The missus was in the shower the other day, I knocked on the door, she whispered “who is it?” to which I replied “it’s Gerald, the plumber”. She opened the door and casually, I walked in and started to massage her soapy, steamy ti ….. er … hang on a minute! Wrong Blog!
Anyway, as she showered away, I could hear her singing some jaaaag song by Scouting for Girls or whoever the fuck it was and I thought to myself “oh Jesus fucking Christ on ice, not more American crap!” But, then it hit me and I realised they aren’t from America, they’re British!
Anyway, after contemplating re-enacting the famous scene from Psycho or pursuing the possibility of a soapy tit wank, I got thinking: why do so many British singers sing in this American accent?
Now, by no means is this posting anti-American, on the contrary as America has produced many great bands that I greatly admire and is steeped in rich musical history, but these artists/bands I will refer to are British and not American. Take a few British singers for instance: Rod Stewart, Elton John, Brian Johnson, Robbie Williams and the great Robert Plant all have big sounding America accents when they sing. Now, believe me when I say they shouldn’t all of a sudden turn into Chas ‘n Dave, Michael Caine or Grant & Phil Mitchell, but don’t you think they should sound a bit more, well … British when they sing?
As astonishing it may be that so many of these artists sing the way they do, there really is one true expert at singing in an American accent. As you all know I’m a pretty big fan of The Stones, but Sir Mick has not only mastered the ability to sing in a perfect American accent, but he has got each regional American accent down to an absolute tee! Some achievement if you ask me. If you don’t believe me have a listen to ‘Wild Horses’ (Texas), ‘Far Away Eyes’ (West Coast/Bakersfield) & ‘Fingerprint File’ (East Coast/New York). I urge you to listen to these tracks and you will be truly stunned and think you are actually listening to Gram Parsons or Kenny Rogers. Pure genius
But it’s not just the British who are guilty of mimicking the accents of our cousins over the pond, look at The Vines, INXS & AC/DC (all from Australia), Soundtrack of our Lives, The Hives, Roxette & Abba (all from Sweden) and The Trills (Ireland). All of these singing a very strong American accent! And please take note of this for the record: I do not (repeat: do not) possess any Roxette albums. Ok?
Now, I, and everyone else reading this blog know how much of an impact and influence American music had/has on British music and culture during the 50’s, 60’s & 70’s with many British artists taking influence from many American Blues artists such as John Lee Hooker, Howling Wolf, Robert Johnson, Bo Diddly, Muddy Waters & Jimi Hendrix, but that was then and this is 2009, some thirty - forty years later.
Many influences have come and gone for the artists of today such as Punk and Britpop to take their inspiration from, many of whom are British. So why do we have to rely so heavily on American music to inspire our vocal style of today? After all since the above years have passed we have had any musical revolutions such as Punk Rock, Metal and Britpop all massive influences on today’s music that has well and truly left it’s ‘stamp’ on bands of today.
There are the odd exceptions to the rule with regards singing in an American accent with likes of Blur, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Super Furry Animals, The View and The Proclaimers (who do sounds remarkably like a cross between Russ Abbot’s ‘See-You-Jimmy’ character & The Krankies), but these are very few and far between.
But it’s not all doom and gloom on the accent front chaps. Many fine British bands are breaking through at the moment who do actually sound like they are from these shores so maybe all is not lost after all: Alan Donohue from The Rakes is one of the finest social commentators since Jarvis Cocker, Maximo Park are the first band since Lindesfarn and the first singer since Jimmy Nail to sing in a Geordie accent, The View sound like Billy Connolly after seventeen lines of cocaine and a night out drinking shit loads of Stella and The Enemy sound like Barry from Auf Weidersein, Pet with a rather angry cob on! There’s enough British sounding vocalists there you could shake a stick at!
So, if you’re sick to death of listening to these Trans Atlantic sounding Brits, sit back, put your feet up, put Quadrophenia on, get yourself a can of warm Carling and have a rootin’ tootin’ good time yaall and remember: be careful out there.
I’m off for a ‘soapy’ (better get me Lynx out)
Mol
Sunday, 23 August 2009
Born In The USA? ... Er, Hardly!
The missus was in the shower the other day, I knocked on the door, she whispered “who is it?” to which I replied “it’s Gerald, the plumber”. She opened the door and casually, I walked in and started to massage her soapy, steamy ti ….. er … hang on a minute! Wrong Blog!
