Hip Hop Worldwide Appeal
is modern european music better than american?
I mean, in the last 20-25 years, many artists from the British isles and continental Europe could conjugate experimentation and modern sounds with a good worldwide marketability; Depeche Mode, the Cure, Joy Division, Radiohead, Air, Blur, Bjork, Sigur Ròs, Rammstein etc. etc. It looks like American music couldn’t do the same instead. America taught the world jazz, blues, rock’n'roll, but it seems that the US scene has lost its appeal and ability to create something new. American “exportable” music today is just commercial hip hop, plastic pop, r’n'b (why do they call it that way? R’n'b is rythm and blues for me…) and pop rock bands such as Maroon 5. The underground music scene surely exists, but nobody knows anything about it. In the 90′s american music had a great moment, with great bands like Soundgarden, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, NIN, but it was just a short phase. What happened to american music? Is european music more interesting and newfangled nowadays?
Love your question!
As a European I just spend about 2 1/2 years in America and I got an eye opener – they were def. shut before. I think I see what you’re saying – but these bands you mention though are a certain genre – they are electro based to a greater extent and that’s the first real unified european music we’ve shared. Ok, we could say Abba and other ‘pop’ music has been unified, but you know the score – a real movement has come up with absolute uniqueness and equality in excellence right across the European board. But America is a whole other continent and while this type of music is really big there, it’s got its own music too. Just because conventional electro as we know it in Europe isn’t copied by America, doesn’t mean it isn’t advancing as fast electronically in terms of engineering and production. While modern hiphop has lost its soul, it has gained a huge boon from engineering electro booty sounds and going far beyond the Amen break of mainly English D&B. What I’m saying is, you have to break it down and look at where the new talent is coming in – ok it’s not in front stage ‘songs’ electro-wise but behind the desks the room is bouncing.
Goth-techno particularly blew me away – electro-wise the old industrial scene has now become absolutely massive but grown into a goth techno scene. It used to be a bit shoddy engineering wise with NIN leading the way, but you should hear some of the stuff being produced now. Personally I don’t dig electro that talks about sucking blood or blah blah goth speak lyrics, but I absolutely hail the quality coming out here.
As far as melodic sound or songs writing goes, America leaves Europe i nthe dirt – seriously. I love Tom & Bjork, Tricky and Unkle sounds the most, but still I said, head for head, America has way more writers because it’s more singer/songerwriter based nation with a massive population.
More importantly, America is home of Blue Grass – and that encompasses juke joint, rock, rockabilly, traditional hillbilly folk, blues of course and more right into country (and punkrock country of all things!). And this is a massive – and I mean MASSIVE growing scene really only making its way into Europe now.
No other music embodies the American spirit than what is happening in this and it’s powerful – the music says something. the music from the mountains and back dirt roads is raw and very much alive but almost completely unknown in Europe. I think you have to make an allowance for the size of the scenes you’re talking about – underground music isn’t just modern urban or electro and doesn’t depend on a particular size to be validated. If it’s real, strong, growing, and most importantly pioneering new territory, we salute it. Perhaps these scenes aren’t interesting to you, but let’s face it, the bands you mention are only slightly left-of-centre from the mainstream, if you go way way way out there, or, if you truly love music for it’s own sake, you have to admit that it’s still neck and neck on both sides of the Atlantic. Well, I did. ♥
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