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 #2 (permalink) Tue Jul 29, 2008 10:11 am pop songs |
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Did you have any specific songs in mind, Alan?
EDIT:
In trying to get an idea which British pop songs might sound particularly "American" to British ears, I happened upon this:
British and American accents in music
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Yankee
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| #3 (permalink) Tue Jul 29, 2008 19:28 pm pop songs |
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Don't you think that entire success of English as international language exists just because of American "accent".
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| #4 (permalink) Tue Jul 29, 2008 19:38 pm pop songs |
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Hi,
I'd say there are several reasons; to name but a few
- breaking America means potential sales to 300,000,000 people (as opposed to singing in a thick Welsh accent to penetrate a market of rough grazing herd animals)
- Artists adopt American style music and want to sound 'genuine' (like Mick Jagger and David Bowie in the 1970s or Amy Whinehouse today)
- American English sounds smoother/less edgy. Compare Sheffield Band 'Arctic Monkeys' (that I love) to 'The Strokes' (that I love, too) or The Streets (London) to Eminem (Detroit)
- I think that many producers take an American accent for granted with regard to international success
If you listen to Scottish band The Proclaimers, it's astonishing that they could ever land a massive hit with an accent like that!
But there are also nice examples of artists with a southern English accent (which I'm usually not too fond of) who I really admire. Kate Nash, for example.
BTW, Jooles Holland still seems to be on the air! Does anybody know whether the show ever took a break?
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 Ralf
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| #5 (permalink) Tue Jul 29, 2008 20:19 pm pop songs |
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I'm curious which particular American accent you guys are referring to. 
Alan, there must have been a couple of songs in particular that prompted your post. Can you give me a couple of specific examples?
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Yankee
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| #7 (permalink) Tue Jul 29, 2008 22:57 pm pop songs |
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I'm surprised you didn't post this one, Ralf!
Supposedly two of those guys are from Tennessee and the other two are from Oklahoma. I listened to a couple of Kings of Leon interviews and they don't sound too much like the guy from Oklamoma I used to date. No idea whether the KoL have lost some of their "southern accent" or whether they possibly try to modify their accents during interviews.
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| #8 (permalink) Wed Jul 30, 2008 0:26 am pop songs |
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Much seems to depend on the genre. I should think you could fairly accurately estimate the likely degree of US-ness in the accent by assessing the proportion of major to minor 3rds.
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MrPedantic
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| #9 (permalink) Wed Jul 30, 2008 8:47 am pop songs |
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| Alan wrote: |
| Why do you think that most successful English pop songs are invariably sung in an American accent? |
I used to think that even most British pop singers sang with American accents until I started really listening to American pop singers and realized that even THEY don't really sing with an American accent.
I think that what they're using is a sort of "singing" accent that isn't really British and isn't really American. It may have some American vowels in it, but it also softens or drops the R's at the ends of words and before consonants the way the English would.
The Beach Boys sang with real American accents as found in California or the Midwest. Listen and you'll see that you almost never hear R's like theirs in pop music, even though that's how we really talk.
You hear the typical Southern variant in Alan Jackson's pronunciation:
The same thing in this Tracy Byrd song (excuse the poster's spelling):
You don't hear R's like that in pop music. |
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| #10 (permalink) Wed Jul 30, 2008 8:53 am pop songs |
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I don't know about you, guys, but I find British accent hard to understand (harder than American one). They somehow pronounce some words in a strange to me way, which baffles me, sets me off the track. For example, the word "fun".
Speaking about British pop singers, I really take to Kim Wilde. I listen to her a lot, though, when my friend from New Zealand listened to her song "Victims", he complained to me that he hadn't understood much, in fact he even said "is that English ? " |
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| #11 (permalink) Wed Jul 30, 2008 9:23 am pop songs |
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| Yankee wrote: |
Supposedly two of those guys are from Tennessee and the other two are from Oklahoma. I listened to a couple of Kings of Leon interviews and they don't sound too much like the guy from Oklahoma I used to date. No idea whether the KoL have lost some of their "southern accent" or whether they possibly try to modify their accents during interviews.
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Yeah, that could be. Or maybe the singer just slurs his words when he sings. In the interview here he sounds pretty GenAm to me, with a slight southern twang. BTW, what do you make of the term GenAm? Wikipedia says "General American; a notional composite of various dialects of English spoken in the United States intended to minimize some notion of regional coloration."
| Jamie (K) wrote: |
I think that what they [most American and British artists] are using is a sort of "singing" accent that isn't really British and isn't really American. It may have some American vowels in it, but it also softens or drops the R's at the ends of words and before consonants the way the English would.
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I think so, too.
| lost_soul wrote: |
| I don't know about you, guys, but I find British accent hard to understand (harder than American one). |
I think a lot is due to exposure. When I came to Saxony 7 years ago, I had a very hard time understanding anybody. In fact, it took me months to be able to communicate with taxi drivers, but I got used to it. Today I have bigger problems understanding people from Hamburg (which is thought to be a more clearly pronounced accent).
| lost_soul wrote: |
| They somehow pronounce some words in a strange to me way, which baffles me, sets me off the track. For example, the word "fun". |
In my variety, the vowel in 'fun' is similar to the vocalic sound in 'full'. A bit like in northern England. U-sounds sound like 'uuh's, and a-sounds sound like 'aah's. The American 'God' rhymes with the Irish 'mad' 
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| #12 (permalink) Wed Jul 30, 2008 9:29 am pop songs |
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Honestly, I sometimes can't make head or tail of what these British folks are speaking.
BBC News is a bit OK but there are some British shows on TV that are totally incomprehensible (to me).
For example, there's this show called Catherine Tate Show. Can someone please enlighten me as to what accent she speaks?
I am watching The Weakest Link these days. I am able to understand it a bit. Can someone please tell me what accent the presenter speaks?
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| #14 (permalink) Wed Jul 30, 2008 9:44 am pop songs |
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Hi,
I'd be very interested to hear which shows you find incomprehensible as they may well be the ones I find equally so.
Alan
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| #15 (permalink) Wed Jul 30, 2008 9:48 am pop songs |
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| daemon99 wrote: |
Honestly, I sometimes can't make head or tail of what these British folks are speaking.
BBC News is a bit OK but there are some British shows on TV that are totally incomprehensible (to me).
For example, there's this show called Catherine Tate Show. Can someone please enlighten me as to what accent she speaks?
I am watching The Weakest Link these days. I am able to understand it a bit. Can someone please tell me what accent the presenter speaks? |
Catherine Tate Show - south of England, probably London
The Weakest Link - Pretty standard English TV accent, reminiscent of what educated people speak in the home counties (greater London area)
Here's a funny comparison between London and Manchester accents
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