Talk:Americana music/Archive 1

this intro is not very descriptive
this intro is not very descriptive. an intro should be simple as hell. i know what american music is, i listen to it every time i go back, but this intro does not really describe anything. the intro is like a river that wants to reach a single end but keeps splitting on itself. rock and roll is a form of rock and roll music that is based on the convergence of rock music and the roll music of the blah blah blah —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.192.29.148 (talk) 00:38, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Merger to American folk music?

 * Oppose: Seems there is a trend here to merge things related to "Folk Music". American roots music has been merged to American folk music, while Roots music was merged into World music.  While these terms all overlap and can at times be interchanged I don't think they are all identical.  "Americana" for example is fairly well-defined as a radio format that does not usually inclued everything that might be considered American folk music. One is more or less a sub-set of the other. -MrFizyx 21:50, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Merge into Alternative Country?
The article basically says they're the same thing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.70.143.93 (talk) 08:20, 1 January 2007 (UTC).
 * I disagree. Americana is more of a catch-all term.  It includes bluegrass, and possibly some more urban folk music than what is generally considered alt.country.  Of course it would be nice if someone would find sources describing these things and reference them... -128.146.34.232 00:17, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

american vs citizen of the US
Yes, I know a little clunky, but Argentinians, Panamanians, Mexicans and Canadians are all American, so why say Neil Young is not American? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.63.224 (talk) 01:05, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I changed it to "not all bands are from the United States." I think that should address your concerns and still read well. Marshall Stax (talk) 12:45, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

wow.
this article is not very descriptive or encyclopedic.

I wikified a bit, and removed folks from the list of notables if they were red linked. Now, every one of those 'notable amercana artists' needs to be identified in thier wikipedia article as an americana artist, you can't just say 'joan osborne' because she's american and doesn't fit in a rock and roll box. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 18:21, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Needs cleanup. Style is personal and essay-like, not encyclopedic. Needs sources too. Please help out! Regards, Mondeo (talk) 20:42, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Problem with one sentence in "Americana as a radio format" section
I'm hardly a veteran wiki editor, nevertheless, I do know a thing or two about music history. I won't bore you with my bona fides. So, what's my problem? It's the following sentence, essentially the penultimate sentence in the aforementioned section:

While the musical model can be traced back to the Elvis Presley marriage of 'hillbilly music' and R&B that birthed rock 'n roll,

Problems
 * Do you really want to trace an entire musical genre to one person? While it's true Presley was quite arguably "an original" and that alone buys him much claim to influence not withstanding his popularity, which I'm even separating out from this argument -- that is, I'm saying yes, even Presley's original music was influential in its own right. But to say he "married hillbilly with R&B? To say that as if it's something that's firstly, set in stone, secondly not even open for debate, and lastly as if it's that clear and clean cut of a dissection of Presley's originality... no, I'm sorry, I do not accept that. Presley was influenced, like every songwriter, by all the music surrounding him both in his childhood as well as in his teenage years. And this will necessarily include (gasp) Big Band -- admittedly a dying, if not already dead form, but one that nevertheless still had a strong influence on everyone. A musical form that had ”only“ gripped the USA for up to 30 or 40 years prior, ”carrying the country through TWO World Wars“ is not going to ”go quietly into that good night.“ It will have some lingering influence. I will spare everyone a detailed accounting of the year this song came out and the year that song came out and the potential influence song-A had on song-B, etc. This is my point, anyone with a reasonable education in Music History -- or even better, with a good ”feel“ for music, can construct these arguments -- I'm unfortunately looking for a job at the moment and thus out of time.

Frumiousfalafel (talk) 21:49, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * This is my main problem: to blithely claim, in passing, as if it's no more contested than the fact that the sun will rise in the East that said marriage alluded to above, and the corresponding implication that Elvis Presley, as ingenious wedding-arranger-creator-merger ... BIRTHED ROCK 'N ROLL ... My G-d man, that's taking hero worship to a whole new level. And I only point this out in the hope that other will take up this uncontested and glib statement. Sure, yes, of course E.P. did have an influence, indeed, even a major influence on Rock 'n Roll. But to say he birthed it? Please. That's simply going not just a little too far, but into the end zone, in the the crowd sitting in the bleachers, out of the stadium and eventually into whichever ocean 1,000 miles away you will in which you will end up. No, I am sorry, just for starters, and this is as far as I have time to go, just for starters can we mention the Beatles? As there is no agreed, set-in-stone firm point-in-time in which anyone... anyone can claim "rock 'n Roll" was born, it certainly then must make more sense to talk of a continuum at the least, over say 5 - 10 years in which Rock 'n Roll was Birthed (really, developed, evolved, or any other synonym would do, as it applies to a range of time, not "ding" let's pull out R&R from the microwave now, it's ready to eat.

