Are We Writing the Music, or is the Music Writing Us? An Analysis of the Symbiosis of Music and Cultural Traditions

Introduction

            Culture is strictly defined as the “arts and other manifestations of [a group’s] intellectual achievement regarded collectively,” however this definition so broadly addresses the idea of culture, that it fails to honestly inform a reader on the infinite depths, variations, implications and subsequent interpretations that the concept truly bears [Merriam Webster]. Culture can be seen as a collection of parts within a society, but it can reasonably be defined, too, as the nature of the society itself.  In this way, we can look at culture as the collective programming, through learned norms and values, of a given community.  Culture can certainly be thought to encompass language, clothing, music, food and other arts, but the greater implications of material culture must be thought of in harmonious balance with cultural tradition at every scale. 

            In the context of arts in material culture, music is undoubtedly one of the most profound influences on our modern cultural traditions.  So too is our cultural tradition a driving force of the ever-changing landscape of music.  One can think of our cultural tradition being displayed through our society’s behaviors and the fact that these behaviors are founded upon the collectively programmed beliefs, values, thoughts and emotions of the community.  It is important to consider “tradition” in this context to refer to the actions and beliefs of a given, and possibly brief, period of time and not necessarily a long-standing ideal.

Music, though, has been present in human interaction for an indefinitely long amount of time it seems. We know our music can tell stories, express emotion, or even represent the broader sociological values of an entire society at a given moment in history.  Think of any gathering of humans and music is there, whether it’s a wedding, a funeral, a graduation, men marching off to war, a night on the town, prayer, a romantic dinner or a mother singing her baby to sleep [Levitin, 2006]. With power and prevalence like that, it begs the question of whether music is more greatly influenced by our cultural tradition, or is our cultural tradition more greatly influenced by the music we make?

The answer is certainly not cut-and-dry.  Rather one should consider that the two live symbiotically, constantly governing one another. Matthew Kondrat writes that “music is an expressive language of culture.” [Kondrat, 2014] It is both the recipe for and the outcome of our variable culture. Award winning DJ and producer Moby considers the questions a bit differently: “The challenge is to understand the extent to which music informs culture, and the extent to which culture informs music.” [Mbe, 2017] So the answer evolves the question perhaps – a recurring theme. To what extent does one inform the other?  And in Western society where music preference, like culture, is changing day to day, how do we make sense of it all? Are we writing the music, or is the music writing us?

What is Pop Culture?

“The movement of popular culture was started on the principle that the everyday experiences of common people have compelling insights into the society,” writes John Storey [Storey, 2009]. This concept is simple: pop culture is material that the masses connect with in some way. In the context of pop music, you could call it the soundtrack to our lives.  Because of their prevalence, we can look at how acts like the Beatles preceded Michael Jackson who paved the way for pop icons of today.  Even with the longevity of these artists, one must consider the fact that popular or mainstream music is constantly changing, and with that change comes new clothing, hairstyles, phrases, behaviors and more [Kovacik, 2016]. Many would define the pop culture of the 1980’s as a reflection of the era’s music, for example – and many of us can envision the details of that timeframe of culture quite vividly. When we think of 80’s music, it is vital to consider the communities woven together with mutual interests in leather jackets and hairspray, and equally important to note the ways in which that material culture influenced the musicians of that time. Once you’ve established this idea of symbiotic influence, it can be observed in the context of nearly any time period, and we can see that at different points in human history and even in different genres of music, there were times in which music informed culture and culture informed music to vastly varying extents.  To understand this, one must look at some of the instances in which the symbiosis was strongest and take them in isolated, analytical frames.

