Rock & Roll: An Unruly History ↑

Sufficient rhythmic interest

In traditional West African cultures, a piece of music is held to be satisfying and complete if there is sufficient rhythmic interest; to oversimplify, rhythm is as fundamental to African music as harmony in European tradition and melodic sophistication in the music of India. Indian music has no harmony as such, and nobody complains; much European classical music is rhythmically one-dimensional — one is tempted to say primitive — and you don’t hear symphony subscribers complaining about that. But when pop music begins moving away from Tin Pan Alley song forms and musical values and embracing the aesthetics of its African origins, suddenly our culture is seen as adrift, endangered, riven by decadence and decay.

Robert Palmer, 1995, from the book Rock & Roll: An Unruly History