Over the last 90 years, almost in lock step with the USA's emergence as a and now the super power, the US has ruled the world of music with an iron hand. Look at any best selling chart for any country. It will be 50% indigenous music, 10% music from elsewhere in the world, and 40% US pop. This is an amazing achievement. And though, simply because of its size, the UK's achievement is equally breathtaking. Even so. They haven't invented a damn thing since the Renaissance. The US has invented the Blues, Jazz, R&B, Rock and Roll and soul.
And a million off shoots. Other countries, France gave us Daft Punk and reinvented dance, still it is spotted one offs along the USA's unfettered worldwide dominance. And while a case may be made (Alyson made it the other day) that rock and roll caused popular music to become blander over the last half century, the US was again at the forefront of a movement to simpler, easier to play music and thereby made it universal. As Jahn Xavier recently noted, you could listen to the Ramones and think 'I could do that'.
Two of the last three great art forms were invented in the States -Jazz and Rock And Roll, and as symbols of American Excellence, they brought the world to its knees, sometimes, as in Jazz, before it bought the US to its knees. The 1920s and the 1930s were the heyday for black musicians in Europe, where they were treated at royalty and not like farm animals. 40 years later, Soviet youth looked again to the West and saw them listening to modern disco and wearing blue jeans and the USSR was doomed once and for all.
And when they weren't Americans, John Lennon was of Irish-English extract, they immigrate. Today Justin Bieber is much more American than Canadian. Why would he live in Canada? Why would Keith Richards?
The US may well be heading for a great depression, may never be the force it was, it might be too much of a job to police the world and who wants it anywhere? Unless the US brings back slave labor they can never compete with Russian and Chinese industry. But in the world of music, North America OWNS IT!