The Music of England

karaokeman

Haven't seen a thread on this board for this topic, so thought one would be in order.

It seems that all the most influential bands for the last 50 years all seem to come from England, if we look at some of the most influential acts since then.

1960s : Beatles, Rolling Stones

1970s : Led Zeppelin

1980s : Joy Division, Kate Bush, Smiths

1990s : Stone Roses, Radiohead

2000s : possibly Arcade Fire (Canadian), Radiohead, Kid A onward

With all the decades barr the 2000s I have named some of the bands who are among the most influential in history, all seem to come from England. There are a few inconsistencies like The Pixies in the 1980s, and in the 1960s the Beach Boys, for which reason I think it makes sense to call them "America's band".

Discuss.

rcaz

karaokeman wrote: »

Canadian

Why are Arcade Fire mentioned at all?

I think it's a good topic, I've thought about it before, how so many great bands all seem to come from one country. But those bands are all within a very similar vein... If we were to talk about electronic music, we'd be talking about Germany (Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kraftwerk), then Chicago and Detroit (for their House and Techno scenes, respectively), and then we'd only get to Britain in the late 80s/early 90s for acid house, rave, and all the Warp lads.

England seems to do great rock and alternative rock. But that's still only a small part of music.

Da Shins Kelly

I dunno...Little Richard, Miles Davis, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Nirvana, Beach Boys, all those girl groups like the Ronettes and Shangri-Las, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Frank Sinatra, etc. There is a wealth of amazing American music. I think we tend to gravitate more towards British music maybe because it's right there beside us and we tend to hear it more often than some American music, but really the foundation of most music does seem to come from America, as far as I can see - be it jazz, soul, rock n' roll, hip hop, etc.

darlett

Think I need to see a break down of the term 'most influential'. Who are they supposed to have influenced? Globally Joy Division? Not so sure about that.

If your including solo artists such as Kate Bush then I suggest Elvis, Dylan, Young, Springsteen.

The 2000s section seems off target too, Radioheads sphere of influence in that time period like it or lump it wouldnt surpass Kings of Leon, The Killers, Nickelback, Muse(British ofc!).

Then your simply missing the likes of Metalica, U2, Nirvana.

What could strengthen your argument could be Black Sabbath.

notnumber

Black Sabbath,The Cure, the Jam,Oasis and the list goes on infinitely.Its a choice of two I reckon..the US or England .. the US have Nirvanna,Elvis,Tina Turner,Madonna,Metalica....all massively influential.Canadian music- arcade fire and others have put them on the map but they dont have the history over the time spam suggested . 'Influential is related to commercial success ..more people that hear the music the more likely that they will be influenced by it..So who the most successful acts I would say the US bands take it...just based on having a bigger markets.

SilverScreen

notnumber wrote: »

Black Sabbath,The Cure, the Jam,Oasis and the list goes on infinitely.Its a choice of two I reckon..the US or England .. the US have Nirvanna,Elvis,Tina Turner,Madonna,Metalica....all massively influential.Canadian music- arcade fire and others have put them on the map but they dont have the history over the time spam suggested . 'Influential is related to commercial success ..more people that hear the music the more likely that they will be influenced by it..So who the most successful acts I would say the US bands take it...just based on having a bigger markets.

No it isn't. It's possible to be massively influential on other artists while achieving little commercial success. Take The Velvet Underground and Silver Apples as examples. The influence that The Velvet Underground have had on music is huge despite selling feck all albums during their initial existence. More than likely indie and alternative music would sound radically different today if it wasn't for them and this influence filters right through to the mainstream. Silver Apples were experimenting with electronic instrumentation in the late 60's and I can't imagine electronic music today sounding the way it is if it wasn't for them.

notnumber

Zero1986 wrote: »

No it isn't. It's possible to be massively influential on other artists while achieving little commercial success. Take The Velvet Underground and Silver Apples as examples. The influence that The Velvet Underground have had on music is huge despite selling feck all albums during their initial existence. More than likely indie and alternative music would sound radically different today if it wasn't for them and this influence filters right through to the mainstream. Silver Apples were experimenting with electronic instrumentation in the late 60's and I can't imagine electronic music today sounding the way it is if it wasn't for them.

