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Join Prime now, just in time for Prime Big Deal Days, happening October 10th and 11th. Learn more at Amazon.com slash Prime Big Deal Days. Charlie, if there's one thing we know about music, it's that music is universal. Music crosses boundaries and brings people together.
I mean, it's magical, right? Yeah, of course. It feels like it's sent down from the vines, and all our hands are reaching around the world taking kumbaya together, right? But whenever I turn on the news these days, I do not see a country whose boundaries have been erased and everyone is brought together.
I see a country that's divided and disunited and pitted against one another. And it makes me wonder, does music really have this role of erasing boundaries and bringing people together? Or does maybe in its own way music sort of reinforce those boundaries and reinforce our distinct identities from one another? So, are you ready to go there with me?
Are you ready to get kind of deep in this one? Let's go. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan.
And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And Charlie, I want to start with a question. Kind of put it in your back pocket, and we'll take it out once in a while and run it over. And the question is kind of heavy, but I think it's important.
And the question is, does the kind of music we listen to reflect our identities, or does the kind of music we listen to shape our identities? Yes. Okay. Yeah, mull that one over.
Is it the mirror, or is it the toolbox? Right, mull that one over. A sec. And I thought in answering this question and understanding the role of music a little better in our lives, we could take two songs, both from the same year, from five years ago, 2011, both songs with the same exact name, in fact.
Both of these songs are called Made in America. But as we'll quickly see, these songs, despite having the same name and being from the same year, are two very different kinds of pop songs. Right. The first, on the right side, we have Toby Keith, Made in America, a song he wrote with Bobby Pinson and Scott Reeves.
And on the other, we have Made in America by Jay-Z, Kanye West, featuring Frank Ocean, produced by some hip-hop luminaries like Mike Dean. So we see these songs already are both called Made in America, but they're probably going to be very different. Yeah, I see what you're trying to do here. You're relating the division in music to the division in the news.
All right. Where are you taking me? Let's go. So I want to take these songs, break them down lyrically and musically, and see how two different genres, country and hip-hop, both conceive of what it means to be made in America.
Great. So let's begin with Toby Keith, Made in America. Have a listen, Joe. Oh, man, said, oh, man, spent his life living off the man.
Fetty hands and a queen's soul. And maybe we'll start with the lyrics of the song, see what we can unpack here. So the question again is, what kind of political identity is this song projecting here in terms of its lyrics? Like, what can we read into this?
And maybe how does it reflect it in our national climate right now? Well, I feel like country songs are usually really great at forming narratives, really imagistic stories. And there's a lot of imagery here that reads almost like a certain form of patriotic resume. Right.
There's the waving a flag, growing up on a farm. This is a veteran. This person buys only things made in the USA, is a handyman, can fix anything in the garage. There's almost not a strict narrative here, but rather a bunch of images thrown at us to reference a certain form of rural country life.
Yeah, totally. Okay. And let's kind of zoom in a little into that country life and maybe think about how it is subtly suggesting a certain political agenda, perhaps. Right.
Because these images aren't neutral. No. There are lots of references to tension. Right from the start, we have this line about buying foreign cars.
Right. And setting up almost a protectionist identity. Later on, in the second verse, he references, I think it's Toby Keith's mother, at least by the story. Right.
Who is a schoolteacher and says the Pledge of Allegiance, even if it isn't cool. Right. And this is a funny leap of narrative point of view because the coolness of the Pledge of Allegiance was not in question probably when his mother was a schoolteacher, but rather as a modern debate. And this pops up again when he mentions, I'm not prejudiced.
Nobody even accused the narrator of being prejudiced. But it felt like he needed to be defensive to what feels like it's a commentary on the current language about political correctness. And we're hearing that political morality of people saying, I don't want to be politically correct. Just very coded language.
Right. Yes. Yes. Wow.
Great reading, Charles. I totally agree. Because there is something, like you said, sort of protectionist, sort of looking backwards to some imagined golden era of Americana, of an imagined rural South. Right.
And that seems to be slipping away, right? Because you're right. There's conflict. There's something threatened here.
Right. And certainly in one respect, what does seem threatened, as you say, is really given away by that telling word prejudice. He ain't prejudice. But nevertheless, we do have a fantasy of disappearing white supremacy under Jim Crow America.