Anyway, as she showered away, I could hear her singing some jaaaag song by Scouting for Girls or whoever the fuck it was and I thought to myself “oh Jesus fucking Christ on ice, not more American crap!” But, then it hit me and I realised they aren’t from America, they’re British!
Anyway, after contemplating re-enacting the famous scene from Psycho or pursuing the possibility of a soapy tit wank, I got thinking: why do so many British singers sing in this American accent?
Now, by no means is this posting anti-American, on the contrary as America has produced many great bands that I greatly admire and is steeped in rich musical history, but these artists/bands I will refer to are British and not American. Take a few British singers for instance: Rod Stewart, Elton John, Brian Johnson, Robbie Williams and the great Robert Plant all have big sounding America accents when they sing. Now, believe me when I say they shouldn’t all of a sudden turn into Chas ‘n Dave, Michael Caine or Grant & Phil Mitchell, but don’t you think they should sound a bit more, well … British when they sing?
As astonishing it may be that so many of these artists sing the way they do, there really is one true expert at singing in an American accent. As you all know I’m a pretty big fan of The Stones, but Sir Mick has not only mastered the ability to sing in a perfect American accent, but he has got each regional American accent down to an absolute tee! Some achievement if you ask me. If you don’t believe me have a listen to ‘Wild Horses’ (Texas), ‘Far Away Eyes’ (West Coast/Bakersfield) & ‘Fingerprint File’ (East Coast/New York). I urge you to listen to these tracks and you will be truly stunned and think you are actually listening to Gram Parsons or Kenny Rogers. Pure genius
But it’s not just the British who are guilty of mimicking the accents of our cousins over the pond, look at The Vines, INXS & AC/DC (all from Australia), Soundtrack of our Lives, The Hives, Roxette & Abba (all from Sweden) and The Trills (Ireland). All of these singing a very strong American accent! And please take note of this for the record: I do not (repeat: do not) possess any Roxette albums. Ok?
Now, I, and everyone else reading this blog know how much of an impact and influence American music had/has on British music and culture during the 50’s, 60’s & 70’s with many British artists taking influence from many American Blues artists such as John Lee Hooker, Howling Wolf, Robert Johnson, Bo Diddly, Muddy Waters & Jimi Hendrix, but that was then and this is 2009, some thirty - forty years later.
Many influences have come and gone for the artists of today such as Punk and Britpop to take their inspiration from, many of whom are British. So why do we have to rely so heavily on American music to inspire our vocal style of today? After all since the above years have passed we have had any musical revolutions such as Punk Rock, Metal and Britpop all massive influences on today’s music that has well and truly left it’s ‘stamp’ on bands of today.
There are the odd exceptions to the rule with regards singing in an American accent with likes of Blur, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Super Furry Animals, The View and The Proclaimers (who do sounds remarkably like a cross between Russ Abbot’s ‘See-You-Jimmy’ character & The Krankies), but these are very few and far between.
But it’s not all doom and gloom on the accent front chaps. Many fine British bands are breaking through at the moment who do actually sound like they are from these shores so maybe all is not lost after all: Alan Donohue from The Rakes is one of the finest social commentators since Jarvis Cocker, Maximo Park are the first band since Lindesfarn and the first singer since Jimmy Nail to sing in a Geordie accent, The View sound like Billy Connolly after seventeen lines of cocaine and a night out drinking shit loads of Stella and The Enemy sound like Barry from Auf Weidersein, Pet with a rather angry cob on! There’s enough British sounding vocalists there you could shake a stick at!
So, if you’re sick to death of listening to these Trans Atlantic sounding Brits, sit back, put your feet up, put Quadrophenia on, get yourself a can of warm Carling and have a rootin’ tootin’ good time yaall and remember: be careful out there.
I’m off for a ‘soapy’ (better get me Lynx out)
Mol
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3 comments:
Sunshiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine...don't forget your favourite band Oasis skipper.
I think it’s time the Brother’s Gallagher (or is it Grim?) hung up they’re Manc Swagger and called it a day to be honest mate
Way past their shelf life, more rubbish songs being spurned out and, rather sadly, becoming a bit of an embarrassment (to music and themselves)
Their comedy value diminished a long time ago and they have (IMO) become figures of laughter with a bit of shame thrown in
Time to move back to Denton and go back to robbing cars I reckon
Nah la, saw them at the arena earlier this year and they were boss. Had my doubts myself like on the way down there but was well impressed. And Liam still had it...
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