Europe Produces FAR BETTER Music Than America Does

[Placebo]

Discuss.

[kodi]

1. nope

.

[jellybelly]

2. I'm not into rambling techno music

[Placebo]

4. @&#$&#(*!!!

That's not ALL European music is! Great rock bands, anyone?

I suppose you prefer rap? Or Britney Spears? :P

[da_chimperor]

10. Franz Ferdinand

Awesome.

[Sandpiper]

12. Bush?

Are they one of those great European rock bands?

[Placebo]

13. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones...

etc...etc... :)

[jellybelly]

17. the beatles are still producing music?

:crazy:
The Rolling Stones are American aren't they? If not, I'll admit to being stupid

[bobbobbins]

19. hi stupid

[jellybelly]

23. okay I'm stupid

I think I became confused when Homer Simpson said "Our Rolling Stones are better than their Beatles"
I blame HOMER!:grr:

[JohnKleeb]

26. Thats ok, someone thought Paul McCartney was an American last night

and the Stones do sound kinda American because of their blues influx.

[jellybelly]

28. you mean, he isn't an american?

:P

[JohnKleeb]

29. hah no

Thats ok that you thought the Stones were American. Now to the original question, everyone knows that Jamaica produces the best music, ahh how I love Marley and Jimmy Cliff.

[jellybelly]

33. you're right...

Jamaica WAS one of the best...which country, currently, has the best music? I would go for Lebanon or Egypt...their instruments are incredible...

[JohnKleeb]

34. ahh middle eastern and indian stuff I love that too

When I was at this middle eastern place in downtown DC with friends, they had incredible music and food. Hey, Jimmy Cliff is still with us, my dad saw him play.

[jellybelly]

36. Middle Eastern clubs and restaurants are the best

but who is Jimmy Cliff? :shrug: I get the feeling I should know him...

[JohnKleeb]

37. Many Rivers to Cross, Vietnam, You Can Get It If You Really Want

are songs of his.

[Sandpiper]

18. And what's the basis for the Rolling Stones sound?

That would be American blues.

[Placebo]

20. Your point being?

All great artists are thieves.

[GreenArrow]

24. but not all thieves

are great artists.

[Placebo]

27. You're disagreeing to disagree!

There is no bloody basis for your comments! :D

[jellybelly]

14. most of it is whiney techno music

and the rock bands of today are lame
European music only sounds good when you're high on crack...maybe heroin:shrug:

and they love Britney more over there:scared:

[mvd]

25. So what if he/she did prefer Britney Spears?

She may not be very talented, but I can see why people like her music. I like some of it. "Brave New Girl" is an amazing dance song, as is "Baby One More Time."

Personally I like quite a bit of American and European pop.

[da_chimperor]

5. You don't like Tiësto? Shame, really. He's a great Dutch DJ

Check him out http://website.tiesto.com/index1.html

[Wat_Tyler]

3. WHAT? HAVE YOU HEARD 'THE FINAL COUNTDOWN'?

Fucking terrible. Really, really rank.

[GreenArrow]

15. yes, one of the absolute WORST songs ever

:puke:

What the "puke" icon was created for.

[tuvor]

31. Yeah, but "Horse with no Name" was pretty shitty, too.

[Wat_Tyler]

42. Oh - touche!

Want your band to suck? name it after a place.
Europe
America
Texas
Asia
Berlin
Chilliwack.....

[tuvor]

49. You forgot Toronto!

Hi, home province!

[Phillycat]

61. Boston.

[rwenos]

Wrong - Jazz . . .

. . . . is still being made in America. Many fine players. Winton Marsalis, Harry Connick, that sax player, many studio quality players, laboring in clubs around America.

I've heard the jazz in England and the "jazz caves" of Paris. It's guys who couldn't get a gig in America. Some good Japanese players, but the meat is still here.

And Dave Brubeck is still giggin'! I saw him at the Hollywood Bowl this summer, sharing the bill with Ramsey Lewis. Smokin!

[Hobarticus]

6. "Final Countdown" kicks "Sister Golden Hair"'s ass any day...

:headbang:

[Sandpiper]

7. Oh yeah? Then please explain the Spice Girls

I'm waiting.

