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I agree that the UK might well have the "best music", but only considering its population versus number of wonderful singers and songs. The USA takes the overall award, for popular music anyway: jazz, rock, country, folk, blues. Most of the greatest songs and singers are American.
I find continental European pop (since 1975 anyway) to be mostly insipid and inane. The EuroVision Song Contest is a good example: a dreadful mix of often horrible pop songs year after year. This might be why European pop music (excluding British, Irish and a few Swedish songs, sung in English) hasn't exported itself well in the last 40 years or so. Also, why don't continental Europeans sing and export more music in their native languages, even French? Before 1975, European pop actually had more international hits in their original languages. Spanish, German, you name it. No one can tell me that "Dutch is too ugly" or "Danish is too harsh" or "German sounds bad." They don't to me; those three languages can communicate just as much emotion and feeling (and beauty) as English or French or Spanish can, if the song is well crafted. But much of European pop today is poorly crafted.
I agree that the UK might well have the "best music", but only considering its population versus number of wonderful singers and songs. The USA takes the overall award, for popular music anyway: jazz, rock, country, folk, blues. Most of the greatest songs and singers are American.
Maybe, but right now the UK definitely exports the better artists imo.
Quote:
I find continental European pop (since 1975 anyway) to be mostly insipid and inane. The EuroVision Song Contest is a good example: a dreadful mix of often horrible pop songs year after year. This might be why European pop music (excluding British, Irish and a few Swedish songs, sung in English) hasn't exported itself well in the last 40 years or so. Also, why don't continental Europeans sing and export more music in their native languages, even French? Before 1975, European pop actually had more international hits in their original languages. Spanish, German, you name it. No one can tell me that "Dutch is too ugly" or "Danish is too harsh" or "German sounds bad." They don't to me; those three languages can communicate just as much emotion and feeling (and beauty) as English or French or Spanish can, if the song is well crafted. But much of European pop today is poorly crafted.
I strongly disagree but I can see where you come from if you honestly think the ESC is representative of European music in general, lol. The ESC is not a serious music contest, nobody watches it expecting to hear the next Stevie Wonder. There are a lot of great artists in continental Europe right now. I posted a few examples from The Netherlands earlier in this thread. Many of them were successful in other European countries as well. Who cares if they sing in English or in their native language?
@Linda. EuroVision is representative of bad Europop: those songs with weak English lyrics written by songwriters (and performed by singers) who are not native speakers of English. For a native speaker, Europop in English often sounds artificial. (If I sang in Dutch or German, the results would be just as odd.) When words aren't important to the music (e.g., techno, dance music, etc., such as that of Icona Pop), the lyrics and accent are no problem. But I don't just want to listen to techno. The rest isn't as successful, and I think that is one reason so many continental Euro songs in English don't do very well in the English-speaking world.
Also, why would singers from Holland, Sweden and Germany often deny their own language -- one's native language is such an important part of ourselves -- and produce most of their songs in accented Euro-English? I think that's sad. The Dutch do sing better in English than other Europeans, but still, why don't Dutch singers want to perform more in Dutch? Is your language that harsh to the human hear? I don't think it is.
@Linda. EuroVision is representative of bad Europop: those songs with weak English lyrics written by songwriters (and performed by singers) who are not native speakers of English. For a native speaker, Europop in English often sounds artificial. (If I sang in Dutch or German, the results would be just as odd.) When words aren't important to the music (e.g., techno, dance music, etc., such as that of Icona Pop), the lyrics and accent are no problem. But I don't just want to listen to techno. The rest isn't as successful, and I think that is one reason so many continental Euro songs in English don't do very well in the English-speaking world.
Also, why would singers from Holland, Sweden and Germany often deny their own language -- one's native language is such an important part of ourselves -- and produce most of their songs in accented Euro-English? I think that's sad. The Dutch do sing better in English than other Europeans, but still, why don't Dutch singers want to perform more in Dutch? Is your language that harsh to the human hear? I don't think it is.
We do have a lot of artists who sing in Dutch. Folk music is quite popular here but other countries don't "get it" so these artists don't break through abroad. I don't hear "accented Euro-English" at all, any of the artists I posted on p. 1 could easily pass as native English speakers imo (and most of them write their own lyrics in English, too). To many artists, Dutch sounds too direct, English is more poetic. A lot of things sound great in English but very cheesy in Dutch.
The English-speaking world is just not very open to foreign (non-Anglo) artists period, whether they sing in English or not.
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They will be HUGE! Mark my words...