Silver Apples who?? How can they massively inflential if no-one has heard of them and the velvet have had huge commercial success ..not in their day granted but have sold alot of records since then...anyway the point of the thread was is england the most influential country in terms of music..now instead of causing pointless discussion answer the OP and quit picking.

SilverScreen

notnumber wrote: »

Silver Apples who?? How can they massively inflential if no-one has heard of them and the velvet have had huge commercial success ..not in their day granted but have sold alot of records since then...anyway the point of the thread was is england the most influential country in terms of music..now instead of causing pointless discussion answer the OP and quit picking.

Loads of people know who Silver Apples are, just because you haven't doesn't mean that no-one else has. I was just proving the point that influence in music is not related to commercial success because that isn't true, no need to get excited.

So sticking to the OP. England and the USA have always been neck and neck to me in terms of musical influence. The 00's is still too hard to call yet but to me some of the most influential English artists to release music during the 00's would be Radiohead (Kid A to be more precise), Burial, Boards Of Canada (okay Scotland) and The Libertines (although not a bad band they did inspire a lot of rubbish music). All four bands have shaped the sound of British music significantly into what it is today.

syngindub

Can't believe there is no mention of Pink Floyd !!

SilverScreen

syngindub wrote: »

Can't believe there is no mention of Pink Floyd !!

Definitely Pink Floyd.

Also Massive Attack for triggering the trip-hop/chill-out boom of the 90's and changing what electronic music could be.

mike65

60s - The Who, The Stones, The Beatles, The Kinks, Fleetwood Mac (in a more low key fashion), Jimi Hendrix Experience (though American he was made a star with British know-how and influences like early Floyd, Soft Machine and the whole Carnaby Street/UFO club vibe), Cream (without whom there might have been no Led Zep success).

70s - Led Zep, Sabbath, Purple, Tull, Yes, Floyd, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Pistols, Police.

80s - Police, Culture Club, Wham/George Michael, Duran Duran, Malcolm McLaren (as a solo artist) Sade (for reinventing "cocktail lounge" music which became big in the States)

90s - Depeche Mode (who would turn out to be much more important in the US than anyone could ever have expected in 1983) Radiohead, The Cure, Nightmares on Wax (for impact with chill-out/downtempo) Portishead for same.

00s no idea! I gave up on music by this point.

karaokeman

rcaz wrote: »

England seems to do great rock and alternative rock. But that's still only a small part of music.

Fair enough, I'll admit to possibly being too broad with the thread's purpose. Thing about rock and alternative rock is that its a hugely popular genre, the same as with pop and dance.

rcaz wrote: »

If we were to talk about electronic music, we'd be talking about Germany (Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kraftwerk), then Chicago and Detroit (for their House and Techno scenes, respectively), and then we'd only get to Britain in the late 80s/early 90s for acid house, rave, and all the Warp lads.

You might also say that the British Isles have caught up with the likes of Aphex Twin (Ireland) and Orbital (England) in the 1990s. The 2000s does seem too recent, hence why I named no one other than AF and post-OK Computer Radiohead.

Another note of mention should be the US (not England) would probably be the starting point for most hip hop with James Brown (1970s), Afrika Bambaataa (1980s), Public Enemy (late 1980s- 1990s) and more recently Kanye West.

syngindub

80's Eric Clapton

90's As much as it pains me, We cannot ignore Oasis - Definitely Maybe

00' The Prodigy, Fat Boy Slim, Chemical Brothers, Amy Whinehouse,Faithless

kunst nugget

karaokeman wrote: »

Fair enough, I'll admit to possibly being too broad with the thread's purpose. Thing about rock and alternative rock is that its a hugely popular genre, the same as with pop and dance.



