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Thread: European music (excluding English bands and singers)

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    Senior Member wuyuejin's Avatar
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    Default European music (excluding English bands and singers)

    The majority of famous rock and pop songs are by people from England, America, and Australia yet other European countries have not totally been dominated as they could still produce quite a few very good bands or singers such as The Cranberries, Nightwish, Stratovarius, Luciano Pavarotti, Demis Roussos... Some examples:
    Zombie - The Cranberries
    http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=HJEySrDerj0
    Dreams - The Cranberries (whoever watched You've got mail is likely to love this song)
    http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=u9AE8QQfx_E
    While your lips are still red - Nightwish
    http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=OwTtDr5JPz4
    Forever - Stratovarius
    http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Np1WoaQZ9qA
    O'sole mio - Luciano Pavarotti
    http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=sjqHA8x1rOk
    Rain and Tears - Demis Rousso
    http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=wsWny6nOqqE
    Is there any song by a European artist or band that you like?
    日暮乡关何处是?烟波江上使人愁。

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    Senior Member xJadedx's Avatar
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    I personally consider bands from Ireland part of the whole "English" thing, simply due to their geographical proximity.
    So if you are including The Cranberries, then I'd say U2 should be up there too.
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    Quote Originally Posted by wuyuejin View Post
    The majority of famous rock and pop songs are by people from England, America, and Australia yet other European countries have not totally been dominated as they could still produce quite a few very good bands or singers such as The Cranberries, Nightwish, Stratovarius, Luciano Pavarotti, Demis Roussos... Some examples:

    Dreams - The Cranberries (whoever watched You've got mail is likely to love this song)
    Or Chungking Express.

    O'sole mio - Luciano Pavarotti
    http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=sjqHA8x1rOk
    Classical music is rather different from pop music, and shouldn't be grouped together under "European".

    Is there any song by a European artist or band that you like?
    Francoise Hardy
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    Edith Piaf

    They write at least some to all of their own material, and in Mylene Farmer's case, she wrote material for Alizee as well.

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    Senior Member wuyuejin's Avatar
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    # Jaded WenEr: Yeah, I agree that therere many similarities and interactions between 'Irish music' and English/British music but politically Ireland is not part of the UK so I dont wanna lump artists from both countries together.
    # pannonian: I like ChungKing Express and Feye Wong is my fav Asian singer but seriously when it comes to rock shes at least half a level below Dolores O'Riordan of The Cranberries. And thanks for mentioning Edith Piaf, I like her songs very much, hehheh, cause shes the most famous European singer of the 1940s and Im a sucker for World War 2 related stuffs. This song was played in my fav movie Saving Private Ryan: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=gl_Wc6Nm8lc. I love it. Btw, O'sole mio is an Italian folk song I dont think it should be considered 'classical', well, Elvis Presley could even score a hit with an English version of the song: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=r4p9USIZ8y0
    日暮乡关何处是?烟波江上使人愁。

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    Quote Originally Posted by wuyuejin View Post
    # Jaded WenEr: Yeah, I agree that therere many similarities and interactions between 'Irish music' and English/British music but politically Ireland is not part of the UK so I dont wanna lump artists from both countries together.
    The audience and market is so intermingled that there is marginal differentiation between Irish pop and British pop - the demarcation is greater between British folk and British pop, than between British pop and Irish pop.

    # pannonian: I like ChungKing Express and Feye Wong is my fav Asian singer but seriously when it comes to rock shes at least half a level below Dolores O'Riordan of The Cranberries. And thanks for mentioning Edith Piaf, I like her songs very much, hehheh, cause shes the most famous European singer of the 1940s and Im a sucker for World War 2 related stuffs. This song was played in my fav movie Saving Private Ryan: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=gl_Wc6Nm8lc. I love it.
    I personally don't rate the Cranberries much, but then I'm spoiled with the British music scene, which was famously vibrant in the period that the Cranberries made their name.

    Btw, O'sole mio is an Italian folk song I dont think it should be considered 'classical', well, Elvis Presley could even score a hit with an English version of the song: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=r4p9USIZ8y0
    By classical, I mean the market and its artists, which takes in what's normally considered classical, and also takes in other "traditional" music, unlike pop, whose modern performers don't generally look for influences before the Beatles. While there has been some entry into the pop market since the 1990 Football World Cup, there is still a fair difference between the pop and classical markets, and there is little influence of each on the other.

