For the BEA British Users - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

Tha1ChiefRocka
Yeah, well hey, I'm really sorry.

Location: Kansas

Quote:

Kaiser chiefs: shite. Most people hate them. The singer is an annoying C desperate to keep his shitty britpop alive, and goes on TV to help the cause, a britpop that was old hat when they hit big. Very averge joe beer monster music fan likes them. They buy 3 CDs a year, weller, Gallagher and the next Beatles comp. NME prob even hates them. Bottom.

That's some funny stuff right there. I picked a lot of these based on the relatively high amount of top 5 albums these bands (barring The Fall I just like them) had in the UK compared to America. The Kaiser Chiefs in particular had their best album reach only 45 on the US charts.

I found it interesting that Muse has had almost all of their albums reach number 1 in the UK, and that the Arctic Monkeys and Oasis have had every single album reach number 1.

I understand the difference in sizes in the markets, but take a band like the Foo Fighters. They had a number one album in the UK before they could achieve one in the US, and they have had more number ones in the UK overall. I think it's more rare for a US artists to be consistent in the US charts like some UK acts have in recent memory.

I think it's because there is less of a focus on a national identity in America than there is in the UK. I know that throughout various points in history that the term "Britishness" has been at the forefront of society."Americaness" isn't even a term that is used. I think it is much harder to make an album that resonates with a large enough portion of the population here to have as consistent success. It takes a world icon like U2, Michael Jackson, or even, ugh Bruce Freakin' Springsteen to have consistent popularity.

But I obviously only have an outsiders perspective, so take this analysis with a grain of salt.

manurock

Tha1ChiefRocka wrote:

That's some funny stuff right there. I picked a lot of these based on the relatively high amount of top 5 albums these bands (barring The Fall I just like them) had in the UK compared to America. The Kaiser Chiefs in particular had their best album reach only 45 on the US charts.

I found it interesting that Muse has had almost all of their albums reach number 1 in the UK, and that the Arctic Monkeys and Oasis have had every single album reach number 1.

I understand the difference in sizes in the markets, but take a band like the Foo Fighters. They had a number one album in the UK before they could achieve one in the US, and they have had more number ones in the UK overall. I think it's more rare for a US artists to be consistent in the US charts like some UK acts have in recent memory.

I think it's because there is less of a focus on a national identity in America than there is in the UK. I know that throughout various points in history that the term "Britishness" has been at the forefront of society."Americaness" isn't even a term that is used. I think it is much harder to make an album that resonates with a large enough portion of the population here to have as consistent success. It takes a world icon like U2, Michael Jackson, or even, ugh Bruce Freakin' Springsteen to have consistent popularity.

But I obviously only have an outsiders perspective, so take this analysis with a grain of salt.

I think that maybe in the UK, and partly in western Europe, people are generally more interested in music than in the US. Don't get me wrong. All US users over here are as interested in music as European users are but I talk about the population in general.

Maybe that's why there have been bands like The Beatles or Oasis who gathered so much attention, to the point that everyone, even if they didn't like or know what rock is, knew and know who they are (at least with the Beatles that surely happens here in Spain). Similar stuff (maybe less but still important) has happened with Coldplay or Muse in the 2000's and with other well known british bands in the past.

And also maybe, UK wise, that's why in BEA UK albums are 80% in the top 10 despite UK being a much smaller, less populated and less GDP country than in the US.

Maybe US users, who surely know the country much better than I do, can expand on this perception or the opposite, convince me that I am saying bullsh^t.

As for the bands mentioned at the beginning here in Spain both Oasis, Arctic Monkeys and Muse received quite a lot of radio airplay and everyone who knows a little about music (even if they don't like rock) knows them, they are generally seen as good (we tend to thrash more our bands than english speaking bands, at least we did until a few years ago). The other bands are not very well known over here, except maybe the Clash by older people.

Jimmy Dread
Old skool like Happy Shopper

Location: 555 Dub Street

Moderator

Tha1ChiefRocka wrote:

Oasis and Spice Girls (how do people look back at "Cool Britannia" now?)

I think "Cool Britannia" is an interesting subject that needs a fair bit more elaboration. You could say that there was an attempt by the independent music press to assert British music back before Oasis and the Spice Girls - notably through Blur's Modern Life Is Rubbish and Suede, who could have been seen as the harbingers of Britpop but were too art-school, too androgynous and too decadent a band to have ever appealed to the mass (working class) market. This cover of Select magazine is a perfect case in point:

April 1994 was absolutely key here - 3 momentous events:

- the release of Oasis' Supersonic
- the release of Blur's Parklife LP
- the death of Kurt Cobain

The latter may sound a tad macabre, but as Brits we've always tended to look to the US for our cultural cues - rock 'n' roll especially, but also Northern Soul and we (or at least Malcolm McLaren) kinda stole punk off New York, etc. Grunge was no exception - people started wearing checked shirts, there were 'how to dress grunge' guides in women's glossies such as Cosmopolitan, everyone had long unwashed hair, the Second Summer of Love was squashed by the Criminal Justice Bill. Kurt's death hit 'alternative' music fans hard - I remember some of my mates had tickets to see Nirvana at Brixton (IIRC) and were heartbroken. But what it highlighted is that, inamongst all the negativity, gloom and misery of British youth at the time, something had to change. That change was Britpop.