[Placebo]

11. Pssh, explain...

99% of the crap American music that tops the charts! All that rap and britney spears and crap. :puke:

[Sandpiper]

16. So tell me what ya want, what ya really really want

But seriously, I respectfully disagree.

Most of the great European rock bands lifted their stylings from American blues pioneers.

Especially Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones.

[GreenArrow]

22. I think you could go further and say

that all (maybe with one or two exceptions to prove the rule) the great European bands lifted their stylings from American artists of one stripe or another.

[Sandpiper]

38. Beatles, Stones, Clapton, Zeppelin are all indebted

To American artists like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, and Bo Diddley, just to name a few.

[AngryAmish]

35. And Black Sabbath

In the car with the girl on 12/31. Paranoid comes on the radio. She says she never heard the song before.

Gotta think about getting a new girl.

[Redneck Socialist]

8. nope

Not much European bluegrass out there. Well, the Kruger Brothers can pick it pretty damn good, but other than them? :shrug:

[GreenArrow]

9. Not...even...

close.

[Revillusion1]

21. Uh uhhhhh...

No Way! I bet if you asked a bunch of those guys from Europe, they'd tell you they were inspired by American artists...

[Thor_MN]

30. Huh??? You can't even make out the words!!!

What's that? They aren't singing in English??? Nevermind.

[Placebo]

32. Being able to understand the lyrics is overrated.

And maybe if you can't speak french, you shouldn't be listening to french musique. :D

[RevolutionaryActs]

39. Lets see...

The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Happy Mondays, Black Sabbeth, The Who, Cream, Deep Purple, Chemical Brothers, The Blur, Bush, Coldplay, Radiohead, Franz Ferdinand, Muse, Oasis.

Hmm I would have say you're right. :7

[Placebo]

41. FINALLY!

A gal with taste, class, and brains! :D

And one who is a beauty to boot. ;)

[RevolutionaryActs]

43. Oh stop! You're making me blush....

:)

[Wat_Tyler]

44. Yeah, but all but one are English - let's go stone Europe.

Serge Gainsbourg
The Cardigans
Abba
Can
Neu!
Amon Duul II
Faust
Kraftwerk
DAF
Einsturzende Neubaten
Air
<rinocerose>
The Sugarcubes
Sigur Ros

Works for me.

Pity about King Diamond, really.

[RevolutionaryActs]

51. So those bands are worse then..

The Backstreet Boys, Nsync, Britney Spears, Aaron Cater, Dream, Hilary Duff, Nelly, Ashlee Simpson, Lindsay Lohan, Christina Milian, 98 Degrees, Westlife, O-town, Hanson?!

[Wat_Tyler]

58. No - I was pointing out how great continental European music was.

[FrankBooth]

48. Lots of great, current American Bands

The Shins, Modest Mouse, The Strokes, Wilco, Elliott Smith (well, he just had great new album released,) The Wrens, Dandy Warhols, Guided By Voices, Iron & Wine, Death Cab, Long Winters, Ambulance Ltd., Cat Power, The Posies, Earlimart, Grandaddy, Frank Black, The Flaming Lips, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, The Arcade Fire ...

this is just off the top of my head, there are a lot of great US bands.

[Taxloss]

68. That's scratching the surface.

Incidentally, it's Blur, not The Blur.

But the US produces better Pop.

[DBoon]

40. Bach. Vivaldi. Mozart. Beethoven.

All Europeans. All produced great music.

I rest my case.

[JVS]

52. Holy Roman Empire is harder that East Coast and West Coast put together!

[SKKY]

45. So much of the music that's on the charts in the UK we don't even get...

...BECAUSE IT'S CRAP!!!!

[Wat_Tyler]

46. This also is true.

[Placebo]

47. Not because it's crap...

because Americans as a whole are too fucking stupid and lame to appreciate it. :)

[Sandpiper]

50. Yeah, we were too lame to appreciate the music of David Hasselhoff

Only sophisticated European palates could appreciate his artistry. :P

[Ron Green]

53. Well I'll agree with you there, that Americans are too lame to appreciate

their OWN best music. Jazz players for years have had to go to Europe to get steady work.

[Placebo]

54. Bingo.

[JohnKleeb]

55. but many of the great European bands were infleunced by Americans

Beatles were influxed by Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly and the Crickets.
Stones had a lot of infleuence by BB King I think.
I rest my case on Jamaica though.

