What Is the “American” in “American Music Journalism”?

Abstract

In the writings of contemporary commentators on “American rock journalism” the question about the genuine purity of the vision of “America” is replaced by inquiries about the various ways global pop and media impact and alter images of the USA. Such an approach tries to encompass the lasting effects of transcultural contact in the age of the Internet and social media. In this article, I elaborate on details of this development and show how the aesthetics of American rock journalism and explorations of musical style have changed as well. In this vein, I interviewed American journalists from different backgrounds and asked them about the intersections between their biography and their understandings of politics, race, and gender.