You might also say that the British Isles have caught up with the likes of Aphex Twin (Ireland) and Orbital (England) in the 1990s. The 2000s does seem too recent, hence why I named no one other than AF and post-OK Computer Radiohead.

Another note of mention should be the US (not England) would probably be the starting point for most hip hop with James Brown (1970s), Afrika Bambaataa (1980s), Public Enemy (late 1980s- 1990s) and more recently Kanye West.

I think it's completely disingenuous to claim Aphex Twin as Irish. He may have been born here but his parents were Welsh and his formative years were spent in Cornwall. I don't think him being born in Ireland had any bearing on his musical career or output.

You mentioned briefly the the likes of hip hop, but what about punk with Iggy Pop and the Stooges, The Ramones and countless other acts like these? What about Thrash Metal in the eighties with Megadeth and Metallica? What about Hardcore with Minor Threat, Bad Brains and Black Flag? What about House and Techno with Mr Fingers and Phuture? England has been great for expanding on different genres of music but most of the real innovation started somewhere else. Where it has really come into it's own is probably in dance music with the development of new genres like jungle, grime and dubstep and in indie music with the likes of Creation and shoegaze but I think indie music in Britain is slipping more and more into irrelevance.

The problem is that we get a very Anglo-centric view of music because of the likes of NME, Mojo and other British titles out there. So sometimes we can get an over inflated sense of the importance of British music.

rcaz

kunst nugget wrote: »

I think it's completely disingenuous to claim Aphex Twin as Irish. He may have been born here but his parents were Welsh and his formative years were spent in Cornwall. I don't think him being born in Ireland had any bearing on his musical career or output.

Yes, but we're counting Arcade Fire as English in this thread too, so who knows anymore :pac:

nyarlothothep

Hmm, I used to think Britain was the best place for producing music, my favourite bands, Led Zep, Pink Floyd and the highest among them imo, Queen come from there. However, I feel that the British music press exert an inordinate amount of influence in breaking artists, and as such you get a plethora of "critically acclaimed" yet incredibly derivative and mediocre bands which are meant to be cool and thought provoking yet aren't. I became completely dissolusioned with British music during the 00s and have since found musical excitement in Scandanavian artists, who are taking the daring risks in terms of musical experimentation. And their lyrics are more interesting too in that they can be profound or about something without relying on cryptic nonsense in order to appear that way. So essentially I feel that the Anglo sphere has become very stagnant and musical interest is to be found elsewhere.

markesmith

Clash, Oasis, Pink Floyd, Who, Kinks, Pistols, Talk Talk, Massive Attack, Depeche Mode...

That said, the US has produced the holy trinity of Dylan, Young and Waits, along with my personal favourite, the Velvet Underground.

RGDATA!

markesmith wrote: »

Clash, Oasis, Pink Floyd, Who, Kinks, Pistols, Talk Talk, Massive Attack, Depeche Mode...

That said, the US has produced the holy trinity of Dylan, Young and Waits, along with my personal favourite, the Velvet Underground.

Young is Canadian!

Birneybau

markesmith wrote: »

Clash, Oasis, Pink Floyd, Who, Kinks, Pistols, Talk Talk, Massive Attack, Depeche Mode...

That said, the US has produced the holy trinity of Dylan, Young and Waits, along with my personal favourite, the Velvet Underground.

What about the Fall?

karaokeman

rcaz wrote: »

Yes, but we're counting Arcade Fire as English in this thread too, so who knows anymore :pac:

I never claimed Arcade Fire were English, their name was down as I haven't yet pinpointed the massively successful English bands of 00s, and you already said AT was Irish in another thread.

rcaz

karaokeman wrote: »

I never claimed Arcade Fire were English, their name was down as I haven't yet pinpointed the massively successful English bands of 00s, and you already said AT was Irish in another thread.

