The United States through the Prism of American and British Popular Music

For over a century and in modes ranging from hagiography to protest, popular music has been a prime theatre of observation and representation of the United States on record, in concert and more generally in the performing arts. Studying this field, with its senders — artists and their productions — and its receivers — gatekeepers and audiences — enables us to cast a different light on the USA as a source of inspiration, rejection and attraction for musicians on both sides of the Atlantic in order to explore certain visions of that country, or at least to examine some of the forces that shape and/or distort it. This issue of La Revue LISA/LISA e-journal gives a diversified insight into a field which has not been extensively explored yet, but which does arouse the interest of an increasing number of talented — and mostly young — researchers, as these articles show. As usual, this selection of articles is followed by an essay, under the heading of VARIA, this time about the self-representations of Ireland through stamps and coinage.