• The underlying themes of American popular music, which include music and identity and the effects of technology on music, continue to shape it.
• By the end of the century, the mainstream and the margins as well as the correlation between them had broken down almost completely; the spread of digital technology seems to be completing a process of total decentralization.
• The rise of international pop superstars and the emergence of world music as a distinct category suggest that the center-and-periphery concept must be recast in truly global terms.