"Third power" in music

[Good Old Days]

Which country is your favourite in music, if don't count United Kingdom and United States ?
Maybe you even prefer the music acts from that country over UK / US, share your opinion.

[Razzle Dazzle]

Sweden

[Good Old Days]

I'm not a big fan of American music.

So after obvious UK at # 1 I can't select my second and third place between Netherlands, Lithuania and Germany.

[Earl Purple]

Ireland obviously had the Boomtown Rats that were my favourite band at one point, as well as later U2 and previously Thin Lizzy. And of course the Pogues.

A shame that later on they gave us Boyzone and Westlife..

That's assuming you mean pop-rock music.

Otherwise it would be Germany for giving us Beethoven, with Austria close behind.

[Razzle Dazzle]

Probably forgot a few but i'd be happy forever listening to just these Swedish bands

Mando Diao
Johnossi
Timo Raisanen
Moneybrother
Ghost
Günther and the Sunshine Girls
Carlito
Dr Bombay
Sugarplum Fairies
Teddybears
Caesars
Melody Club
The Night Flight Orchestra
The Hives
The Sounds
Royal Republic
The Hellacopters
The (International) Noise Conspiracy
Shout Out Louds
The Cardigans
Abba
Roxette
Ace of Base
Europe
Basshunter
The Ark
Robyn
Eagle Eye Cherry
Avicii
First Aid Kit
The Wannadies
Agnes
Eric Prydz
1/4th of Razorlight and 1/3rd of Placebo

[Earl Purple]

I agree with some of that list but really, the one who destroyed a Steve Winwood classic?

Plus don't forget some classic number ones in my chart by acts from Sweden:
- Sonic Surf City - Down On The Beach (Surf Little Girl)
- Royal Concept - On Our Way
- Judas Bunch - Hey Bartender (ok, you probably don't like that one).

No NM #1s but Baboon Show had a string of hits and you'd probably like them.

[TheThorne]

Probably Australia , loved their music since Men At Work

And still today they have many of the best rock and indie bands around

Narrowly beat Canada and Ireland for me

[vastar iner]

In terms of bang for buck, Iceland.

[Dave]

Germany in the 80s & 90s
Sweden in the last 20 years.

[greendemon]

Interesting question - I'd have to do the maths but it would probably be Ireland, closely followed by Canada, Australia, France and Denmark.

[Panda]

My guess would probably be Australia but I'll have to look through my old charts to get a more definitive answer.

[Jordan]

I have to say, I'm not very aware of the country of origin of most of the artists I listen to. Not sure it matters all that much tbh.

[Earl Purple]

Jamaica has made an incredible contribution to contemporary music with its own style, whereas many of the other countries mentioned have just followed the styles of Britain and America.

So I might even say Jamaica for "giving us reggae".

Based on that, my original choice of Ireland would still appear due to celtic music which has been a favourite form of mine, even if many of the artists involved are not actually Irish. But hail the Pogues...

[Good Old Days]

Dec 1, 2022 10:45:03 GMT 1 Jordan said:

I have to say, I'm not very aware of the country of origin of most of the artists I listen to. Not sure it matters all that much tbh.

Possibly you mostly (only) listen songs on English language. 

[Earl Purple]

France has done well in Lingovision.
Colombia won Lingovision 2 years in a row, including the year I won it.

[Jordan]

Dec 1, 2022 11:26:02 GMT 1 Good Old Days said:

Dec 1, 2022 10:45:03 GMT 1 Jordan said:

I have to say, I'm not very aware of the country of origin of most of the artists I listen to. Not sure it matters all that much tbh.

Possibly you mostly (only) listen songs on English language. 

You mean the language which is the predominant language in 67 countries? In what way would that prevent me from listening to artists from countries other than the UK?

[Earl Purple]

Céline Dion has a huge market for albums she has recorded in French.

Gloria Estefan similarly has a huge market for albums she recorded in Spanish. Shakira released about 3 albums in Spanish before she made it in the UK with an English language album. Julio Iglesias was a successful musician long before 1981 recording in Spanish.

[Good Old Days]

Lithuanian language is very charming. I wouldn't be a huge fan of Lithuanian girl groups, if they have crossed to English language songs.

I love schlager music. Dutch and German are main languages for this genre + sometimes Swedish.

[greendemon]

Taking a cursory look at one of my top 100 charts from this year (incidentally the one that contains the highest proportion of non-English-language music) I can count at least 24 artists who are not from the UK or the USA, and of those, only four songs were not in English (two were Eurovision entries!).

[Earl Purple]

If you want to appeal to a wider audience, you need to record in a popular language. So English and Spanish in particular. Bjorn and Benny from Abba decided that they should write their songs in English for that purpose. "It's the language of rock and roll".

If you saw the film "Amadeus" there was a debate on whether the opera that Mozart was to write the music for should have the words in Italian, that being "the language of opera".