A Long, Long Time Ago in A Prehistoric Culture Not So Far Away

            Music is undeniably one of the most primal aspects of the human experience and it has been postulated by some researchers that forms of primitive music might even pre-date the emergence of language [Mbe, 2017]. Taking a step back all the way to pre-literate cultures, music was present largely in the form of song and chant. It was for the most part ubiquitous, and there was no concept of the professional musician, no differentiation between the performer versus the composer. Music was largely a tool, for these groups of people. Used for ritual, dance, war and hunting, at the time it was a truly organic reflection of function and the necessity of the culture [Mueller, 1957]. Here, cultural tradition obviously greatly influenced the resultant music, but one may venture to ask why we developed music at all? Professor Oliver Sacks writes in his book Musicophilia quotes from Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory, who was always puzzled by our innate aptitude to music. “…as neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of producing musical notes are faculties of the least use to man… they must be ranked among the most mysterious with which he is endowed…” wrote Darwin [Mbe, 2017]. What he postulates, however, is questionable.  Early man developed primitive forms of “music” as a means of survival and social interaction without any meta-understanding of what they were even creating.  The leap from instinct to an art, on the other hand, is one that could possibly be explained by the greater cultural tradition of humanity. As Hans Zimmer explains it, “Like all good things we run with it – sooner or later we get past bare survival and turn things into art.” [Mbe, 2017]

To speak of every example of music and cultures’ interactions would require writing at tedium.  Going forward, examples will primarily focus on the 20th Century onward in the context of Western culture as it stands or stood in the United States. 

“Music is a dynamic form of cultural expression with artists borrowing, interpreting, and revamping songs based on regional influences. Those composers and singers that blend culture and heritage to create music move from the outside in, from generation to generation, making enormous contributions to the American music scene using their own unique traditions”

-Stacy Slotnick, Huffington Post [Slotnick, 2016]

The Jazz Factor in Early America: 1900-1930’s

There is nary a better anecdote about the amalgamation of culture and music than that of the origins of jazz in the United States. Jazz is said to have originated in New Orleans, Louisiana right around the start of the 20th century.  Its beginnings are so deeply entangled with the cultural progression of African-Americans of the time period that Nicholas Evans wrote, “to talk about jazz [today] is, directly or indirectly, to talk about race and U.S. national culture.” [Evans, 2015] Jazz forged its sound on a daily basis one might say, evolving as rapidly as any genre in history.  Birthed from and intermingled with traditional slave spirituals, ragtime and blues, jazz was a profoundly social narrative, a formal lament, of life in the cultural melting pot of the United States during the early 1900’s. It spoke of culture and offered an outlet to many Americans – and self-taught musicians. Its musicians and audience were largely black, but groups of white people and other ethnic groups appreciated and contributed to jazz, as well.  Even so, jazz’s narrative in the 1920’s, which is one of the greatest examples of cultural-musical symbiosis, was largely that of the African Americans.

This early jazz was a cultural hybrid, using the aforementioned slave spirituals, drawing blues and rhythm from traditional African music, but it also bore a resemblance to European music, largely picked up through migratory influences of early America. Yet still, it was its own new entity, all a product of what Paul Gilroy describes as “The Black Atlantic”.  In his book by the same title, Gilroy suggests that early black identity was a social condition formed from the history of African upheaval from their homelands.  He suggested that early African American culture was united by a “central organising symbol… [of] ships in motion across the spaces between Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean,” forming a culture of “creolisation, metissage, mestizaje and hybridity… If it can be called a tradition at all, it is a tradition of ceaseless motion – a changing same that strives continually towards a state of self-realisation that continually retreats beyond its grasp.” [Gilroy, 2007] What Gilroy suggests is that the history of constant change and uncertainty bestowed upon and lived by many jazz performers is the very reason for jazz’s vast multiplicity of improvisation and expression [Evans, 2015]. A changing culture was that which defined jazz, but the musical influences and culture of Jazz would go on to inspire so much more in the United States.

War & Peace on the Path to Change: 1940s-1960s

The dawning of WWII was the first time in history that an international conflict occurred in an age of electronically mass distributed media.  People around the globe listened to the radio for news on the war and were presented with radio mandated contented. In the U.S. alone, 96.2% of urban households had radio by 1940. The number of listeners to a given song or performance had never been higher, and the magnitude of information dispersion snowballed from there. The means of cultural affect were, for the first time in history, on a national and to some degree global scale. In the United States, the music being made was largely patriotic and hopeful.  It unified the nation in big band tunes.  The global climate informed the expressive cultural needs on a national level and brought people emotional and psychological connection in war time.  This undoubtedly furthered the war effort through national support as much of the pop culture of the time was a direct result of propagandized U.S. government initiatives. The use of music as a tool, undoubtedly helped shape the culture of the time, however it is equally true that the culture of the time demanded such music [Role of music in World War II].