    In western pop, there is the Anglo-American market, and English language bands and artists tend to cater for those - Australia isn't a significant player, and outside their own markets, they tend to refashion themselves for the British or American audience. There is also a French scene, which is distinct from the Anglophones, although there may be influences, most significantly in their adoption of rap and hip hop. There is also a pan-European pop scene, which fuses multiple cultural influences and throws up the odd summer hit every so often, often fuelled by tourists in the Mediterranean. They tend to be somewhat dancey.

    A couple of examples of Euro-pop.

    Whigfield - Saturday Night
    Spiller - Groovejet

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    it seems like michael learns to rock is quite popular in asia.

    i've heard sweden has some very good bands.
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    Senior Member Canuck21's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by wuyuejin View Post
    The majority of famous rock and pop songs are by people from England, America, and Australia yet other European countries have not totally been dominated as they could still produce quite a few very good bands or singers...
    The majority of famous rock and pop songs are indeed English and American, but Australian? Don't kid yourself, I think Australia is even worse than Canada; I can only name a handful of famous Australian singing artists. Ireland can compete with Australia with no problem and IMO has produced much better bands like U2 and The Cranberries.

    Quote Originally Posted by pannonian View Post
    The audience and market is so intermingled that there is marginal differentiation between Irish pop and British pop - the demarcation is greater between British folk and British pop, than between British pop and Irish pop.
    Exactly.

    Quote Originally Posted by wuyuejin View Post
    ...such as The Cranberries, Nightwish, Stratovarius, Luciano Pavarotti, Demis Roussos...
    Luciano Pavarotti? So opera is a subgenre of rock and pop now ?

    Quote Originally Posted by pannonian View Post
    Classical music is rather different from pop music, and shouldn't be grouped together under "European".
    Indeed, it's on a totally different stratosphere. If we're going to go into classical music, then Italy and Germany are extremely strong.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jaded WenEr View Post
    I personally consider bands from Ireland part of the whole "English" thing, simply due to their geographical proximity.
    So if you are including The Cranberries, then I'd say U2 should be up there too.
    I too think that way. I bet most people thought that U2 is from the UK, maybe somewhere in Northern Ireland, but the band is actually from Dublin in the Republic of Ireland. Most people also don't realize that some of the "English" bands are Scottish. We tend to mix them in one big group we call British.

    Quote Originally Posted by pemberly View Post
    i've heard sweden has some very good bands.
    Yes it does. Beside the UK and Ireland, Sweden is probably the most productive European country that has given the world ABBA, Roxette, Ace of Base, Europe and The Cardigans. Among them, I only like ABBA a little bit and used to like Roxette.

    I know many French artists, but I must say that France is not very good at rock music; it quite sucks actually. The only band that have a few songs that I like are Indochine, a band that was kind of an imitation of The Cure. If you're into House music, then Daft Punk is probably the most famous. Me, I don't listen to House music. Because of its large African and Maghrebian immigrants, Hip Hop is quite popular there and many groups have mushroomed. I know almost nothing about the genre so no comment.

    Quote Originally Posted by pannonian View Post
    In western pop, there is the Anglo-American market, and English language bands and artists tend to cater for those - Australia isn't a significant player, and outside their own markets, they tend to refashion themselves for the British or American audience. There is also a French scene, which is distinct from the Anglophones, although there may be influences, most significantly in their adoption of rap and hip hop. There is also a pan-European pop scene, which fuses multiple cultural influences and throws up the odd summer hit every so often, often fuelled by tourists in the Mediterranean. They tend to be somewhat dancey
    You and I seem to view the music landscape at the same angle.

    In general, Britons have very good rock artists, other Europeans not so much. The continent is much more into dance beats or simply pop. One of my favourite is O-Zone's Dragostea Din Teï, that's Romanian BTW and the group is from Moldava. I don't understand a thing, but it's extremely catchy. Years ago, I really liked Coeur de loup from Belgian Philippe Lafontaine.

    Oh I almost forgot about Germany. Whilst others made sometime good, but rather generic music, Germany is the only country on the European continent that had quite a big influence on the Britons of the '70s because some of the German bands were very experimental and created new sounds never heard before. The British music press dubbed it "Krautrock". The most famous of those bands was Kraftwerk. Too bad the Germans have stopped being experimental and their music is now like any other "Euro" music.

