I am an Englishman, originally from a small village in Lancashire where everyone looks the same - even, slightly worryingly, the sheep. I have been residing reluctantly in the general area of London for 38 years. I came here for three weeks, ran out of money and couldn't afford the coach fare home. I believe that an Englishman's home is his castle. Even if it is only a small end of terrace pile of bricks.
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America and Britain. The joint homes of Rock ‘n Roll. America gave us Elvis and we responded with The Beatles. Other greats from both sides of the pond popped up. Jerry Lee Lewis, The Rolling Stones and so on and so forth.
Ever since then only America and Britain can really make music can’t they? Well, most of the time, yes. Let’s look at the offerings from other countries.
Sweden’s Abba? Massively successful but boringly ‘middle of the road’. Australia’s INXS – I spent months thinking they were called ‘Inks’ and the band were dyslexic – a couple of ok songs then lead singer Michael Hutchence stopped shagging Kylie Minogue and hung himself in a bizarre solo sex game which made for far more interesting reading than their music was for listening.
Iceland’s Bjork was at least different. After fronting The Sugarcubes she embarked on a reasonably successful solo career but was too, well, Iclandic I suppose.
Germany’s Scorpions did ok as did Holland’s Golden Earring. Denmark’s A-Ha kept the young girls happy whilst Switzerland’s Krokus pretended to be Black Sabbath. Germany popped up again with Nena and the interminable 99 Luft Balloons and some Austrian bloke called Falco rocked Amadeus.
Of course that was the 80′s but into the 90′s it was no better. I suppose it could be argued that U2 are neither American nor British – which, as they are Irish would be quite true – but Ireland doesn’t really qualify as Europe as Britain owns a bit of it. Even if you do include U2 as a band that made great music and weren’t American or British they would be no more than an anomaly anyway.
I just remembered, The Cranberries were from Ireland too. Oh dear. My theory is looking a little ragged around the edges isn’t it?
Well, that’s probably because it is. Abba weren’t my cup of tea and neither were INXS dyslexic or otherwise, but there has actually been some great music that didn’t originate in America or Britain but I’m often startled that Yanks and Brits often forget that fact and continue to believe that if it isn’t American or British then it’s crap.
In fairness it often is crap but there are so many musical gems out there in the big wide world we really should value them far more than many if us do don’t you think?
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