Cultural globalization: Pop-rock and musical cosmopolitanism

Cross-fertilization, mutual inspiration, multi-directional influences, transference of stylistic elements and simple copying or imitation have characterized the relations between musical cultures around the world for centuries, and certainly so since early modernity. Still, the notion of musical nationalism or musical ethnicity has been an essential, practically unquestionable premise that dictated the nature of much musical activity in almost every country during most of the twentieth century. That is, nations at large or certain sectors within them, as well as ethnic groups of various formations, have all worked to preserve and reproduce, or invigorate and invent, musical idioms, genres and styles that they could claim as their own. Musical styles and genres, in other words, have functioned throughout modernity as signifiers of ethno-national cultural uniqueness. Regardless of their genuine musicological “purity” in terms of nativeness or indigenousness, musical styles and genres have been proclaimed by nations and ethnic entities to be expressions of their cultural singularity and authenticity.