Paul Simon-Graceland
Certainly, some international genres had found mainstream success during earlier periods of the twentieth century, such as tango, salsa, bossa nova, and reggae, but the concept of a world-music market blossomed only in the late 1980s. Its popularity was due in large part to the enormous success of the album Graceland (1986), by American popular-music icon Paul Simon. The album featured music from the Republic of South Africa and was a major impetus for motivating record-company executives and other music industry leaders to agree upon a single moniker, “world music,” to promote their growing catalogs of international popular artists, which had previously been described with varying terminology, such as “world beat” or “ethno-pop.”