And that is something maybe being bemoaned, not directly here, but in a general way, I think. Absolutely. Okay. And there's a lot more to say, but in the interest of time, let's move on to some of the music of this piece.
What can we learn? And this is kind of harder to talk about, I think, right? Music is more elusive than lyrics, but nevertheless... A little less overtly political.
Right. But nevertheless, let's see how the sound world of this piece might be subtly reinforcing the same kind of political identity that the lyrics do. And let's start with instrumentation here. Okay.
So the first thing that I hear are a bunch of electric guitars, which makes me think of classic rock, roots of American music, and that's reinforced by the entrance of the banjo, which is the twang, the most country sound. Right. Right. That is a key moment in the instrumentation of this piece, I think.
And then everything else fits within a country mold. It's a simple acoustic drum set playing the kick drum on every downbeat. There's an interesting rising and descending bass line, but it's more or less acoustic and electrified instruments that have a relationship to traditional country instrumentation. Right.
And that seems important. This acousticism you mentioned and a certain sense of traditionalism. How does that play into the political identity that we were detecting in the lyrics? Huh.
All right. Well, I guess if I have to reach really far. Yeah, I'm putting you on the spot. I could connect the hand-madeness of acoustic instruments to the garage in Toby Keith's song of things which are handmade and authentic and potentially made in the USA.
Yeah. Oh, I love that. Right. And in that too, maybe kind of this pull yourself up by your bootstrap sort of self-reliance, but certainly a gritty authenticism is communicated by these acoustic choices, which really stand out especially in contrast to the pop charts, which are full of electronic instrumentation.
There's a reference to traditionalism. No doubt. And now I want to talk about the voice. I want to talk about the sound of the voice.
I think this is a very important part of what makes country music sound like country music. How would you describe Toby Keith's voice in this song, Charles? Well, obviously it's got twang. Oh, it's got twang.
I feel like that's the only way I really know how to describe it, but I'm sure you've theorized heavily on this. I want to appreciate what you're thinking. Well, I have hit the books so I can sound like I know what I'm talking about here. Right.
And thanks to, in my research, thanks to a scholar named Jeff Mann, I now have one of my new favorite words I can deploy here to describe that twangy sound you notice. Yeah. And it is diphthongization. No, no, no.
That's definitely a song by Cisco from the late 90s. The diphthong song. Oh, man. Charles, that is such a dated reference, but I love it, so I can't help but laugh.
Yes, diphthongization. That diphthong, thong, thong, thong. What are we referring to here? What is a diphthong?
Oh, man. This is a really unfair pop linguistics quiz for you. It's a funny guttural-ish sound. It's something that I learned in English in high school, and I'm completely blanking, and I feel really stupid.
That's such a good guess. Don't worry. You sound really stupid all the time, so it's not out of character. This is a word that refers to saying or singing something that's kind of between two vowels.
Okay. Not quite A, E, I, O, or U, but sort of a blend and a lesion of two vowels. Oh, like a... Does that make sense?
That makes a lot of sense. So a word like, yeah. Yeah. Because it has a, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. But I think a better example is actually one we can draw from this song when Toby Keith sings U-S-A. And the way he sings A is not A, like I'm saying it, but it's more like A.
A. Like somewhere between A and E. Right. Okay.
And that's a big part of the southern accent, and it's something that you basically are required to use in a country song, really regardless of whether you're actually from the south and have a southern accent or not. Right. This has become just a sonic marker of country music, diphthongization. Right.
And make me think of Keith Urban, the Australian country singer who sings like he's from the rural south. Right. And it's funny because it maybe pokes at the authenticity that these singers are trying to create here. Right.
But it's also just a stylistic feature of this music. Nevertheless, we can ask ourselves the same question. How does this twang, how does this diphthongization maybe support the political identity being shaped in this song? Well, this is a tricky one.
Oh, this is really tricky. No doubt. Certainly there is a reference to the old south, which is definitely a politicized reference. Right.
And the other thing that comes up for me is that since all country singers more or less adopt this kind of accent, it creates a community of listeners and songwriters, a fluidity within a single genre, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
And I could even take it a little further and say that the politics of the southern accent seem to kind of go hand in hand as an expression of class struggle and solidarity, like you were saying, because this accent is not the norm. There's something different and sort of underdog about it. So the choice to use this diphthongization is definitely just kind of a sonic characteristic, but I think there also might be something more there as well. Now, at this point, we have scratched the surface of Made in America, number one, but it is indeed time to move to our other corner and listen to the other Made in America.
