h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

" you seem to be asking if there's any music popular in the US that didn't come from the US"

I'm not confining what I'm looking for to music which is popular only in the US.

"No music derives from the 20th century. Every type of music has developed from older forms: your distinction is erroneous."

Perhaps derive is the wrong word then, and since even my first word (originate) is being quibbled over, let's say I'm looking for forms of popular music which came into being in the 20th century, regardless of what music you may want to trace their roots back to.

I would have thought that the list of music types I gave in the first post for this thread would have given everyone a pretty good idea of the question I'm asking, but I guess not, so let me describe what prompted this thread.

At the CD store where I work we've divided our stock into sections - pop/rock, country, jazz, world, folk, soundtracks/musicals, R+B, club, rap, Texas, blues, latin/Mexican, ska/reggae, classical, vocal, caribbean (calypso/soca/steel bands), instrumental, lounge, doo-wop, new age, religious/gospel, spoken word, bluegrass, cajun/zydeco, Americana (rockabilly, psychobilly, western swing, and alt-country)... I think that's all of them.

If you flip through a copy of Billboard, you'll find sales charts for just about all of the above categories since they form the bedrock of the music biz. When I stand behind behind the counter and look out over the floor I see a shop full of musical types which developed in America (leaving out, as already said, forms of music which I would think of as American folk music such as country, bluegrass, cajun, etc, the world section which is filled with folk music from around the globe and pop music sung in languages other than English, and classical music).

I think that's something for Americans to be proud of (even though it ultimately gave us the likes of The Spice Girls, The Backstreet Boys, Buck's Fizz, and Tiny Tim ).

So, is there any kind of music you can think of which came into being in the 20th century, which is part of the mass consumed popular music industry, and which didn't develop in the US (such as, for instance, ska/reggae/raggamuffin)?

Hells bells - if that doesn't make it clear enough I'm unsubscribing.

When you say mass-consumed popular music I take it you mean westernised, as you seem to be working from that viewpoint only.

What about Salsa or Mambo? Or would those have been around prior to the 20th century? Or do you consider those 'folk music'?

When you get right down to it, nearly all music could conceivably be traced to some form of folk music...

Of course, I guess Latin music is still American music, just not North American music.

Bhangra for one. It grew out of an older Indian traditional style but has influnces from reggae and house/dance music too.

Speed garage or Two Step. Highly derivative of conteporary soul/RnB but with heavy dance hall and house influeneces.

Lately Hip Hop and soul/RnB music has shown a liking for Indian rhythmes and musical sounds. This is part of the natural cross fertilisation of what we like to term musical types. Which are not real types at all merely ways for bands and record companies to target their product at an audience or for record shops to organise their stock or for kids to idntify with a sub culture or group.

Quincy Jones said, "There is only one kind of music, the kind that people like"

I mentioned bhangra earlier, but growing from Punjabi folk, it wouldn't fit into the very tight rules?!

'who put the bomp in the bomp-shoo-womp?'
who stretched out the first animal pelt for drying and whacked it with a stick? who first plucked the sinews that held said skin taut? who plucked the first leaves/reeds and discovered they made a noise when one blew thru them?
music and culture....culture and music....culture IS music? could very well be. music equals language plus emotion????