What's closer to the US? UK or Hawaii

Mainstream music is pretty global right now; I think that most top 40 songs have a healthy mix of US and European influences. I don't think there's any Hawaiian influence, at leas to my knowledge.

The only time Hawaiian music really made it into the global or US mainstream was during the Polynesian phase from the late 40s to the early 60s.


The blues and rock and roll influences in modern music, are distinctly American (although they are the combination of African rhythms with European minstrel song form), as those styles began here. However, the electronic influence and techno beat actually started in the late 19th century in Italy. By the 1940s, artists in Italy, Egypt, and France were playing electro-tape music, in which artists used tape recordings of music and other sounds, and manipulated them live to create new songs. By the 1950s, Germany had figured out how to make pure electronic music, without the use of tapes.

We saw the expansion of electronic music in the 1960s, and it eventually became popular in the 1970s and 80s.

I think at this point, mainstream music is going to be relatively the same all over the world. Case in point, I signed up for a free month of Spotify to see what all the fuss was about. In Spotify you can listen to the Top 40 in the US and the Top 40 in the world. There was a huge amount of overlap between the two, and not a lot of deviation in genre. Virtually every song on any country's top 40 list was a style of electronic music.

So for the long winded answer, but I think that the short answer is neither. Mainstream music may have some influence from the UK (not so much Hawaii), but it's so global at this point that it is hard to pinpoint geographic/cultural influences.
 
I don't think there's any Hawaiian influence, at least to my knowledge.

The only time Hawaiian music really made it into the global or US mainstream was during the Polynesian phase from the late 40s to the early 60s.

Not to disagree with your valid point but I would consider artist like Jack Johnson as today Hawaiian influence in modern music. Though not your traditional Hawaiian music, it's most definitely part of the current Hawaiian beach culture and implied lifestyle (though not everyone lives on the beach and plays acoustic guitar).
 
Mainstream music is pretty global right now; I think that most top 40 songs have a healthy mix of US and European influences. I don't think there's any Hawaiian influence, at leas to my knowledge.

The only time Hawaiian music really made it into the global or US mainstream was during the Polynesian phase from the late 40s to the early 60s.


The blues and rock and roll influences in modern music, are distinctly American (although they are the combination of African rhythms with European minstrel song form), as those styles began here. However, the electronic influence and techno beat actually started in the late 19th century in Italy. By the 1940s, artists in Italy, Egypt, and France were playing electro-tape music, in which artists used tape recordings of music and other sounds, and manipulated them live to create new songs. By the 1950s, Germany had figured out how to make pure electronic music, without the use of tapes.

We saw the expansion of electronic music in the 1960s, and it eventually became popular in the 1970s and 80s.

I think at this point, mainstream music is going to be relatively the same all over the world. Case in point, I signed up for a free month of Spotify to see what all the fuss was about. In Spotify you can listen to the Top 40 in the US and the Top 40 in the world. There was a huge amount of overlap between the two, and not a lot of deviation in genre. Virtually every song on any country's top 40 list was a style of electronic music.

So for the long winded answer, but I think that the short answer is neither. Mainstream music may have some influence from the UK (not so much Hawaii), but it's so global at this point that it is hard to pinpoint geographic/cultural influences.

There have been a couple of times when "Hawaiian"music went mainstream in the US. The late teens early twenties saw an explosion of Hawaiian songs surge in popularity for a bit. Then of course what you describe in the forties and fifties. I agree that pop music is pretty global right now and it is difficult to discern specific geographical influence in any given track.
 
Where do you think all of that lap, pedal, and regular old 6 string slide guitar comes from?

That is a good point, the slack key guitar and slide guitar has had a huge influence on American culture. Even the dobro in bluegrass. Though, I think these are more akin to the Koto's and Qin's of Japan and China than one might suspect, and really who knows how they ended up tuned and played that way while sitting on an island in the middle of the pacific. Interestingly enough the slide guitar is one of the few western instruments that are popular in India.
 
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Damn, even Hawaiian steel guitar players get all the babes.


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Where do you think all of that lap, pedal, and regular old 6 string slide guitar comes from?

Agreed, but the question was for global mainstream/pop music. Outside of Country Western, which is very popular in some parts of the US, you don't see the Steel Guitar in many pop hits. That's not to say that there aren't any songs with steel guitar, but I think it's going to be fairly rare.

If you look at the global top 10 right now, I don't see a lot of steel guitar or Hawaiian influence:

1. Love Yourself - Justin Beiber
2. Stressed Out - Twenty One Pilots
3. Work - Rihanna
4. 7 Years - Lukas Graham
5. I Took a Pill in Ibiza - Mike Posner
6. Me, Myself, and I - G-Eazy
7. Pillowtalk - Zayn Malik
8. Fast Car - Jonas Blue
9. Cheap Thrills - Sia
10. Sorry - Justin Beiber

http://top40-charts.com/chart.php?cid=35


To be honest, I don't think any of these songs use any instruments at all, but I'm not starting that debate up again!
 
Keep in mind there is no such thing as real Hawaiian music. The hawaiian's and Polynesians only had chants. The Uke and guitar were adopted from the Portuguese who were the first cowboys in Hawaii, folk music, essentially country music was the big first influence in hawaii, motown came next in the 60's70's then reggae 70's 80's... and then what culture 'isn't rapping?

So whatever you consider 'mainstream' music right now its not from any hawaiian influence. All the mainstream music of the 20th century comes/came from the US.
 
That is a good point, the slack key guitar and slide guitar has had a huge influence on American culture. Even the dobro in bluegrass. Though, I think these are more akin to the Koto's and Qin's of Japan and China than one might suspect, and really who knows how they ended up tuned and played that way while sitting on an island in the middle of the pacific. Interestingly enough the slide guitar is one of the few western instruments that are popular in India.

What we in Hawaii call "slack-key guitar" is what everyone in rock calls "drop-D tuning." It wasn't invented here, if I understand correctly. But I am only a former shitty guitar player, not a current one, so it's just a little bit possible that I'm wrong.

(But I don't theeenk so!)
 
Keep in mind there is no such thing as real Hawaiian music. The hawaiian's and Polynesians only had chants. The Uke and guitar were adopted from the Portuguese who were the first cowboys in Hawaii, folk music, essentially country music was the big first influence in hawaii, motown came next in the 60's70's then reggae 70's 80's... and then what culture 'isn't rapping?

They also had drums/percussion before and after migrating over the ocean to what we call the Hawaiian Islands, some 800 years ago.

Vocally, they also had melody, not only chanting.
 
They also had drums/percussion before and after migrating over the ocean to what we call the Hawaiian Islands, some 800 years ago.

Vocally, they also had melody, not only chanting.



There are no ancient hawaiian songs, just chants, some chants had instruments, some were just vox. Hawaiian music as people know it developed out of introduced, outside genres.
 
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