Following the War, people took note of how the newfound rapid spread of media could affect a nation, and while the battle overseas had ended, unrest in the nation began to resonate in the form of the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1950’s.  “One of the first things that's important when you think about freedom songs and the Civil Rights Movement is to not actually think of freedom songs as if they were created strategically by the Movement. Like the collective breath of the Movement, they were a natural outpouring, evidencing the life force of the fight for freedom,” wrote cultural activist and scholar Bernice Reagon [Reagon]. Here we see how the cultural tradition and needs of the African American population fighting for equality created a “natural outpouring” into song. These songs, for example “We Shall Overcome” which has been performed by innumerable artists, were born of community folk song and tradition, much the same way Jazz was born of spirituals. 

While the words and actions of great leaders were undoubtedly of greater impact during the Civil Rights Movement, the songs of hope and freedom served their purpose and struck a chord with both the black and white community. Songs were sung by the masses at protests.  Like in WWII, music had a unifying dynamic, and it motivated people and offered both sympathy and strength to fight back against harassment and brutality.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. even spoke of the importance of music to the movement in his opening address to the Berlin Jazz Festival: “Jazz speaks for life,” King said. “The blues tell the story of life's difficulties – and, if you think for a moment, you realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. This is triumphant music.” [Morrison] The Civil Rights Movement, once again, illustrates how in times of crisis music rises from the culture organically, and in its purity and genuine spirit, the music serves the purpose of unifying through collective beliefs.  The symbiosis is poignant in these examples of drastic cultural shifts. Perhaps Plato put it best saying, “Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the laws of the State always change with them.” [Duke, 2014]

A Country Finding Its Identity: the 1960s-1970s

While the 1960’s were defined by social movements like the Civil Rights Movement and other movements for women’s rights and gay rights, one of the greatest sources of countercultural backlash and social defiance was the Anti-War Movement in protest of the Vietnam War.  In October 1963, the nightly news on TV changed from 15 minutes to 30 minutes, and the dispersion of information and cultural sentiment skyrocketed.  Americans were suddenly seeing the War and seeing the Civil Rights protests, and social awareness was never the same again. Historian Robert A. Caro says, “America’s view of itself changed…so much of this relates to music, it relates to protest songs.” [Caro, 2017] Protest and counterculture was a driving force for social consciousness at the time. People were fed up with what they were seeing and experiencing in the U.S. and so they wrote songs about it. Amidst the British invasion ushered in by the Beatles landing in 1964 to the U.S., there was a genuine side of American folk music that was more socio-political than ever before.  New music was birthed out of oppressive circumstances across the country. The patriotic songs that were heard during WWII had turned to tunes rebuking the government and calling for peace, equality and justice.  And people’s values changed as such. When artists like Bob Dylan and John Lennon gave a voice to hopeful ideals, people’s beliefs and behaviors followed suit. Community was built through song, protest and gathering. “Music lets you rediscover your humanity, and your connection to humanity. When you listen to it with other people, you feel that somehow – we’re all in this together.” [Mbe, 2017]

Along with the call for love and peace was another dramatically impactful shift in music and public perception: experimentation with recreational drugs and psychedelia exploded. As people’s awareness and perceptions were altered by marijuana, LSD and much more, the material culture and music of the time reflected it.  At this time mass media and access to music was increasing, so everyday people were now taking on dreams of being musicians as well.  This gave rise to “garage rock”, among countless other styles that were a direct product of the individual artistry rather that mass cultural sentiment.  With this experimentation – with both drugs and music – came a massive outward fractalization of new music being made as a result of countless microcosms of material culture. The clothing, visual art and other material culture of the time largely reflected the effects of psychedelia in music as well as countercultural movements.  Harvard professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad stated that, “All social movements have been accompanied by an artistic vanguard,” and the 1960s are the embodiment of this idea [Muhammad, 2017]. The dramatically shifting cultural tradition in the form of shifting values, shifting government and shifting technology birthed immense amounts of new music and art.  And in many ways, those works calling for peace and calling for change were effective to the causes they championed. Regarding this period, Moby puts it, “If you look at the late 60’s, it’s very hard to figure out which was the primary driver. Was it cultural change? Technology? Or music? It seems in reality to be a messy symbiotic relationship between all of those elements. The music reflected the culture, the culture reflected the music, and nobody can really tell which was the chicken or the egg!” [Mbe, 2017]

