. This is especially expressed in our days, when you can create a musical band in a garage, taking the tools to hire, as well as record yourself at home using a computer and a microphone. Finally, in the fourth, the music is able to bring a large number of people together during its performance at a concert or in a nightclub unlike the cinema or painting (Sacks 2529).
So, we found out that music affects American society more than other forms of art. Since the rapid surge of the music genre in the second half of the twentieth century to our days, music has acquired an ideological and then a mass character. New genres of music generated new subculture, uniting thousands of people across America. In the end, the whole music industry has emerged in the United States, artificially imposing new trends on the listeners usually for a large profit. Modern American society is confronted every day with the music, and thus is subject to its influence. And if you compare the fact that new subcultures were created artificially, and new generations listen to music every day, it can be not a very pleasant conclusion that the music becomes one of the mass management tools, as opposed to its true purpose: carving fire from people's hearts.
Works cited
DeNora, Tia. "Music In Everyday Life". Cambridge University Press. N.p., 2000. Web. 29 Apr. 2016.
Heintze, James R and Michael Saffle. Reflections On American Music. New York: Pendragon Press, 2000. Print.
Sacks, O. "The Power Of Music". Brain 129.10 (2006): 2528-2532. Web.
