i know that here in australia we have a lot of great bands that don’t get heard overseas. they are just as good as any you hear from other countries, but whether it’s expense, time or just bad luck, they never gain international success.
i’m sure that australia’s isn’t the only country with this wealth of underexposed musical talent. so i want to know what i’m missing out on.
what bands from your country aren’t i hearing because they haven’t gained international success?
and y’know - just a little bit about what they do, what sort of style, etc. - so anyone interested can check them out.
i guess it will be harder for those of you from prominent musical countries, such as the UK or the US to contribute, since more of their artists are successful at an international level, but maybe we’ll be surprised.
As a Canadian, I would have to say that our most overlooked band has to be The Tragically Hip. I remember years ago they got a push in the US, they were on SNL and they were advertised fairly heavily, but they never caught on.
I would describe them as a rock band i guess. Their earlier stuff was more “rock” but they’re getting alittle older, and have mellowed out a bit; I would still consider them a rock band though. Their best cd’s IMO are Road Apples and Live between us.
Road Apples is one of their older discs, but some of their best songs are on it. Live Between Us is a recording of a live performance they did in suchandsuchatown. Being a recording of a concert, almost all their good stuff is on it, along with Gordon Downie’s (the lead singers) strange ramblings.
Another group that I wish was more successful was The Philosopher Kings. Great R&B. Very sexy misuc, great for making out to. Not that I ever used it for that purpose of course. Check out “Famous Rich and Beautiful”
My and hubby’s favourite is Kome Kome Club. They were a HUGE band, had a big brass section and four singers. Sang a lot of genres, and were totally bizarre. Unfortunately they broke up a few years ago, so I never got to see them in concert.
There’s a reggae singer who’s just done a song with UB40. His name is Miki Dozan. He sings in Japanese, and UB40 (obviously!) sings in English, so its quite an interesting song. I don’t know if its being released in western countries, though.
About the only one I know of who actually became known overseas is Seiko, and the less said about her the better, AFAIC.
We have TISM (dance with a lot of humour), Pornland (funk), The Screaming Jets (rock) and Paul Kelly (?) to name a few others. When Paul Kelly and the Colour Girls tried to break into the US market, his label required them to change their name to the Messengers for fear of offending American sensibilites. I have no idea if they were successful but I’m surprised he gave in to the demand.
The Datsuns are an NZ band who, I believe, are touring the United States at the moment with the White Stripes. They are described as being similar to MC5 or the Stooges. They’re hot.
The Feelers are also from New Zealand and have been around for much longer. In my opinion their best song is Arm (it sounds like something out of Zeppelin school). You can check it out on the link below. Venus is also good.
Here in South Africa, we have a few bands that get no exposure to the States (besides Johnny Clegg, although he’s only really big in France)
Anyway here are a few:
Fetish: Fetish are quite a cool alt.ambient type of band. They’re really intense and have an awesome lead singer.
Not My Dog: This is a hardcore band out of Pretoria. The band is classically trained (the band in Jazz and the vocalist was in a well known choir) and are excellent musicians. The live show I saw of theirs last Dec was the most rockingest show I’ve ever been to. They have mp3’s of almost all their songs available on their website.
Springbok Nude Girls: I’m not going to exlpain the title as only SA people will get it but this was the biggest band in SA from about 1996 till they broke up last year. Some great songs that remind me of my undergrad days.
Boo!: A bizarre performannce art rock band who dress in drag and sing in some wierd English/Gibberish hybrid. Strange yet danceable…
Moodphase5ive: A very smooth hip-hop/R&B band outta CT. you can check out an mp3 of theirs here.
And there are quite a few other bands made up of kids playing smaller gigs around the place. The bands I mentioned above are just ones who I think are world class but stuck in SA…
keep em coming… any europeans out there? what’s big in belgium? italy? germany?
i’ll just add a few more aussies, and second paul kelly - brilliant australian folk/rock, and new zealand’s shihad aka pacifier. these guys rock hard. huge riffs, marshall stacks higher than skyscrapers, yet gourgeously melodic. america, you need this band! they changed their name for you, don’t let them down now!
so, on with the show:
jebediah
indie-pop band heavily influenced by the us emo scene. they’ve toured with get up kids and released a split ep with jimmy eat world.
machine gun fellatio
twice as weird as their name, and twice as good. they play an eclectic mix of filthy grinding funk, woozy electronica and even country (!) - check out the hit butter my ass with a pigeon. and with bryan ferrysexual as their drummer, how could you dislike them?
powderfinger
they’ve recently been to america, and appeared on letterman, but i don’t think they’ve really broken the market. but they’ve been written-up as ‘australia’s u2’ and they have the soaring melodies and inspired songwriting to match. listen to these days, my happiness or already gone
you am i
like the strokes and the white stripes? you am i have been doing this for ten years, but rather than take the dirty blues route of the stripes or the velvet underground stylings of the strokes, they’re sound is compareable to the rolling stones or the who. berlin chair, jammie’s got a gun and heavy heart are must-hears.
