Modern Music Development in the USA Report (Assessment)

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Dylan, Greenwood, and God

The two popular songs; Bob Dylan’s “With God on Our Side” and Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” are patriotic masterpieces that the American society can relate to during crisis. The “With God on Our Side” adapts a mixture of traditional Irish instrumentation and the modern techno groove. The lyrics are more of a poem than just ordinary lines that flow with the beats in a traditional American style. On the other hand, the song “God Bless the U.S.A.” adapts country music instrumentation and influenced by heavy techno groove. However, the lyrics of this song are longer and more complex than those of the “With God on Our Side” song.

The two songs present patriotic messages of hope in crisis. The element of a supernatural force is presented as an assurance to a hopeless society of the power of will to overcome. Irony in interpreting Dylan song plays the role of reminding the audience of war mongering past generation who cannot justify why they had to go to unnecessary war and still seek God’s intervention. The song “With God on Our Side” is more compelling since every person in distress can relate to it besides having a moderate soothing tone. The contemporary songs addressing similar issues include Jimi Hendrix’s “The Star-Spangled Banner” and Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring”.

Disco

Disco music was hated in the 1970s because of the cultural shock it brought upon the older generation who were accustomed to soft earthly tones of the 1960s. The soft tones had compositions about social issues directly affection the people and preached unity of pursue unlike the lewd, weird, immature, and explicit disco lyrics. Disco music is characterized by excess sound, immature lyrics, and excessively explicit content that glorifies defiance to the norms of the society.

The current rock music has experienced metamorphosis and has the characteristics of disco in term of explicit content and glorification of satanic regalia (Starr and Christopher 21). Disco has influenced the beats and lyrics of several contemporary musical compositions. For instance, Rihana’s “Man Down” and Kanye West’s “Black Head” glorifies the satanic culture and riddled with several antisocial symbols.

Bitches Brew

The track “Spanish Key” from Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew has a fusion of jazz and rock music elements. The musical elements that come from rock music include a fusion of electronic, ambient and world high pitch tones. The music elements from jazz music include the proper balance of production aural, sound accordion in the background low pitch. The use of used catchy and ‘twangy’ soundtrack music for the background in this music has a higher valence than in the companion CD. Response to music groove imitates the soul’s harmony and euphoria which are triggered by the instrumentation sound (Bergman 13). However there is connection tonal composition, pitch, and balanced groove. I love this music because of its soothing tone and flowing lyrics.

Jazz music is likely to become as popular and swing music in the 1930s since Jazz music has lovely infusion of ambient sound and live instruments which can be played in a live band. Jazz music holds appeal for younger adult audiences since its composition fuses the traditional sound and soft modern music to create a sound that sound people can relate to (Bergman 27). For instance, John Coltrane’s “Psalm” and Miles Davis’ “Blue in Green” songs have a global appeal among the young generation. The essential stylistic differences between jazz and pop compositions are that jazz is more experimental, complicated, and mellow than pop. Besides, Jazz has a faster rhythms and complex chords unlike the repetitive lyrics and synthetic background associated with pop.

Works Cited

Bergman, Mark. In the groove: Form and function in popular music, San Diego: Cognella University Press, 2013. Print.

Starr, Larry and W. Christopher. American popular music: from minstrelsy to mp3, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.

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