2 INTRODUCTIONThe concert’s name, We Are One, evoked the motto on the Great Seal of
the United States, e pluribus unum (“out of many, one”), to project a message of
national unity. The musical content, however, stressed the pluribus more than
the unum. If America is indeed a country where many peoples, from many lands,
have united to form one whole, can the same be said for America’s music? Does
it even make sense to speak of “American music” as if that were a single, clearly
defi ned category?
The tendency to think of music in terms of sharply separated styles or genres
is perhaps stronger today than it has ever been. Billboard, a music-industry maga-
zine, tabulates sales of recorded music in its infl uential weekly “charts” of hit sin-
gles and albums. Back in the 1950s, Billboard tracked record sales in three genres:
pop, rhythm and blues, and country-western. Today, in contrast, each issue of
Billboard includes sixty charts and distinguishes twenty-fi ve distinct genres. For
instance, “pop” is differentiated from “adult pop,” which is not the same as “adult
contemporary.” Likewise, “rock,” “hard rock,” and “alternative” are separate cat-
egories, as are “Christian” and “gospel.” (There are more charts than genres, in
order to track different formats, identifi ed as songs, radio songs, digital songs,
albums, digital albums, and ringtones.)
A popular online music guide, AllMusic.com, makes even fi ner distinctions,
dividing music into nine basic genres—pop/rock, jazz, R&B, classical, and so on—
of which only one, “world,” specifi cally designates music made outside the United
States. The other eight genres are further divided into fi fty-eight “styles,” not
counting non-U.S. categories. For example, pop/rock comes in thirteen styles—
including alternative/indie-rock, folk/country rock, and psychedelic/garage—of
which only two, Europop and British Invasion, exclude American music. The
numbers really mushroom, however, when AllMusic divides the styles into
subgenres. Alternative/indie rock, for instance, is broken down into fi fty-four
subgenres, of which only a few—such as New Zealand rock and Britpop—are out-K Pete Seeger, Bruce
Springsteen, and a gospel
choir sing Woody Guthrie’s
“This Land Is Your Land”
in the We Are One concert
at the Lincoln Memorial,
January 18, 2009.172028_00b_001-017_INTRO_r3_ko.indd 2 23/01/13 9:47 AM