From Grunge to Hip-Hop: 1990s-2000s

Punk rock or simply “Punk”, was born in the same ways as a garage rock in the mid to late 1970’s: Local kids wanted to make music themselves. While the 60’s saw a great deal of this, the 70’s and 80’s saw the rise of pop stardom reaching a level of even greater accessibility. Channels like MTV changed the landscape of pop culture forever, because for many teens, it was as if their favorite Rockstar was in their living room.  Punk was the antithesis to all of these ideals, however, and sought to reject the perceived excessed of mainstream media. While punk music remained – somewhat intentionally – relatively underground, though, it did eventually pave the way for many other genres and subgenres of music: namely grunge.  Grunge gained a far greater level of commercial success in the 1990’s thanks to bands like Nirvana.  Bruce Pavitt coined the term “grunge” when he wrote about the Dry As A Bone EP by Seattle group Green River and described their album as featuring “gritty vocals, roaring Marshall amps, ultra-loose GRUNGE that destroyed the morals of a generation.” [Everett, 2011] Again we see the idea of counterculture tearing down the walls of that which was previously established.  Grunge is important to consider because it was the reply to the over-commercialization and potent saturation of pop and rock music. It was a case of music informing a culture of what not to do some believed. And thus, grunge came about with a simplistic authenticity that reproached the hair bands and stage glam of the 1980’s.  Eventually, the masses clung to that authenticity and music pushed cultural changes in material objects and thought patterns. The music consumers of the 1990’s were fed up with being spoon fed certain types of music, and thus the landscape of music adapted.

Also spurred from the minds of bedroom room musicians around the same period was the genre of hip-hop. Now, Hip-hop is one of the most widely debated, hated, and beloved music genres to date, and it is because it is arguably one of the most diverse genres in history – and undoubtedly one of the most misunderstood. Part of the misunderstanding comes from the breadth to which people chose to use the term, but that is a matter for another paper of a greater magnitude. It began in 1973 in a Sedgewick Ave basement Rec Room in the Bronx of New York City, when Clive Campbell – better known as DJ Kool Herc – entertained a party where he played not one, but two record players at the same time. At the time, the clubs of New York City were dripping with commercial disco, but Herc wanted to play the classic funk, soul, jazz and blues records that his community knew.  But in a party setting, he felt it was best to just play the drum or solo parts, the breakdowns, so he would play two of the same records on different players to loop the dance sections.  One party gave way to countless more and the birth of genre.  In New York City, hip-hop originated from the needs of a culture and the desire for relatable authenticity, and since then, in modern America it has had one of the largest impacts of any genre.  And one of the most important of those impacts, was that almost anyone could try it at home and make something new without classically training in an instrument.

Early hip-hop gave way to rap music, which is the rhythmic rhyming atop breaks and beats.  Lyrical advancement in the genre began to occur on records in the late 80's and early 90's, when lyrics of troubled circumstance in the American ghettoes resembled the content of early blues and spirituals which birthed jazz the same way.  It is no doubt that the lyrical expression of hip-hop has been its greatest means of cultural affect.  Much has been debated about both the implied content and the impact it yields but many have argued, especially in the 90’s that it has been an impetus of promoting violence, sex, materialism and the glorification of power [Johnson, Jackson & Gatto, 1995; Smith, 2005]. It is true that hip-hop and rap music often contain the expression of strong political and social ideas, but their greater effect on the American population is still vague and debatable. Charis E. Kubrin suggests that rap music may be used as a vehicle to fight oppression from the dominant culture. Once again, the theme of countercultural influence on music composition comes into play.  Additionally, Kubrin found that 68% of ‘‘gangsta’’rap, a particular subgenre prominent in the 90’s that appeared to focus on the glorification and even necessity for violent action, also promotes the idea of respect. Kubrin found that the message of respect is exhibited as often as are the images of violence [Kubrin, 2005]. There is research that suggests this idea of countercultural revolt in the hunt for respect is largely community building and has in fact acted as an incentive for social movement. [Rose, 1994] The greater impact on social ideals is difficult to perceptualize as there is simply not enough objective reflection yet as the historical period is still so recent and arguably still occurring.

