Let’s imagine an external observer looking at Earth, trying to understand its characteristic sounds. Which genre would be the most cross-cutting in today’s music?
One might think that classical music (due to its dominance over the last few centuries) or folk (due to its deep historical roots) would be the clear candidates to define our sounds—but would that be correct?
Interstellar Messages in a Bottle
Because, friends, songs have already been sent in three different launches, and the list is relatively long (honestly, before writing this article, I thought only one or two tracks had been sent):
1977 The Voyager Golden Record1
- Classical music: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky
- Rock: Chuck Berry
- Blues: Louis Armstrong
- Folklore: popular songs from Java, Senegal, Zaire, Australia, Mexico, the United States, New Guinea, Japan, Georgia, Peru, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Solomon Islands, China, and India.
2008: Transmission of “Across the Universe” by The Beatles2
2024: “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” by Missy Elliott3
From this, we can see a mix of four major genres: classical, folk, blues/rock, and hip-hop. But in terms of global audiences and general listening habits, is this distribution representative of what the world listens to today?
Side note: Isn’t it mind-blowing that we sent this track? I hope it comes with the music video included.
On elitism and sound universality
While the inclusion of classical music is understandable given its historical weight, it doesn’t seem like the choice was based on it being a defining sound for the planet today. Always associated with elite circles, it could even be—along with jazz—the very opposite of “popular.”
The folk should be the answer to our question. It is the pure definition of rootedness: lyrics of the people and recognizable sounds. So why isn’t folk simply the folk of Earth, and we leave it at that? The greatest virtue of folk is also its limitation regarding universality. Folklore is, by definition, local culture; therefore, it is difficult to group traditional sounds from Senegal, Germany, or Australia under a single umbrella beyond the folk label. (And that’s without even getting into the cultural differences within each geographic area).
Hip-hop, despite its current popularity, still carries a strong American identity, thus lacking the required universality.
Is Rock, then, the Planet’s Folk?
This is where rock claims its throne. Various authors point to rock as a transnational musical practice4 5 (which seems obvious today), thus defining the cross-cutting nature a genre needs to answer our initial question.
Comparing it to other genres also seems to favor rock. It lacks the elitism of jazz or classical music, and it enjoys deeper penetration than others like hip-hop or reggae.
So maybe the key question is: Is rock more similar across cultures and subgenres than folk? Well, that might depend on the eye of the beholder, but if we think of a rock festival in Latin America, Europe, or Southeast Asia, the sounds that come to mind are likely more similar than those at folk festivals.
What is folk, baby don’t hurt me
In any case, it’s difficult to compartmentalize music as if genres were watertight compartments rather than continuities. In the case of (American) folk and rock, this continuity seems even more evident.
If we understand folk as music representing a collective identity, “DIY” ethics, and the handling of popular/social themes, the most reasonable conclusion would be that rock is the global folk music of this era.
Therefore, the answer to the question would be: yes, rock is (currently) the folk of Earth.
- Golden Record Sounds and Music – Sounds of Earth https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/golden-record-contents/sounds/ ↩︎
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- Out-of-this-world Collab Between NASA and Missy Elliott: Sending a Hip-Hop Song to Deep Space for the First Time https://www.nasa.gov/collab-between-nasa-and-missy-elliott/ ↩︎
- Ethno-National Pop-Rock Music: Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism Made from Within https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1749975507082051 ↩︎
- Mapping Rock Music Cultures across the Americas https://upittpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/9780822958413exr.pdf ↩︎