Outsiders Looking In

The best way to think of pop music in the 20th century is as the triumph of trash.

Blues, country, jazz, rock and rap--almost every important popular music strain of the last 100 years was initially viewed with contempt or alarm, often as an attack not just on cultural sensibilities but also on America’s moral fiber.

Which musical style was the subject of the following tirade?

“A wave of . . . filthy and suggestive music has inundated the land . . . obscene posturings, lewd gestures. . . . It is artistically and morally depressing and should be suppressed.”

Are we talking about “red-light district” jazz in the early 1900s?

“Riot-inducing” rock ‘n’ roll in the ‘50s?

“Inflammatory” gangsta rap in the ‘90s?

The magazine editorial quoted above was actually from the turn of the century, and the target was ragtime--the feel-good sound that seems so benign today. Sentiment was so strong at the time against the works of such ragtime composers as Scott Joplin that the American Federation of Musicians passed a resolution urging its members to “make every effort to suppress such musical trash.”

It’s easy--and accurate--to point to racism as the primary reason for the strong opposition to ragtime in mainstream circles. As with jazz, blues, rock and rap, the creative heart of ragtime grew out of black America, and that process continues to be threatening to much of white America.

But there was also another prejudice at work, one that explains why traditional folk music, country and the white component of rock ‘n’ roll were for years looked upon with equal anger and/or contempt by mainstream pop fans and recording industry powers.

However different in approach, they represented the music of the outsider--a term that was wide enough to include both Louis Armstrong, the jazz master who was raised in a seedy New Orleans neighborhood and joined his first band while in a home for problem youth, and Hank Williams, the country music singer and songwriter from a sharecropper family in Alabama who spent years playing the tough honky-tonk circuit.

The term is also broad enough to include Robert Johnson, one of countless Mississippi Delta bluesmen who grew up on cotton plantations and struggled against segregation, and Woody Guthrie, the folk troubadour who came out of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to become the voice of the underdog after being treated inhumanely while looking for work in California.

It’s this outsider’s voice that consistently fueled mainstream pop music with energy and passion, putting it in a position to reflect the changing, sometimes explosive spirit of each generation.

The best musicians of each generation rely heavily on these outsider strains. Elvis Presley drew from country, blues and gospel in helping define rock ‘n’ roll. Bob Dylan wove folk into the mix to teach rock ‘n’ roll how to think. The blues, too, were essential to rap. Blues and jazz continue to inspire today’s electronica movement. In his acclaimed new album “Play,” electronica star Moby even uses voices lifted from decades-old folk and blues field recordings compiled by folklorist Alan Lomax.

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The most valuable lesson in all this for pop as we move into the new century is to let go of our musical prejudices and be open to change. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Each generation seeks its own sound and then hates to let it go. Pop and jazz aficionados for the most part abhorred rock ‘n’ roll. Frank Sinatra and Buddy Rich, among others, often attacked rock as illiterate, missing the energy, commentary and talent of the music’s best artists.

Rockers, in turn, were intolerant of revolutions in their own field. Baby boomers turned their backs on the punk uprising of the late ‘70s as well as the grunge insurrection of the ‘90s. In the latter case, Beatles fans shook their heads in disbelief when grunge fans spoke of Kurt Cobain as their John Lennon. Similarly, soul music fans recoil at much of rap.

The second thing the pop music world needs to do is remain open to technology. The two most dominant symbols of pop music over the last 50 years were ridiculed by purists: the electric guitar, which became the defining instrument of rock, and the synthesizer, which is the centerpiece of electronica. As with new musical strains, musicians and pop fans branded both instruments trash.

Of the two, the synthesizer will eventually have far more impact on pop music because it empowers the individual in ways no single instrument before it has. Thanks to breakthroughs in mobile recording equipment, the synthesizer enables someone who might have been intimidated about joining a band and playing in public to craft hits in his or her bedroom.

The electronica movement is still in its infancy because it hasn’t been fully united yet with what was the most important single element in pop music in the 20th century, and which will be the most important element in the 21st century: the song.

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There are great singers and great instrumentalists in every age, but nothing touches us as consistently or as deeply as a great song. Whether we’re responding to the sophistication of Cole Porter, the confessions of Williams, the commentary of Dylan, the humanity of Stevie Wonder or the spirituality of U2, it is the songwriter who best defines our time and makes pop music more than entertainment.

Whatever form pop music takes in the coming years, someone will eventually step forward to express our desires and doubts in a way that will define that age. That artist may be holding a guitar or standing beside a synthesizer, but it’s the song that will connect with a generation--and anyone else who is willing to listen.

There are already outside voices energizing pop, including those from rock-rap and the seemingly endless layers of electronica, but none has found its center. To most listeners, it still sounds like trash.

Robert Hilburn, The Times’ pop music critic, can be reached by e-mail at robert.hilburn@latimes.com.