This one again by Jay-Z and Kanye West featuring Frank Ocean from their 2011 album, Watch the Throne. And immediately we are in a very different kind of America here. Sweet King Martin. Sweet Queen Goretta.
Sweet Brother Malcolm. Sweet Queen Betty. Sweet Mother Mary. Sweet Father Joseph.
Sweet Jesus. We made it in America. Sweet baby Jesus. Oh, yeah.
This is funny because I'm hearing so many references to American ideals. Yes. But with a totally different sound and era style. Yes, and let's just begin by breaking down Frank Ocean's opening hook here.
Sure. This gorgeous hook. Who are these figures he's referring to? Sweet King Martin.
Sweet Queen Goretta. Sweet Brother Malcolm. Sweet Queen Betty. Well, these are obviously the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.
Right. Martin Luther King Jr., Greta Scott King, Malcolm X, Betty X, and then quickly alighted into Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. So, very powerful start to this song. Yeah, uniting the holy family with the Civil Rights leaders and their families.
And now I'd like to zoom in on Jay-Z's verse from this song. Sure. I pledge allegiance to my grandma, put that banana foot in a piece of American-a. I apple pie with supplies, go arm and hammer.
Straight out the kitchen, shh, don't wait, nana. Build the republic, this still stands. I'm trying to lead a nation to lead on my little mans. Oh, my daughter, so I'm boiling this water.
This girl's life started, I'm just restoring order. Put that, let them slam up. What's up, ya-ya? What's that smell?
Oh, I'm just boiling some agua. No pop-up. Bad spanner. The streets maze me, part of my bad manners.
I got my liberty. Chopping friends up. Street justice, I pray God, understand us. I pledge allegiance to all the swamblers.
This is the stars making him, man. Oh, that's an amazing verse. Yeah, and again, I just need to stress here, this is a very different kind of made in America. What kind of America is Jay-Z painting here?
I think he's painting a lot of different pictures. Great, let's see some of that. Okay, so the first thing I hear is a similar homemade-ness, a reference to making homemade apple pie, the dessert of the nation. And there's this reference to almost making it in a homemade way, right?
He says, our apple pie was applied through arm and hammer. It's like he's making it from scratch. But, of course, that's not what he's really talking about here. No, what's he really talking about?
Well, the next level of reading is that he is in the kitchen cooking up drugs. Right. But you're implying there's another level, too, which I have not gotten to, so enlighten me. I'm hearing reverberations of the references to the civil race leaders when he says, our apple pie was applied through arm and hammer.
The actual larger fight that is taking place in our nation for equality, for social justice. For social justice, yeah. When he says the scales was lopsided, I'm just restoring order. Right, exactly.
Yeah, okay, so great. And now let's get a little more refined. Let's think about how the vision of what being made in America means in this song differs from that of the Toby Keith track from the same year. Well, this is interesting because on one hand, it feels like we have stylistically an entirely different song.
On the other, I'm hearing references to sort of normal American values of self-made-ness, a Horatio Alger story of, as you mentioned earlier, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. There's a certain sense of entrepreneurism to this song. Yeah, I totally agree. And there are similarities, but that's not what I asked you of, Charlie.
What are the differences here? What are the differences? I don't know what you're hearing. Okay, so here's what I'm hearing, because I think, again, something that is sort of fundamental to the Toby Keith song in a lot of country music is the sense of nostalgia, of looking backwards to a golden past that may be mythical, but it seems within reach.
Right. And this song, I think a lot of hip-hop is looking forward, is looking not to the past because the past, as we are reminded in this song, is brutally unfair to its black narrators. Right. They're not nostalgic for the Jim Crow past.
No. They're looking forward. And while they're referencing these figures like Chris Scott King and Betty X, they're doing so to acknowledge that they're building on their work, I think, rather than wishing they could be back in that era. Yeah.
So I don't see the same kind of nostalgia here. No, this is forward-looking. Right. And in fact, it's worth noting that while the song is called Made in America, when they say it in the song, they actually change a little bit, right?
So it's, we made it in America. It's more present than we made it in the past. Right. Right.
And we made it thanks to our forebears who paved the way for us. But implying that is there's still much work to be done. Yeah. And, I mean, here again, I think that there is just reference to making it, being an entrepreneur, the metaphor of the drug dealer, I think, can stand in for anyone who's hustling to survive and trying to fight to have a decent living.
