Culture in the Blender

All day today, I’ve been listening to a song by S. H. E. (Taiwanese band) called Ni kuai le wo shui yi.

It has some clear r&b influences in both singing and the music, and the play with the words is fun. (On a more third culture analysis level, I think the American influences are easy for me to relate to in this form, because as a waiguoren (foreigner) I can “play” the style, whereas I think most real Americans would fall over laughing if they saw me do it.) Also, the dancing in the video is clearly American-influenced.

Now, the funny thing is that my boyfriend (here playing the role of the token American, speaking on behalf of the American People) doesn’t think the song sounds American at all. When I was on the retro music kick, several of the songs I was listening to have a rappy bit in the middle that sounds American, and some are even like r&b songs with a basic techno beat over them so you can dance to them. Except my American (white) boyfriend didn’t think so. I thought I could make the European (and Mandarin) music less foreign by pointing out how there’s something from the US in them. So much for that tactic.

The reason I’m quite convinced that the influences are American, despite the veto from the real one, is that Black American music is pretty special, and therefore easy to recognize. Not to mention lines like “Look at me, come on!” and “Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do?” I’ve gotten the feeling before that many Americans, both Black and White, don’t realize how representative Black American music is to the rest of us as just plain American music. Nothing in particular comes to mind when I’m trying to think of what contributions White Americans have made to music. I guess there’s bluegrass and country, but neither is really that spectacular or unique other than on a musicology level. Culturally, I don’t have a clear concept of White music.

I’m sure Americans see it differently. (Of all colors.) But from the outside looking in, Black American music pretty much is “color-free” American music. It uses language, singing, rythms and beats in a completely different way than anything else I’ve heard. There are some cultural ’sounds’ that composers from certain countries seem to come up with ‘naturally’, probably just playing around with things they’ve heard before in that region. (Ever notice how a lot of Swedish music becomes internationally popular (compared to Finnish music) because it’s so incredibly bland?) Melancholy and minor keys are common in the Nordic countries, as are keys that are easily played on a violin. There’s a strand of melancholy and cold that can be found in a lot of Nordic music. There are scales that feel familiar everywhere. Ways of singing that feel familiar. How voices are supposed to stretch (or not), how singers interact with each other. Even though apparently Americans themselves aren’t aware of how uniquely American Black American music is, it’s got its own regional logic that feels different (or foreign, depending on your relationship to the country) from other music. Perhaps that Americans themselves don’t see it if proof – they can’t see the forest for all the trees.