There is, however, a very obvious series of cultural impacts that hip-hop and rap have directly and indirectly been responsible for.  There has been a noticeable shift in the majority content of rap lyrics between the 1990’s to the mid 2000’s.  The emphasis on violence, countercultural revolt and anti-establishmentarianism has dramatically shifted to emphasis on wealth, self-indulgence and the exaltation of the ego. [Duke, 2014; Travis, 2012] In 2018, rap and hip-hop overtook rock as the most popular genre in the U.S., thereby solidifying its resonance with American consumers, but the genre that was created by DJ Kool Herc and even all the hip-hop and rap content of the period up to the mid 2000’s should arguably be distinguished from modern radio “trap” as it has been adapted.  The same thing that happened with rock is happening right now.  Rock gained popularity and thus oversaturation, losing its authenticity.  In response, the mass culture ushered in punk and grunge.  The same can be said for hip-hop.  As Americans saw that oversaturation, the response was a satirical anti-rap of sorts.  We have “mumble rappers” now that have morphed the content much the way Nirvana did, and these modern trap rappers are reviving the same satanic and countercultural imagery that punk and grunge did over a quarter century before.  Again, cultural needs dictate the music being made.

The New Era of Music and Culture: 2010s –

The American global climate of the early 2000’s can also largely be attributed the speedy shift of popular music’s recent content. The decade saw 9-11, a U.S. war overseas, an economy crash leading to a Recession and most importantly the complete dissemination of the internet – to name a few things – so it’s not particularly surprising that American culture was left forever changed…and needing a vanguard of arts to accompany that social change. My generation and those that follow, grew up in an uncertain America, one categorized by limitless access to limitless possibilities, and unfortunately the product of that has a questionable outlook.

But today in a world where the broad music industry is conservatively estimated to contribute over $160 billion USD to the global economy, and anyone with a computer can access literally millions of songs at a click – or make them – what are the effects of this shift? [Mbe, 2017] William K. Kilpatrick described the phenomenon in rock and roll decades ago: “In a sense, it is the culmination of the Romantic shift of emphasis from the work of art to the artist himself. The song doesn’t matter; what matters is the artist and his emotions.”  [Kilpatrick, 1992] This characterizes the era of self-indulgence in which we live, not only in the music.  And now more than ever, we ought to question whether the music informed our actions to be this way and to what extent? Or is our modern music simply an expression of our mentally and socially crumbling state? 

Rusty Rueff, former Board Chairman of The Grammy Foundation, explains the importance that celebrity holds in this cultural influence: “Today, celebrity can be manufactured and very targeted to certain groups versus the masses, and in many ways can be irresponsibly powerful in shaping certain people’s views within certain groups. For example… there are certain celebrities that have been manufactured and created using the internet that are not responsible whatsoever and cause more damage than they do good.” [Mbe, 2017] The rise of SoundCloud, a music streaming service, as well as social media like Instagram and Facebook can largely be to blame for this.  Amateur “musicians” like Tekashi69 and Bhad Bhabie are example of a modern cultural phenomenon in fake celebrity or fake musicianship.