And as kunst nugget said, you can't count him as an Irish musician just 'cause he was born in Ireland, he did all of his music en England. IIRC I said Aphex Twin was an Irish musician as a joke. Moved to Cornwall really early, can't find a date anywhere, but he did all his schooling over there.

karaokeman

rcaz wrote: »

And as kunst nugget said, you can't count him as an Irish musician just 'cause he was born in Ireland, he did all of his music en England. IIRC I said Aphex Twin was an Irish musician as a joke. Moved to Cornwall really early, can't find a date anywhere, but he did all his schooling over there.

Fair enough I take back calling him an Irish musician, actually better that he's English (for the purpose of this thread) so thanks for pointing that out.

Blisterman

It's very difficult to debate the most influential artists of all time, because as someone else stated, the original post focuses almost entirely on guitar-based rock, which makes up, but a fraction of the music of the past 50 years.

Whereas if you were to look at what influenced jazz, funk, hip-hop, over that period for example, the influence from England would be quite minor.

Hannibal

karaokeman wrote: »

Haven't seen a thread on this board for this topic, so thought one would be in order.

It seems that all the most influential bands for the last 50 years all seem to come from England, if we look at some of the most influential acts since then.

1960s : Beatles, Rolling Stones

1970s : Led Zeppelin

1980s : Joy Division, Kate Bush, Smiths

1990s : Stone Roses, Radiohead

2000s : possibly Arcade Fire (Canadian), Radiohead, Kid A onward

60's: The Kinks
70's: Pink Floyd
80's: The Jam
90's: Oasis
00's: The Libertines

notnumber wrote: »

Black Sabbath,The Cure, the Jam,Oasis and the list goes on infinitely.Its a choice of two I reckon..the US or England .. the US have Nirvanna,Elvis,Tina Turner,Madonna,Metalica....all massively influential.Canadian music- arcade fire and others have put them on the map but they dont have the history over the time spam suggested . 'Influential is related to commercial success ..more people that hear the music the more likely that they will be influenced by it..So who the most successful acts I would say the US bands take it...just based on having a bigger markets.

I think Neil Young and others would be a more accurate description of Canadian music, I'd also place both Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell over Arcade Fire. Rush were also a hugely influential rock band

eviltimeban

Oasis, Blur, Pulp etc in the 90s were big in the UK / Ireland and maybe Europe (Oasis went on to be more globally popular in the 2000s) but they didn't have much impact in the US because they were too British. But it depends on your frame of reference; if you were in the UK / Ireland during that time then you could see how big they were, but if you were in the US, you might not say they were that influential.

Even the bands they influenced, Kaiser Chiefs, Libertines etc, didn't break through on a global level, unlike say The Strokes and Kings Of Leon who did (and they showed no influence from Britpop).

The most influential UK music came from the 60s, with the Beatles, the Kinks, Stones, Donovan, etc all having US / global success, and therefore exerting an influence there. OK so initially Donovan was a Dylan copyist, but he became more individual as the 60s progressed.

Zeppelin in the 70s were really doing US blues, so even though they were British, they were influenced by the States. A true British 70s genre was prog rock, with Yes, ELP, King Crimson, Genesis etc all becoming big and were successful throughout Europe too (although not hugely in the US). Which goes back to the bias; if you were in France in the 70s you might have said the prog bands were a big influence. But maybe not if you were in the midwest - it was all Southern Rock and singer songwriters in the 70s then.

Punk was probably the bigger influence in the 70s, the Pistols, Clash etc were all influential in the US, which led to the 80s hardcore scene and from that grew the Pixies, which ultimately led to Nirvana and the grunge explosion.

80s is harder to define - most of the best pop (Madonna, Prince, Jackson) was American, and what was biggest in the UK was plastic pop like Kylie and Rick Astley. The Smiths may have defined UK indie rock, and influenced some US indie bands, but weren't REM better at doing the same thing, ie they influenced more US indie bands?

The Stone Roses again were massively influential in the early 90s but again only on in a UK-biased arena. No one from the US really cared about the Roses, and even now, US friends of mine who are music heads don't even count the Roses. But if you grew up at that time as I did, they were like our Beatles.