Right. And it's so beautifully captured in the final puplet of Jay-Z's verse here. I pledge allegiance to all the scramblers. And then the music cuts out to further emphasize it.
I pledge allegiance to all the scramblers. This is the Star-Spangled Banner. This is the Star-Spangled Banner. Oof, that's a...
powerful moment. Okay, now, Charlie, let's turn away from the lyrics of this track to music. Again, harder to talk about, but more elusive. Great.
Nevertheless, what can we learn about the identity being projected in this song from the musical choices they've made? What stands out to you? Let's talk about instrumentation first. Okay.
Underlying the entire thing is this bed of sort of gentle hip-hop beat. There's this really nice synth pad. Right. There's these subtle but not in-your-face drums.
There's a bass line which kind of merges with that synth pad. They're hard to distinguish. Right. But the thing that really sticks out is this weird lo-fi, bit-crunched synth thing that jumps in every couple of measures.
Yes. That's the thing I keep going to. Yes, you're talking about that kind of distorted beat thing that reappears again and again. Yeah, exactly.
Wow, okay, that's crazy you said that, Charlie. We are so on the same wavelength because I also am totally fixated on that sound, which just seems so weird to me and kind of hard to wrap my head around. But why might they have included that kind of almost annoying beat there? Well, okay, again, you're asking me to dig deep here.
Get your shovel. It feels like it's in contrast to what I described as a sort of calm musical bed. It is this alarm keeping you alert because the album is called Watch the Throne. There's a certain sense that having made it in America is not solid.
It can be taken away. There's a constant threat. It feels almost like an alarm of a fire truck or a police alarm. Yes, yes.
Okay, good, good. I'm totally with you. This is seemingly representative of the need to be alert and on your toes even when the rest of the texture, as you said, is kind of comforting and smooth. There's this sound that's out of place that always jolts you back to your reality.
Yeah, safety not guaranteed. Yeah, and maybe in that sort of conjure something of the noise and chaos of urban life where the song is taking place. Right. Unlike the sort of pastoral country landscape of Toby Keith's song.
Yeah, yeah. And I just need to stress something you already said, which is that all these sounds are electronic here. Well, with the exception of later on, we get this piano that comes in. An acoustic piano.
That's true. That's very true. Okay, so there is one element not drawn from the electronic world of synthesizers and drum machines, which is this piano. And that's like totally a very grounding element of this track.
But in general, I would say this is electronic and that's probably a deliberate choice that sort of supports the identity of the song, political identity, somewhat alienated. So maybe that piano is kind of like the reverent reference to the civil rights leaders to a past, to a sound which comes from the past. And then the synthesizers are all references to the future. As you said, this song takes a narrative point of view which is very forward looking as opposed to necessarily very nostalgic.
Okay, I'm right with you. And then the last thing I want to talk about quickly, because we did it with Toby Keith, is the voice. The sound of the voice here. And immediately, I think it's obviously a very different kind of voice than in the country music.
But it's also interesting because it doesn't seem to subscribe to a certain sound. Like you were saying, in country music, you sort of need to sound a certain way to be recognized. Here in hip-hop, it seems more about sort of establishing your own unique sonic palette in terms of your voice. Right, I feel like the MC is always trying to create a unique sound through the subtle differences in how they articulate their verse.
It's not to sound like everyone else. Jay-Z doesn't want to sound like Kanye. They both have their own voice. They're demonstrating that on this track.
Yes, yes, exactly, exactly. And at the same time, they are referencing the kind of group solidarity needed to make it in America. Two very different versions of made it in America. Yeah, right?
And again, we've just maybe scratched the surface of these two songs. But when we come back, I want to think about a little more what these songs have in common. Both now, and then in the past, what these two genres have in common, which is maybe a lot more than we might think. Ooh, okay, interesting.
I'll see you on the other side. See you there, Chuck. Support for this podcast comes from Amazon Prime. Let's be honest, everyone loves a little VIP treatment, whether it's a stranger holding your door or an extra nugget in your order.
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This two-day shopping event offers personalized suggestions with huge savings. Prime Big Deal Days happen on October 10th and 11th. Learn more at Amazon.com slash Prime Big Deal Days. Welcome back to Switched On Pop.