Much the way a clown can entertain a crowd, people like Tekashi69 and Bhad Bhabie have taken advantage of their shock factor to impersonate real musicians.  They appear to have large followings of people interested in seeing what ridiculous thing they have to say or do next on social media.  They have learned to pander to perceived societal needs and gained success through their cultural influence and not their music. In light of this, musical content has entirely fallen by the wayside in a pop context. Figureheads are drawing people in with shock value and music is spreading with a decided lack of concern or awareness amongst the popular masses.  The over saturation of rock that led to extravagant mega pop performers is happening now in trap music, but the content has so severely devolved into self-indulgence, materialism and exaltation of self that the music is dramatically impacting our culture in negative ways. Drug overdose and death is at all-time high in U.S. and so is drug reference in popular music [Evans, 2015]. You would be hard pressed to find a rap song on the radio in the past year that didn’t make at least one reference to drug use or sex. As technology and music prevalence continues to grow, the dispersion of popular music’s ideals spread too – for better or worse.  Writer Selwyn Duke begs the relevant question of our youth who most deeply ascribes to modern trap music, “like a frog spawned in a polluted pond, would we mistake its toxicity for normalcy?” Only time will tell.

The Big Picture: The Impacts on Modern and Future Culture

The globalization of exchange has deeply intensified pop culture through new media and information technology. [Storey, 2009] The fact that the average American listens to four hours per day of music, illustrates just how much this globalization and media intensification occurs. [Stutz, 2015] Countless studies have shown how listening to certain music and especially lyrical content can induce particular thoughts related to the tone of the piece. [Evans, 2015] If our youth today is listening to an average of four hours per day about something – whether that is violence and self-indulgence or positivity and social awareness – then cultural shift as a result of music is going to occur more rapidly than ever before.  And it will predictably only get faster.  On one hand, the option for personal selection is at a record high.  Music has been democratized, if you will, by technology, but will that lead to greater social divides and pockets of individualized cultural tradition? Or will the mass media message have the greatest impact on the impressionable American culture?

The divisive nature of modern music, with its many disparate subgenres clearly has the capability to affect us both positively and negatively. There is no doubt that some musicians of today have chosen to take to social justice as did many of their predecessors.  For example, Macklemore has advocated gay rights, true gender equality and better control of our nation’s substance use problem.  While he has been commercially successful, however, it seems he is somewhat of an outlier in the rap world. While some artists’ larger impacts have been markedly positive, that is not necessarily the norm. The effects of many other popular musicians can be noted in the research of Virgil Griffith who has spent over three years mapping the connection between music preference and average SAT scores.  The results are bleak.  Of the 13 major genres significant enough to chart, hip-hop and R&B scored the absolute lowest, with pop not faring so well either. [Griffith] Some would argue, including Griffith himself, that listening to pop music can quite literally make you dumber.  This is without a doubt a cultural impact of music that needs further study and definitely a level of caution that will likely go unfulfilled.  

Closing Thoughts

Here I find it necessary to feature a third quote from international DJ Moby that is something of an important anecdote.  Something to remind us all of what the music we perceive really is: “If you were a space alien trying to define music… you would define it as humans manipulating the way in which air molecules hit someone’s eardrum. Somehow that air – which has almost no substance whatsoever – when moved and when made to hit the eardrum in tiny subtle ways, can make people dance, cry, have sex, move across country, go to war and more.” [Mbe, 2017] It is profound to consider how simple music is really, and yet how it can have such a deep personal or global impact.  Vibrating airwaves have been responsible for so much of the human condition that I have discussed in this paper, and as often, the human condition has communicated itself through those same frequencies. Imagine a life or a history without music, which as Friedrich Nietzsche describes, “…Without music, life would be an error.” [Mbe, 2017] The symbiosis of our cultural makeup and our music has been paramount to our reality so far, and it is likely that will increase in validity based on the cultural trends of the U.S.  Wherever there is a need for social change, there will be music at the forefront, and wherever there is music – which is now everywhere! ­– there will be a shifting set of cultural traditions. Performer Belinda Huang put it eloquently to the musician in stating that, “As musicians, we are carriers of influence, whether or not we are aware of it and whether or not we intend to be… it's almost our unspoken job to create a sound that will be amplified to the next generation, impacting them and impacting our society in return.” [Huang, 2015] My response to her and to all musicians – which we truly all are in varying degrees – is that it is our unspoken job to send out and receive the frequencies of positive impact to the future.

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