90s - beyond the aforementioned Britpop scene, the dance scene was more influential. Sure, it was influenced by Chicago rave, but it fed back and proved successful in the US. The Chemical Brothers, Prodigy etc all had hit albums in the US.

GLaDOS

Maybe not as influential as others, but Camel, Jethro Tull and Wishbone Ash were some fantastic English bands, best work probably in the 70s .

Da Shins Kelly

eviltimeban wrote: »

Oasis, Blur, Pulp etc in the 90s were big in the UK / Ireland and maybe Europe (Oasis went on to be more globally popular in the 2000s) but they didn't have much impact in the US because they were too British. But it depends on your frame of reference; if you were in the UK / Ireland during that time then you could see how big they were, but if you were in the US, you might not say they were that influential.

Even the bands they influenced, Kaiser Chiefs, Libertines etc, didn't break through on a global level, unlike say The Strokes and Kings Of Leon who did (and they showed no influence from Britpop).

The most influential UK music came from the 60s, with the Beatles, the Kinks, Stones, Donovan, etc all having US / global success, and therefore exerting an influence there. OK so initially Donovan was a Dylan copyist, but he became more individual as the 60s progressed.

Zeppelin in the 70s were really doing US blues, so even though they were British, they were influenced by the States. A true British 70s genre was prog rock, with Yes, ELP, King Crimson, Genesis etc all becoming big and were successful throughout Europe too (although not hugely in the US). Which goes back to the bias; if you were in France in the 70s you might have said the prog bands were a big influence. But maybe not if you were in the midwest - it was all Southern Rock and singer songwriters in the 70s then.

Punk was probably the bigger influence in the 70s, the Pistols, Clash etc were all influential in the US, which led to the 80s hardcore scene and from that grew the Pixies, which ultimately led to Nirvana and the grunge explosion.

80s is harder to define - most of the best pop (Madonna, Prince, Jackson) was American, and what was biggest in the UK was plastic pop like Kylie and Rick Astley. The Smiths may have defined UK indie rock, and influenced some US indie bands, but weren't REM better at doing the same thing, ie they influenced more US indie bands?

The Stone Roses again were massively influential in the early 90s but again only on in a UK-biased arena. No one from the US really cared about the Roses, and even now, US friends of mine who are music heads don't even count the Roses. But if you grew up at that time as I did, they were like our Beatles.

90s - beyond the aforementioned Britpop scene, the dance scene was more influential. Sure, it was influenced by Chicago rave, but it fed back and proved successful in the US. The Chemical Brothers, Prodigy etc all had hit albums in the US.

I agree with most of what you say here. Most of it does essentially go back to the US and I have American friends and relatives who could tell you virtually nothing about the so-called "great" British bands. I mentioned The Cure to them once, and they looked at me like I had ten heads.

The whole REM thing, I never got. I don't understand how anyone could ever be passionate about REM. The Smiths were definitely better, if it's between those two. Or maybe it's just cos I find The Smiths easier to relate to - again the close cultural connections between Ireland and the UK influencing my opinion on the matter.

RikkFlair

RGDATA! wrote: »

Young is Canadian!

He's sung so much about America, people often make that mistake. Even his latest effort is called Americana.

bullpost

Talking Heads - they even managed to get Radiohead to name the band after a song.
And don't forget Prince.

Klaas

Many musical genres were born in England... I am more in the EDM scene. I love groups like Faithless, Prodigy, Leftfield and the Future Sound of London.
But i also like bands like the Pink Floyd, Durutti Column, Joy Division, Depeche Mode, New Order, Blur, Radiohead etc.

LordSutch

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Benjamin Britten, Elgar, Vaughan Williams . . .

The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Stones, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, The Clash, Bowie, Elton, Oasis, The Kinks, Sex Pistols, Talk Talk, Massive Attack, Depeche Mode, Kate Bush, Brian Eno, Queen, The Fall? and that's just the tip of the iceberg, far too many to list . . . .

Mark E Smith, England's answer to Shane McGowan?