    Quote Originally Posted by pannonian View Post
    I personally don't rate the Cranberries much, but then I'm spoiled with the British music scene, which was famously vibrant in the period that the Cranberries made their name.
    I like The Cranberries quite a bit but yeah, British music was the best. My favourite music scene was of the late '70s, early '80s when punk rock, post-punk and early New Wave ruled, but the Madchester scene was good too .
    Last edited by Canuck21; 11-12-08 at 12:53 AM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Canuck21 View Post
    I like The Cranberries quite a bit but yeah, British music was the best. My favourite music scene was of the late '70s, early '80s when punk rock, post-punk and early New Wave ruled, but the Madchester scene was good too .
    I'd have used This is the One to represent Madchester, but this was the only album version of that I could find on youtube, and the foreground rather spoils the background. Oh well, here's She Bangs the Drums. The Britpop scene was good as well, covering a whole lot of styles under that umbrella, whose only real commonality was their shared audience. Here's a song that owes more to the French tradition than the British.

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    Senior Member wuyuejin's Avatar
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    #Canuck: Technically youre right but IMO Australia > Canada and Ireland coz we have AC/DC and The Bee Gees. Dont waste time arguing with me that Neil Young of Canada and U2 of Ireland are the more prominent artists etc. as Im biased here. For Pavarotti, despite being an opera icon he performed many songs with various pop and rock artists so I dont think mentioning his name here is wrong.
    日暮乡关何处是?烟波江上使人愁。

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    Quote Originally Posted by wuyuejin View Post
    #Canuck: Technically youre right but IMO Australia > Canada and Ireland coz we have AC/DC and The Bee Gees. Dont waste time arguing with me that Neil Young of Canada and U2 of Ireland are the more prominent artists etc. as Im biased here. For Pavarotti, despite being an opera icon he performed many songs with various pop and rock artists so I dont think mentioning his name here is wrong.
    You are biased, but I'm not because I think Canadian popular music sucks yet I still think it's superior to Australia today just for having more known artists. AC/DC and the Bee Gees were a long time ago, Australia hasn't produced much since. Canada on the other hand have some rather big names ie. Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne, Nickelback, Alanis Morissette, Barenaked Ladies, Shania Twain, Sum 41, Simple Plan... Boy do we suck, but heck we're known. What does Australia have nowadays? If you insist that Australia is superior to Canada, fine, but don't lump it with the US and the UK like you did, that was criminal .

    Despite having some really bad music entertainers, I'm happy to say that these past few years Montreal has produced a couple really good indie bands namely Archide Fire and Wolf Parade .
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    Senior Member wuyuejin's Avatar
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    Heheh, dont be so serious mate. An amazing song by Enigma, a German electronic band: Return to Innocence : http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=YkaY_lc_2UM or http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=-JpJjsHgYHA
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    Quote Originally Posted by wuyuejin View Post
    Heheh, dont be so serious mate. An amazing song by Enigma, a German electronic band: Return to Innocence : http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=YkaY_lc_2UM or http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=-JpJjsHgYHA
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    Senior Member wuyuejin's Avatar
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    Oops, really?? Heheh, sorry, I couldnt see the emoticons as I always turn off the image auto-loading function of my browser.
    日暮乡关何处是?烟波江上使人愁。

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    Recommended European bands: Indochine, Sigur Ros, Sadie, The Rasmus, Apocalyptica, HIM, Dolly etc. There are quite a lot of good Finnish, French and Swedish bands... Sigur Ros is an Icelandic band, they're quite good actually, if you like songs sung in falsetto. hehe.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jenny_shiny View Post
    Recommended European bands: Indochine, Sigur Ros, Sadie, The Rasmus, Apocalyptica, HIM, Dolly etc. There are quite a lot of good Finnish, French and Swedish bands... Sigur Ros is an Icelandic band, they're quite good actually, if you like songs sung in falsetto. hehe.
    Singur Ros is the "IT" band these days among hipsters, but I have a hard time liking them. I like their music when it's part of a video, movie or trailer, but I wouldn't listen a whole album of theirs. I've never been a fan of falsetto in the first place and their invented language can be grating. Some think they're so original, but IMO, when you don't need to write lyrics that people can understand, that's laziness in my book. It's good music don't get me wrong, but I think they're overrated.
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