In Anibel Alcocer’s classroom, the lights are dimmed. Class has just begun, and the University of Idaho lecturer of Spanish lowers the overhead screen and presses play on the music video pulled up on her computer.
Some days, she might play something more upbeat — anything by Enrique Iglesias is always a go-to — other days it might be something humorous, like “Oh, how hard it is to speak Spanish!” by Inténtalo Carito. As always, it’s in Spanish.
Although Alcocer exposes her students to a different Spanish song every class, she said she hasn’t found music from different cultures to be a common staple of American music culture.
“You can hear a lot of music in English, but not in a lot of other languages. Unless you find a radio station that is playing a different section, you don’t really hear it,” Alcocer said.
As a nation that is thought of as a hodgepodge of various cultures, it’s easy to think they would be represented in one of the most popular art forms — music. However, the February Billboard Hot 100, the music industry standard record chart in the United States, features no songs produced outside of the U.S., or any spoken in a different language.
In a list of the BMI’s Top 100 Songs of the Century published in 1999, every song listed is in English, and most are by western musicians. Alcocer said she finds the strict recognition of American or English-speaking artists in the U.S. to be an anomaly.
“It’s weird that (America) doesn’t have that international music,” Alcocer said. “I’m from Mexico, you hear music in English, you hear music from all Latin America, it doesn’t matter the language. I feel like the U.S. has tried to keep the English, even if it isn’t specifically American.”
While some international artists, like Enrique Iglesias or Shakira, find success in the United States and produce songs in both English and Spanish.
However, the English versions of these songs often perform better than the Spanish versions within the U.S.
Alcocer said in some southern states like Texas, there are Spanish radio stations that are separate from popular stations, but it’s not likely someone will find a station that plays both English and Spanish hits.
There are several theories as to why music in languages other than English is more popular in the United Sates, one being that foreign language is not a prominent topic of learning in the United States. An article published by Forbes cited a study that found the number of foreign language courses offered in American elementary schools decreased from 31 percent to 25 percent from 1997 to 2008 and that about 25 percent of elementary schools don’t have enough qualified teachers to teach foreign languages.
It’s a cultural phenomenon even international artists have recognized.
Alcocer said people should be less concerned about the language a song is in, and take an interest in the nature of the song itself.
“(Language) is a barrier to know what they say, but sometimes there isn’t one because sometimes the sounds, the rhythm transmits a lot, too,” Alcocer said.
Music has long been considered a sort of language apart from spoken language. A 2014 article in The Atlantic described a study by Charles Limb, an otolaryngological surgeon, on how jazz musicians interpret music. This study concluded that music is interpreted in the same way as language, where people understand the music being played with no relation to an exact spoken language.
Xena Lunsford, a UI English major, loves listening to Japanese music. Lunsford said beyond music from different cultures presenting a language barrier, she thinks American society views music from other cultures as something that is an “other,” or outside of social norms.
“I don’t think that it’s supported. I don’t think that people are encouraged to listen to (foreign) music, and because of that fact I feel like it’s not around, so people can’t desensitize themselves to the fact that there is a variety of music. So it becomes viewed in the ‘other’ fashion,” Lunsford said. “As to why it’s not, I don’t know — maybe American elitism?”
Lunsford said she believes “Americanism” is a form of musical elitism, where there is a “strict, homogenized, uncomplicated sort of ideal” and a fear “that what makes us American won’t make us American anymore” if there is a branch out into foreign musical territory.
For Lunsford, listening to Japanese music is an opportunity to expose herself to new music listening experiences.
“For me, and my perhaps ignorant perception, I get a lot more variety with Japanese music rather than popular American music compared with popular Japanese music,” Lunsford said.
Alcocer said she believes there universal human experiences can be found among different cultures, and that listening to music from those cultures can help others understand how different people experience the world.
“Everything is so global that people have the access to hear music from all around the world,” Alcocer said. “I feel like there are certain things that are the same in every culture, but they give them a touch of their own background. We are influenced in so many ways beyond music.”