The Beat Goes On

”The music is all ours.”

That’s what my wife said after listening to the car radio as we drove through Central Sweden last month.

And again after watching an hour of mixed gender and generation line dancing on a Wednesday evening in Stockholm’s massive Medborgartenplatsen…..everything from Dean Martin to The Eagles, and every song in English.

And again at a national triathlon event in a small harbor town along the North Sea where a loudspeaker featured, for example, Elvis Presley singing “Burning Love” and Donna Summer singing “Hot Stuff.”

And Norah Jones has almost become “Muzak” in Sweden, apparently the favorite choice for background music in restaurants and lobbies.

Certainly there are local artists promoted on posters plastered all over European  cities, and rhythms from all over the world pulsate from clubs in the night scene across the continent; and obviously, centuries of European  composers  remain among the greatest of all time.  But music from the USA first recorded during the last half of the 20th Century is all-around, all the time.

JER