The Geography of America's Pop Music/Entertainment Complex

Pop music has never been just about the music. America's massive commercial entertainment complex creates earworms and celebrity performers both as products in their own right and as a means of extending its influence even further. While some (rightly or wrongly) complain about the decline in "quality" of today's popular music, there's no denying that it remains an incredibly powerful force across the whole landscape of popular culture — the soundtrack for everything from movies and fashion runways to television, ranging from the indie tracks heard in the background of Girls, the country sounds that animate Nashville, or the mega-pop powering television "musicals" like Glee and Smash and the recent, ceaseless breed of reality-talent shows like American Idol, The Voice, and America's Got Talent.

This isn't a new phenomenon. Music has always been a key node of the popular culture matrix, from Frank Sinatra's emergence on radio's Major Bowes' Amateur Hour to Elvis Presley’s banned hip twitches on The Ed Sullivan Show.