When we left, we saw two very different visions of what it means to be made in America. On one side, Toby Keith, and on the other, Jay-Z and Kanye West featuring Frank Ocean. Both in lyrics and musical choices, these songs present very different visions of American identity. But now, in the second half of this episode, I want to talk about, well, what actually might be shared by these two tracks, which seems so different, and then kind of trace that back in time to see whether the separation of these genres that we now have today is really based in historical fact.
Okay, great. Oh, this is going to make it messy. Let's go. So first, let's investigate what these two tracks might have in common, which I think is more than meets the eye at first.
Well, I started to get in this already about the fact that they are making really normative references to American values. Right. And actions, right? Whether it's singing the Star-Spangled Banner or Pledging Allegiance or even these sort of larger themes of individualism, freedom, patriotism, they are in both songs.
Right. And similarly, we find a lot of religiosity in both of these songs as well. Oh, yeah, right. I hadn't thought of that, huh?
Yeah, I mean, these are very godly tracks here, I would say. Right, right. Okay, cool. And I wonder, this is maybe a hard question, but are there any musical similarities from one song to the other?
Ooh, yeah. I wonder. I mean, there could be a piano in the Toby Keith which is buried in there, which I didn't notice, but a piano doesn't feel like an interesting enough similarity. I don't know either, honestly.
I'm not sure they are. They seem like from very different worlds. Well, I hear one point of similarity. Okay, what's that?
I think as much as the Toby Keith song is trying to reference this American tradition of country music, it's still doing so in a fairly modern context. It has very sleek production. And there's one hint that brings it very much in the present for me, which is the opening guitar line. When I first heard this, I couldn't quite figure out what instrument it was because there's this really processed, heavily delayed guitar, which could have been a synthesized line put over a hip-hop beat.
Yeah, interesting. Or like maybe kind of a U2-derived stadium rock sound or something. But yes, I agree. An element that seems not of a part of the traditional country aesthetic.
And this is just another way that that song sabotages its nostalgic point of view because there are those other points where it sort of references modern political struggles while talking about the past. Interesting, right. Right, so musically, this is not a Hank Williams song. No.
Musically, this is a country song made in 2011. Right, good. And I'm glad you mentioned that because it points out kind of the fuzziness of these generic distinctions. At what point does a country song stop being a country song or a hip-hop song stop being a hip-hop song?
If you take away the banjo, if you take away the twang, if you take away the acoustic guitars, when does it stop being a country song? That's a very flexible definition, but one that can cause a lot of discomfort. And with that in mind, I want to recite the lyrics of a more recent song, a song from this year. And I'd like you to try to identify the genre that this song belongs to.
Okay, ready? Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'm going to read a little bit from the middle of it. And Daddy liked his whiskey with his tea, and we rode motorcycles, blackjack, classic vinyl, tough girl, what I had to be.
With his right hand on his rifle, he swore it on the Bible, my daddy said shoot. Daddy made me fight. It wasn't always right, but he said, girl, it's your second amendment. Ooh, ooh, ooh.
Right hand. Yeah, it doesn't say right, but it's a lie. Okay, so after my dramatic reading of these lyrics, what genre do you think this song belongs to? Absolutely country.
What makes you say that? The references to Southern life, drinking whiskey, hanging out with your guns. Right, yes. Between the whiskey, the rifle, the Bible, and the Second Amendment, this seems firmly in the country camp.
Was there a truck in there? Not a truck, but a motorcycle. Motorcycle, ooh, okay. Yeah, so maybe, I don't know, truck adjacent.
And if we listen to this, we have a clear kind of country musical style. But who sings this song? Okay, you're a trick. This is Beyoncé off of Lemonade.
Yes, this is Beyoncé, Daddy Lessons, off her album Lemonade. And it's so clearly, to me, a country song. But the fact that Beyoncé is singing it, I think, as this massive R&B hip-hop star, made a lot of country fans uncomfortable. I shouldn't say a lot.
Oh, is it really? Some. Let's say some. Which I think is evidenced by a writer for country music television, saying, Sure, Beyoncé's new album Lemonade has a song with some yeehaws, a little harmonica, and mentions of classic vinyl, rifles, and whiskey.
But all of a sudden, everyone's acting like she moved to Nashville and announced that she's country now, just because of this song, Daddy Lessons. Oh, I can't believe that was published. Feels like some racially coded BS. Well, in a way, I'm glad it was, because it speaks to what might have been otherwise an unsaid tension here, which is, can black hip-hop R&B musicians perform country music without the country cognoscente protesting?
