I love music. I mean I really love music. Sure, I love the blues, and Chuck Berry, old rockabilly, honky tonk, punk, heavy metal, hell I even love The Beatles. I was never a huge fan of Elvis, but I sure dig Johhny Cash. I also love jazz, classical, guitar music of all sorts. But I also listen to a lot (and I mean A LOT) of foreign music. I laugh when I hear Americans talk about having 'eclectic tastes' in music. I'm not sure they even understand what it means. And it's not their fault.
Most have never been exposed to non-American music, with the exception of the occasional hit on the radio. Here, we might here an act from Britain or Canada, maybe even the odd German or Swedish act. Once in a while something might flow up from Mexico. Aside from the relatively recent influx of K-Pop and J-Pop, most Americans would probably be surprised to know that music (of all sorts) exists elsewhere.
How many have actively seeked out the music of Morocco, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, African desert music, or one of my favorites, eastern European music. Sure, you might have one or two of your grandparents' old polka records, but that doesn't mean you listen to it or even understand it.
Music isn't created in a vacuum. The musician/songwriter's environment plays a heavy hand in music. We start out playing what we hear, then what we feel. While our experiences and emotions might resemble those of our foreign cousins, the setting is always different. I once wrote a song called "5 Minutes More". People loved it and thought it was a beautiful love song. Their thoughts on the song changes when I point out that the main character in the song is actually a stalker. (yeah, I love to do character studies like that)
Canada has a law that states something like 35% of the music played on the radio must be Canadian. Why would that be necessary? The US music industry would like a monopoly on popular music. Contrary to what most capitalists will tell you, they loathe competition. I'd wager that Canadian music speaks more directly to a kid from Thunder Bay than the latest by the US flavor of the month. But US music is everywhere. To the folks in other countries, at least early on, it was exciting to hear something recorded across the globe. It sounded fresh and new. Then the Brits gave our own folk and blues back to us, but with their own spin. We ate it up.
For all of the musical innovation of the 1950s-60s, it created an overall stale atmosphere in music. Record companies were more likely to give a new sound a chance. They had no real metrics on what 'the kids' liked. But it was all lumped under rock & roll, and the west was fed a steady diet of it, for better or worse. That didn't mean it was the only music around. The companies just made sure it was the easiest to find (and purchase).
My parents had drastically different tastes in music. As a kid, I preferred classical music (especially Beethoven and Bach). Dad had every sort of folk music you could find. Anytime he found a new Folkways Records compilation, he usually bought it. Old Celtic women wailing about Lord knows what, Appalachians singing accompanied only by foot stomping, EuroFolk, he had it. Those records and tapes gave me my first taste of the music of the world. By age 11, our neighbor Doug, who was some years older, introduced me (the annoying neighbor kid who wouldn't go away) to the sounds of Alberta Hunter & The Sex Pistols. I was always intrigued by all of the different types of music that existed. I always wanted to hear MORE!
Listening to the radio was usually a bore. The same 10-20 songs, over and over. In the 70s/80s, you might hear something slightly different on AM stations rather than FM. But there was nothing truly different. Just the same basic music from the same geographic location (mostly the USA) but from different eras. It's a miracle I became a musician. It probably stems from my attempts to hear something different. I've never copied anyone. I don't like to learn other people's past performances. If I'm going to cover a song, I'll take the basics of it and run it through myself. It always comes out sounding like me and sounding different than the original. It definitely keeps me from becoming bored.
What do I listen to? Simple answer, as much as I can. I've always had an inquisitive nature. When I found out that a lot of libraries have music section, it was like discovering buried treasure. I found out what Japanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese music sounds like. I found out what Egyptian music sounds like. I found out what Gamelan music is. The more I look, the more I find. I store each of these sounds in my brain. Some I really enjoy; some I find forgettable. Some take my soul and stomp the hell out of it.
Bulgarian music does that to me. A lot of people have heard Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares. An ex-girlfriend got me the album 30 years ago, mostly because she knew I loved to hear different music, and the album was a bit of an underground hit, meaning it was easy to find. But I didn't stop there. If you want to hear a heart-stoppingly beautiful voice, listen to Valkana Stoyanova...or Yanka Rupkina. I'm almost embarrassed to admit how much I enjoy Toni Dimitrova, a Bulgarian pop star. But if it's good, it's good. I often need to remind myself to not be influenced by the media. Or charts. Or radio. Or any commercial venture. That's not what music is; that's not what it's for. The commercial aspect is a way to exploit music, again for better or for worse. But without the likes of musically adventurous souls who went out with tape machines and did early field recordings, the music industry probably would have died early on. Now it's just on autopilot and I'm trying to find ways to destroy that particular machine.
There's too much beautiful music that too many are missing out on. And that's a damned shame.
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