The Beatles were European. This is an article on Americana or the older styles of American Music Dirke31 (talk) 15:07, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Listing of example artists
I do more work at folk music and am just an occasional visitor here. When there's a top level article on a genre of course there's lots of folks/bands who would like to be in the list of examples, doubly so because it inevitably is a short list. I've always figured that a bare minimum requirement is that they have an article in Wikipedia. I think another minimum one is that their article indicates that they they are in that genre. Beyond that I think the ideal would be where the editors have the expertise to pick out the more prominent ones for the short list. I added one (Carrie Newcomer) which met the first two criteria. It got reverted; I really don't have the expertise in this genre to have an opinion on that, but thought it is a good to mention it here. Sincerley, North8000 (talk) 16:07, 18 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I appreciate your comments here. I deleted Carrie Newcomer only because there was no reference here.  This article had become an unsourced laundry list of performers that may or may not have been in the genre.  Most of it appeared to be original research.  Instead of going back and forth to the subject's article to determine if they are cited Americana artists, it would help to have the reference here.  If an editor adds an artist that has an article (like Newcomer) and a citation that the person is an Americana artist, I would not revert again.  Thanks, 72Dino (talk) 16:17, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a good approach. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:49, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Of course there are editors who look at the article on an artist they want to include, and add an Americana Music reference there, or conversely get involved with an article about an artist and decide they belong on this page. Lana Del Rey for example falls completely outside any accepted definition of Americana music, she does music for video games and MOR pop music, but dig deep enough and yes, there are some references providing a tenuous link, so here she is cited as a typical example of the genre. Misleading to say the least, or am I missing something? ProfDEH (talk) 07:16, 17 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree on that one. Reinforcing that, nowhere in her article does it even assert her genre as being Americana, and her infobox lists 4 genres and Americana is not one of them. North8000 (talk) 11:44, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Lana Del who?
Is Lana Del Rey in any way an example of Americana music, let alone a prime example of the genre? The answer to both questions is of course, no, she isn't, she's a moderately popular middle of the road singer who didn't even perform in the USA until this time last year. Why doesn't that description of what Americana music consists of differ so markedly from the main article Americana music? This is why the article is better with no examples than a few chosen at random. I can't be bothered to keep deleting this stuff but hopefully someone will make an effort to write a proper expanded article. ProfDEH (talk) 21:20, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I was actually just coming here to say the same thing. The references used don't even talk about her music being Americana, just references to Americana in her personality or videos. I think somebody should remove her from the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.192.214.183 (talk) 17:44, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Misplaced enthusiasm also evident on the Americana page. ProfDEH (talk) 07:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Agree. Reinforcing that, nowhere in her article does it even assert her genre as being Americana, and her infobox lists 4 genres and Americana is not one of them. I'll take her out (if not out already) North8000 (talk) 11:46, 17 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I don't want to do anything without support. ProfDEH (talk) 13:58, 17 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks. What do you think about the idea below?   North8000 (talk) 15:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Example artists criteria proposal
First, the sentence for the current list says "significant" artists. I only saw two that I ever even heard of, not that that means much. Might I suggest a criteria that they be floated on the talk page first to get at least one person to agree with inclusion, and some net support for the inclusion if there are varying opinions. And it would be based on: Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 11:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Americana be one of the artist's MAIN genres
 * Has an article in Wikipedia

That sounds reasonable but in fact I think all those artists are rather minor, except Alison Krauss who is proper star of bluegrass music - which might be included within the definition of Americana music at a stretch, but for sure isn't how she would describe her music. I suggest the whole section should be deleted, and those 'blogs' too. So what should be done with Americana now? ProfDEH (talk) 19:01, 18 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I think that if we could do a good job of picking them that giving some examples of the genre would be informative.


 * But overall, I think that a short article could also appropriate. But I don't know to what extent this term is even a true mainstream genre identifier. North8000 (talk) 19:13, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

That was my conclusion on Americana, one that I came to the hard way - trying to edit the examples into shape, then deciding they belonged on a separate page entirely, a page that was speedily deleted, so the original article ended up neat but short. Until recently that is.

I agree, it's unclear if it is a real genre, in fact I think not, at least not in the way that the blues is most definitely recognisable, but this page gets 400 hits a day so the term is obviously relevant. It's a valid idea to flesh out the article with some examples but you'd have to be very knowledgeable to do it properly. Maybe the AMA article provides adequate information if you need to find names. ProfDEH (talk) 20:28, 18 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I think that the 400 hits per day are from people just like me who are asking (both before and after reading the article :-) ) "what the heck is Americana?"   :-)  North8000 (talk) 20:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)