[RevolutionaryActs]

56. Hey Placebo? Do you know there is now a music appreciation group?

It just started up the other day and its located here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=293

:)

[Ellen Forradalom]

57. Define "music"

such that it comprises both Einsturzende Neubauten and TaTu.

[RandomKoolzip]

59. Well, that's not really true.

In England, it's a lot easier to create publicity for your band and get in the papers because it's a far smaller country, and all the media resources are located in one city. America has dozens of localized scenes, and nothing is centralized. A big noise in Cleveland, say, might not get heard in San Diego.Therefore, making a big stink in England is a lot easier than in America, where you have to build a local following, work your ass off touring and holding down a full-time survival job at the same time, pray to God you'll get signed to an indie label, replace broken eqipment constantly, then repeat the cycle over and over until you get a positive review ar article in a national publication. After years of building word of mouth, then comes the inevitable move to the majors, where half your audience you've worked so hard for abandons you for selling out, and you end up getting the shittiest distribution and royalty deal imaginable. And the record comapny gives you an advance, but you have to spend it all on making the first album; the album stiffs, so you get sent back to the indies, where you keep having to repeat the cycle. Most bands in America give up after the first stage in the cycle, because keeping a band together in such a hostile environment is just too heavy an emotional/physical task. (Being a techno/electronica artist is a lot easier physically)

However, in England, you can live on the dole, play three shows, get spotted by a journalist playing one of those three shows, and the journalist knows someone who works at a major label, cuz the whole country is the size of New York State, and some honcho signs you based on the strength of three shows. This is the story of most English bands, like Starsailor, Franz Ferdinand, Athelete, Menswe@r, or whoever the latest flash-in-the-pan media sensation is. You don't even have to tour. No real work is involved. You can sit at home all day and work on your hair/look/clothes instead of having to hold down a job at say, Wal-Mart. I'm sure there are bands who buck this paradigm, but any rational comparison between the two countries (I'm including the British Isles here and ignoring the rest of Europe because they don't make any goddamn music worth talking about in the rest of Europe; just admit it) has to acknowledge this as a factor. Most great rock bands in America don't get the chance to develop and break up before their time. Most bands in England develop in the international public eye and overstay their welcome becuase they start dabbling in electronica, the latest trendy sounds, or devolve into genre experiments.

Rock music in America is a localized phenomenon, whereas in the UK, all local phenoms have the benefit of the biggest music press in the world, which is constantly on the lookout for new local blood to keep up circulation numbers (hype sells papers). If the Sex Pistols or Radiohead had come from, say, Lexington, Kentucky, they would have broken up before they played their third out-of-town gig.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

60. Kraftwerk - you dick!

[RandomKoolzip]

62. Yeah! And Falco!

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

63. Thats funny - I was going to follow with Falco.

Von Shupahstah!

[RandomKoolzip]

64. And then I would counter with Aqua. Or Ace of Base.

I saw the sign, and it opened up my mind (I saw the sign)

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

65. Actually I kind of like Sigur Ros and I fucking adore Bjork and have been

known to love a Sugarcubes song or two.

But with Iceland your point is magnified - their population is like 300,000

[RandomKoolzip]

66. Exactly. With a population so small, it's a lot easier

to become the big fish in a small pond. Lots of American musicians are just as god, if not far fuckin' better, than all that shite from England or Iceland or Sweden (Okay, the Hives are pretty good. And The Hellacopters. And Soundtrack of Our Lives. But my point still stands, goddamnit!) but they never get the spotlight because of a) the hostility of the music press towards modern rock music (hiphop/electronica/pop gets a far less bumpy ride) and b) the hostility of the living conditions of the non-rich kid rock musician in America.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

67. If you're making GOOD Hip Hop its the same story

The artists making the stuff worth listening to go way under the radar and live in their Label Owner's spare room.

[Jesus H. Christ]

69. Well sure.

If you ignore African Americans.

[Kellanved]

70. Hardly

Only under very general parameters (like since the 14th century, excluding "Europe" and "Modern Talking" and counting the UK (plus maybe current and former colonies) to Europe.

Other than that: yeah, some good bands come from Europe, some are largely unknown; but "Far Better"? get real.


Edit: It boils down to one question: does Hasselhof count as European or American?