And the answer is, no, it doesn't seem like it. Because, again, these genres, and the people, maybe more specifically, the people who are allowed to perform them seem very, let's see, what's the word, very closely policed, right? And, in fact, you really have to subscribe not just to a certain kind of style when you play country music, but often a certain kind of belief. And the same thing goes with hip-hop.
You know, when the Dixie Chicks protested President Bush, that was a huge, hugely damaging to their career. And when the rapper Lupe Fiasco called President Obama a terrorist, that was similarly a huge blow to his career. So you really have to subscribe to a certain kind of style and a certain kind of politics. But I don't think this was always the case.
I think if we go back in American musical history, we'll find that this division between country music and hip-hop, or their progenitors, really, was not always so stark. And maybe we can start with a sound. A sound which, to us, was so redolent of country music, right? The banjo.
As you said, when you hear that banjo twang, you are in the world of country music, right? It's just almost inseparable. I love that you go to the banjo, because I really love the banjo, and I've looked into it a bunch. Good.
Okay, then you actually are probably more qualified than me to talk about where the banjo actually comes from. Which is pretty funny, because you play the banjo. I do. I do play the banjo.
But I know very little about it. It's like Pete Seeger said, or he quoted a banjo player in his book, How to Play the Five-String Banjo, which is how I learned how to play the banjo. And he has a quote from his old-time banjo player that says, Nopes, there are no nopes to a banjo. You just play the damn thing.
It's a very anti-intellectual instrument. That's kind of how I feel about it. But yes, but tell me, where does this instrument actually come from? So all that I know about the banjo comes from a documentary that I saw called Give Me the Banjo.
It was narrated by Steve Martin, who is also actually a really great banjo player. Yeah. And in it, they go into the past of this instrument that comes from African gourd instruments, things like the Korra. And I believe the point where it switched was during the era of white minstrelsy, where performers would dress in blackface and mock sharecropping farmers, black farmers, by playing the banjo, putting on a fake accent, putting on this costume, putting on blackface, and making a mockery of this culture.
And I think it has to do with this minstrelsy that black communities eventually rejected the banjo. It didn't just disappear overnight, like it was played in jazz music and other places. Right. But it definitely had a new association, which was with white performers.
Right. This instrument that is so closely associated with country music, and a genre so closely associated with whiteness and southernness, is actually of African origin and came into country music via late 19th century minstrelsy. So this points maybe to the fact that these genres are historically very intertwined. And the separation that we see now, if we go back in the history of popular music, was not always like that.
We can find these recordings like the great early country musician Jimmy Rogers, an amazing yodeler, among other things, recording one of his seminal tracks, Blue Yodel No. 9, in the 1920s, with none other than the greatest jazz trumpeter in the universe, Louis Armstrong, backing him up. Standing on the corner, I didn't mean no harm. A long-cumber police, he took me by the arm.
It was down in Memphis, gonna rock me with me. He says, big boy, you'll have to tell me your name. The yodeling, the yodeling. And when we listen to this, I think we hear a really seamless blend of country music and jazz, suggesting that these two genres have a lot more in common than we might think today.
But couldn't this just be one of those things where Britney Spears hires a rapper to do the third verse of her song to make it look more cool and be on-trend and cross over into different genres to sell more records? Or I could be more specific when Brad Paisley and LL Cool J released a song together called Accidental Racist. Oh, really? Yeah.
Well, that's a whole other episode. Oh my gosh. And there was a box. Yeah, I see what you mean.
Is this not just kind of a commercial stunt? No, I don't think so. I think these musics were being played, exchanged, and performed across racial lines for a good part of the early 20th century. I can point to another example, this incredibly popular country style in the 1930s and 40s called Western Swing.
Isn't Western Swing sort of early rock and roll? Right, right, right. Which again points to how messy the history of all our American musics really are. Yeah.
And that kind of leads into rockabilly, which leads into rock and roll, I think. And this was basically, again, jazz meets country music. And a band like Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys were hugely popular around the South and would cover jazz songs. And even in some tracks kind of merged traditional country with modern African-American music, like in the track Ida Red likes to boogie, where you have this traditional country song kind of going boogie-woogie all of a sudden.