most of whats BIG in the uk is known else where so this is whats small.
electric soft parade - just released their first album…i’ll admit i don’t won it, but what i have heard of them is very good, guitar pop type stuff…but with tunes and humor and soul and all thoughs other things travis have sucked out the genre.
the coral - this is what happens when teenagers listen to captain beefheart.
the music - possably the greatest band of the last few years, two eps released so far and an album in the making, www.themusic.uk.com you can find downloads and such there…‘the walls get smaller’ would be the one i suggest.
gomez - quite established but i don’t know how well known they are abroad, they’re on their their third and best album at the moment www.gomez.co.uk
Bands not known outside my country? A lot! Well, they are probably known in communities outside the island, but their existance is not widely known.
Fiel a la Vega- Rock group
Sol de Menta - Rock group
Puya - Another rock group, more punk and probably a bit more known, since they have toured the US in some of the Punk and alternative rock festivals.
Haciendo punto en otro son- If you know about Mercedes Sosa or Silvio Rodríguez, these band is similar(in the content) but not much known outside the island.
Plena Libre- This band sings and plays plena, one of the typical dances of my country.
Plenéalo- Another plena group.
There are others, as soon as I think about them, I will post them.
When you go to non-English-speaking countries, I suspect most of the local bands would be unknown in US. Bands like Apulanta, Ultra Bra, Eppu Normaali, Hassisen Kone, Klamydia and such - huge in Finland, but they sing in Finnish, so can’t get on American markets.
In fact, neither do most bands singing in English coming out of Finland. Anyone familiar with Hanoi Rocks? 22-Pistepirkko? Nightwish? Children of Bodom?
Nightwish absolutely rules. Superb band. Children of Bodom are also an extremely talented band. Add to that list Amorphis and Sentenced. I can understand Americans not getting into Children of Bodom but Nightwish, recent Sentenced and recent Amorphis albums are very ‘accessible’.
Tsubaki beat me to it with Japan. Almost none of the big names here are known overseas, quite often deservedly so (Morning Musume? Speed? too many perfomers chosen on the basis of ‘cute first, talent later’). There was one performer, Tomomi Kahara, who went to America to try her luck while a TV crew followed. Her off-key, bubble-gum pop got shot down by recording company after recording company, until finally she was auditioning for jobs singing in sleazy lounges, and was still being shot down.
Anyway, I think Tomoyasu Hotei deserves some overseas recognition. Good guitar player who’s ot afraid to try some new styles.
DITTO! I agree with everything you wrote, Sublight! Morning Musume, Speed…all these groups just piss me off because all they have going for them are their looks. I don’t like Hikaru Utada much either, but I admire her for writing her own songs at least.
Hotei is great, kind of bizarre but that’s the sort of thing I like (kinda goes without saying, since I’m a Kome Kome Club fan, right?!).
What about an international music olympics? Nothing to do with the Grammies, not the British Music Awards, not MTV. Just Finnish death metal facing off against Palestinian death metal and Australian alternative against Croatian alternative etc etc?
Well, in the past few years we've had a lot of new bands appearing and most of them a REALLY good. It started in the mid-90's with dEUS. They had some success in the U.K. at the time. They're still very popular here.
Apart from them, a lot of Flemish bands/singers are really good. My favourite is Ann Pierle (however it's spelt...). And of course Arno. He's not very well known outside Belgium though he's had some success in France. He sings in French and English with a terrible Dutch accent and is always drunk. His interviews are really hilarious. Very Belgian in a way: never taking himself too seriously. He's the one you want to start with if you're interested...
And then: Sharko, Marc Moulin, Soulwax, Venus, Zita Swoon... yes, we love weird names :D
Being a Unitedstatesian myself I can’t really talk about unknown bands so much. On the other hand, I do like to listen to semi-strange stuff, including stuff from other countries.
I would reccomend Pink Martini for a good U.S. band that not everyone has heard of (although they seem to be more well known than I originally thought. Perhaps they have gained in popularity). They play very interesting music from all sorts of places.
From France I reccomend Fatal Mambo which is a band from the south of France that plays mambo music. Quite fun, in my opinion.
I also put my vote in for the Canadian band the Be Good Tanyas and for the Australian band The Waifs. They played at the Vancouver Folk Festival and I thin they are nice.
My Dutch friend burnt a CD of Acda & de Munnik’s album Naar Huis which I like quite a bit. Wish I could understand the lyrics better though. I can only guess what they mean by their similarity to English (which is not nearly close enough to come up with a coherent story).
