News

This year’s summer came with multiple song releases that some may call the revival of country and, recently dubbed, “recession pop” music. With music award season just beginning, St. Olaf’s Professor of Music Louis Epstein answers questions regarding how music genres and trend cycles are revived through nostalgia and business choices.

What do you think people mean when they say we have a resurgence of country music and “recession pop” genres during economic downturns?

I think cultural commentators are always looking for narratives to help explain or frame the music they want to draw attention to. Escapist music and music focused on the challenges of daily living have long been popular in the United States; these things aren’t specific to recessions or any other historical moment. But escapist music can definitely get more attention when critics or listeners are looking for coherence between pop culture and the lived experiences of large numbers of people in the United States.

How do cultural, political, and economic factors influence genre popularity?

Cultural, political, and economic factors influence genre popularity in so many ways that it would be hard to summarize them in a few sentences. Genres largely exist because communities of musicians, listeners, critics, and industry figures coalesce to create and distribute the music. In that sense, cultural and political factors such as preferences for particular sounds, stories, and social, political, and racial identities can play a role in genre popularity. 

There’s a long history of racial segregation within the music industry: early country music was made by both white and Black musicians, but was described as “hillbilly” and “cowboy songs” or “blues” depending on the musician’s race rather than on the sounds being performed. In fact, from the 1920s through the 1940s, “race records” –– defined as music made by non-white musicians –– widely circulated as a cultural and political industry-defined category that had little to nothing to do with what we would call the “genre” or “style” of the music being made. I actually wrote about Beyoncé’s awareness of this dynamic in an op-ed for the Star Tribune.

In addition, economics is a huge part of the music industry –– I recommend reading Alan Krueger’s Rockonomics: A Backstage Tour of What the Music Industry Can Teach Us About Economics and Life for an accessible introduction to the business of music from the perspective of a nationally renowned economist.  

Is genre revival more driven by nostalgia, or is it shaped by innovation and new voices in the scene?

Yes! Nostalgia, new voices, and cyclical patterns in music history all drive genre revival. One reason that music often returns to popularity around 20 years after its release might be that the generation that grew up with that music has arrived in positions of institutional or cultural authority. I grew up listening to what I called “oldies” music but which was really not that old: radio stations that played the music of the 1960s was what I heard in the car when my parents were driving me around in the late 1980s and early 1990s. That music has never really gone away, but the teenagers of the 1960s helped bring it back in films like The Big Chill (1983) and Forrest Gump (1994).

Is there such a thing as trend cycle in music? Or, can a genre’s popularity be predicted?
I do think there’s such a thing as a trend cycle, although this is arguably a more recent phenomenon. Up until the late 1700s, most people didn’t bother listening to music older than around 30 or 40 years, and few were interested in reviving old sounds. But with the invention of what we now consider to be a musical “canon” –– a durable collection of pieces that people have decided are worth listening to over and over again, no matter how old or outdated they may seem –– there have been regular returns to older music as a source of inspiration for newer music. The U.S. music industry has only accelerated that pattern of return, so that today it feels like we see regular 20-year cycles of marketed nostalgia and interest in the previous generation’s music.

How does your work on campus and in the musical community at St. Olaf reflect the ever-changing musical taste and popularity as musicians and consumers?

I’m constantly updating my syllabi to reflect what my students are currently listening to. This isn’t just to make my classes seem relevant; it’s to show my students that they can apply the skills they’re learning in our music department to any music that interests them. 

Louis Epstein is a St. Olaf professor of music and the department chair of music. He is a historical musicologist whose research ranges from early twentieth-century French music to digital mapping to the science of teaching and learning. He has received fellowships and research funding from the Fulbright Program, the French Embassy, the Georges Lurcy Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, the Mellon Foundation, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Schedule interview through the Director of Public Relations at stolafmedia@stolaf.edu.