No, you're wrong. I know you think there's been an upset about old Ida Red. But this is not the old Ida Red, no, sir. This is the new Ida Red that likes the boogie.
Oh! Oh, together, boy. The God Ida. And this wasn't something that people really raised an eyebrow at.
Because, again, I don't think the political and identity divisions of these genres have been established yet. And, in fact, as the scholar Carl Hagstrom Miller argues in his book Segregating Sound, this separation that we now have today was a very deliberate construction by record companies who were trying to sell more records by targeting specific audiences. And they, in fact, divided their record categories into, on one side, race records, and on the other, hillbilly records. Wait, really, they called them race records and hillbilly records?
Yes, and these are the progenitors of what we still have today as the R&B charts on one hand and the country charts on the other. That this was a very forced distinction between these two styles of music, which people didn't necessarily understand as being all that different to begin with. And as we've seen with the banjo, you even had a lot of common roots together. So what you're saying is if you had gone...
into a record store those different genres would have been divided and labeled as such yes precisely oh so okay this is i remember you put a question in my back pocket which is does music shape us or is it reflection of our identity right okay let's take that out and what do you think jose this feels like there's some uh some masterminding some sort of uh illuminati record labeling going on here uh where sounds which had not been apolitical but had existed more in a mush of genre were intentionally divided right as a way of making that money off the records right yes no i think that's totally true so now let's take the question out of our back pockets hold it up to the light and what do you think what's the answer charlie does music reflect our identities or does it shape our identities should we say it should we say what we think at the same time okay one two three both i think the reference to minstrelsy obviously proves that at the time the mockery of identity and race was a reflection that music was a reflection of identity but the record labels took that kind of identity and further divided it as a way of shaping identity even further right and now if you listen to toby keith or jay-z and kanye west on either side you're probably drawn to that music because it reflects something about your identity but then in turn who you are and your views and your values and probably even the people you associate with are shaped by the sound and the lyrics of that music there must be a word for this um i mean yeah i would probably say it's a dialectic dialectical relationship back and forth yeah so in a way i think we can go back to that initial statement of this episode music is universal and kind of put a big fat asterisk in there it's more like music is universal as long as it's uh written by someone like you with ideas of your own identity marketed to you in a way which reflects your own cultural values right like music brings us together but only in as much as we already have something shared to begin with maybe or like music reinforces the communities that we've already created and maybe we can end our episode with a thought drawn from the history that we were just talking about trying to see more commonalities between different types of music than we might give credit to reaching across the aisle so to speak right try and listen to to music that you don't normally play go turn on the country station turn on a hip-hop station listen to what your fellow country people are saying and see if you can't connect to that identity a bit see if there's not more commonality than we might expect there uh that's my kind of pollyanna-ish uh urging here i think you can say it with more more gusto go listen to music you don't like it's good for you yes but i i want to back that up a little further which is that just as much as our reading of these songs can identify cultural history within the actual sounds right we can also listen more abstractly as we try to find the commonality between these songs and certainly there are things we didn't reference right i think both of them are in the same theater they're both in 4-4 they both use similar chord progressions they use great tonal harmony they have reference to bass lines and melody lines even if one is played on an electric bass one's played on a synthesizer one song is playing one is wrapped there are these universal elements of music which can be heard in either one and i think a great musician songwriter will go across these so-called aisle genres and draw from the creative forces of other songwriters wow yeah my job both that charles thanks this episode of switched on pop was produced by me make alone and edited by bill lance and me charlie harding our design is done by lou carris you can check out his work at loucarris.com you can find more episodes at switchedonpop.com or reach out to us on twitter at switchedonpop if you're loving the show please demonstrate your support by going to itunes and leaving us a review or better yet we are still in our campaign to tell five friends about switchedonpop right i've told everyone i know in my life they are promoted by it but i really do believe that listening to music and talking about music is a whole lot more fun as a group of friends as a community don't just listen in isolation share it and uh and listen in your way and share with us what you think is going on in the songs around you totally wow as charlie you are laying down some deep knowledge dick as always thanks for listening support for this podcast comes from amazon prime the way it's over prime big deal days are here for two days amazon prime numbers can get even bigger discounts on tons of products clothes electronics furniture toys you name it sign up for prime now and enjoy the year-round cards of super fast shipping exclusive entertainment personalized recommendations plus extra savings of prime big deal days only on october 10th and 11th shop now 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