Heartland Rock: Globalization Hits Home
- Music History Hall
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
American Music
Heartland Rock was a genre of music that sprang up during the mid-1980s amid the rise of globalization and the loss of blue-collar jobs and a small-town way of life. It symbolizes the loss of the American Dream.
As the United States was transitioning from the 1970s to the 1980s, the economy was marked by high inflation and high interest rates – up to 20%. There was a gas shortage and unemployment rose at the end of the 1970s. Economists called this phenomenon “stagflation.”
The 1981 recession triggered widespread unemployment, but manufacturing, construction, and the auto industries were particularly affected. Manufacturing jobs accounted for only 30 percent of total employment at the time. However, they suffered 90 percent of the job losses in 1982.
From 1982 to 1987, virtually all the growth in national wealth took place in the highest income group. Many poor and middle-class families lost ground as low and semi-skilled manufacturing jobs were eliminated from the economy. For generations, these unionized workers had enjoyed good-paying blue-collar jobs that could support a family. They didn’t see globalization coming and bringing with it an end to their small-town way of life.
Small towns in America with mostly blue-collar workers whose economic base was a factory at the edge of town started to disintegrate. Without the factory, most people did not have jobs and could not eat at the local restaurants or shop at the mom-and-pop stores on Main Street. The whole town falls apart.
Globalization and international trade cost American workers millions of jobs. The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan once stated, “Arguing against globalization is like arguing against the laws of gravity.” What he meant was - you are not going to win that argument. Globalization was here whether you were ready for it or not.
Music emerged that reflected this dramatic shift in small-town America that began in the 1980s – Heartland Rock. It was a genre of rock music that focused on blue-collar workers and their plight. There was a conviction that rock music had a social and communal purpose beyond entertainment. Bruce Springsteen, "The Boss", was the king of Heartland Rock.
This music associated with working-class regions of the Midwest and the Rust Belt includes themes of despair, unemployment, small-town decline, disillusionment, limited opportunity, and bitter nostalgia. Although the stories reflect large-scale economic changes, the lyrics are about battles for individual dignity rather than for economic realignment.
Heartland Rock reached its commercial peak with Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. album in 1984.