It seems absurdly simple - writing songs that British teenagers could relate to, glamourising the tawdry everyday life of The Man on The Clapham Omnibus and turning it into pop music. The difference however between Britpop and late 60s British pop/psych (like Pink Floyd when Syd was still in the band) was that this new assertion of 'Britishness' was something not just students, but your ordinary guy down the boozer could enjoy. By the time 1995 rolls by, everyone knows the lyrics all the tracks from (What's The Story) Morning Glory, we're all wearing British fashion (Fred Perry, Ben Sherman - a throwback to the 60s mod era), Blur vs Oasis is making national news (in all fairness Blur only won as people bought both CD1 and CD2 singles of Country House), the cool kids are bopping the night away at Blow Up or the Heavenly Weekender, and generally rejecting Americana as an alien concept. Tony Wilson's 1990 speech, entitled "Wake Up America, You're Dead" was strangely prophetic - except he thought that Mondays/Roses would be the catalyst and didn't see grunge making the impact it did.

'96 was the golden year for "Cool Britannia". The Spice Girls empowering young women and proving that you didn't need to be stunning or talented to be a pop star (punk ethos in a way, but the overall message being 'we can do it, so can you'), but being so faux-naff in doing so that all the indie kids had a soft spot for them. Oasis clear up at the Brits, Jarvis Cocker flashes his arse at Michael Jackson in the ultimate 'Cool Britannia' moment, Geri's Union Jack dress, Euro '96 and 'football's coming home', Trainspotting comes out. Working-class culture, so often driven by arts and sport, were in perfect harmony. We all felt that little bit more British, listened to The Kinks and The Beatles, drank lots and passed out. Then in '97 Blair and the Labour government got in by a landslide - mission accomplished, or so we thought when Blair invited Noel Gallagher and other pop culture icons to No. 10 for tea. Still time however for the last great Britpop moment - Bitter Sweet Symphony, which by yanking an orchestral riff from a Rolling Stones track saw it all go full circle (and the Verve losing out on a bunch of royalties).

And then? It all ended. And why?

- too many copycat Britpop acts watering down the original message (Menswe@r being the ultimate pastiche - I remember seeing them live and thinking "what the heck is this load of bollocks?")
- New Labour taking politics into the centre-ground, thus alienating some of the left-wing (and pro-youth) principles on which the original party stood
- OK Computer - bringing back a sense of alienation, suspicion of the new political order and prog
- Be Here Now being so cack
- Blur S/T taking its cues from US culture ("look inside America/she's alright") and ditching the 'Britpop' everyman songwriting aesthetic
- the death of Princess Diana

Suddenly the country fell into a slump, the excitement had gone and the death of a Royal sobered the whole country up.

Graeme is spot-on when he says how massive a cultural impact Oasis were - it didn't seem like it at the time as a 16-17 year old indie kid, but looking back Britpop/Cool Britannia et al was possibly the last time when everything in British life (art, fashion, sport, politics) went hand-in-hand and actively spoke to the working classes. It was an exciting time, but a very blurry one.
_________________
'Reggae' & t'ing
Folk 'n Stuff
SHAMELESS RECORD DEALER PLUG

boyd94

I was born in June of that year, my dad was just turning 30. That was pretty much the last batch of new bands he gives a shit about, it hit just hard enough for a man his age to slot them in his collection with all the 70s and 80s stuff that imprinted on him as a young man.

So even though it's before my time, in a way its always remained a landmark for me as all I listened to up until the age of 13/14 was whatever dad played. Everything from OK Computer on might as well not have existed and it was for me to discover in my teens.

SleepDealer

Location: Isca Dumnoniorum

Great commentary Jimmy, and spot on too.
_________________
http://distranscontinuum.blogspot.co.uk/

craola
crayon master

Location: pdx

sethmadsen wrote:

I suppose this raises another question:

Is there an American band which is highly regarded by Americans, but other nationalities see them as trash. We'll use this site as defining "highly regarded", unless you can prove otherwise.

if i had to guess, our version of the britpop thing is the grunge scene and it's trickle-downs (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, et al through Foo Fighters).
_________________
follow me on the bandcamp.

Tha1ChiefRocka
Yeah, well hey, I'm really sorry.

Location: Kansas

Thanks Jimmy, that was a top notch response.

Grunge still didn't have any qualities that are inherently "American" to me though.

dihansse

Gender: Male
Age: 60

sethmadsen wrote:

I suppose this raises another question:

Is there an American band which is highly regarded by Americans, but other nationalities see them as trash. We'll use this site as defining "highly regarded", unless you can prove otherwise.

I can think only about one movement in the States: the Californian punk movement like the X (with the exception of Green Day) which hasn’t done anything at all in Europe but seems to be important in the US also amongst US BEA followers.

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

craola wrote:

sethmadsen wrote:

I suppose this raises another question:

Is there an American band which is highly regarded by Americans, but other nationalities see them as trash. We'll use this site as defining "highly regarded", unless you can prove otherwise.

if i had to guess, our version of the britpop thing is the grunge scene and it's trickle-downs (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, et al through Foo Fighters).

Probably. Any other stabs from a proper brit?

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

dihansse wrote:

sethmadsen wrote:

I suppose this raises another question:

Is there an American band which is highly regarded by Americans, but other nationalities see them as trash. We'll use this site as defining "highly regarded", unless you can prove otherwise.

I can think only about one movement in the States: the Californian punk movement like the X (with the exception of Green Day) which hasn’t done anything at all in Europe but seems to be important in the US also amongst US BEA followers.

Same with Operation Ivy/Rancid, Dead Kennedy's, Black Flag or later, Offspring (since you mention green day), or even Sublime?

I don't even like X... haha. I think they are ranked over 500 on the artist rankings of this site. My older brother and cousin do, so might be a generational thing.