Why do Brittish rock stars sound American when they sing? Is it the Elvis Factor ie:thats how they (or whoever influnenced them) first heard it done? Or is it more complicated than that?
I asked this once.
One answer was that the standard singing voice isn’t exclusively American. And that one should rephrase - “Why do English and American singers sound the same when they sing?”
But I still think the sound is mostly American and that it has ‘stuck’ that that’s what singing sounds like, so to sing I should sound like that.
I know Ozzie has a reputation for being very strange, but–jezzzzzzzus
Although that can truly be said the real question is still unanswerd.
If they do sound the same then why dosent Springsteen sound Brittish,that is to say why is american the default sound?
Moved to CS.
-xash
General Questions Moderator
I recall something from a linguistics class which might be relevant here, I’m going from memory so forgive the lack of citation.
The parts of the brain used for speaking are different from those used for singing. There is also a constrast in the vocal mechanics used for each. I remember a specific study which found that stroke victims who had lost normal speech capacity were able to form words if they employed a “sing song” pattern in their dialogue. Dunno if that is pertinent to this topic, but I think it is kinda interesting.
The Kinks sound pretty British when they sing.
The British work very, very hard to sound sophisticated and pretentious when they speak. If they dropped their guard for even a minute, they would sound just like regular people (e.g., Americans). Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens when they sing. It takes too much focus to sing well and maintain an accent at the same time. That causes them to fall back to their natural way of sounding.
If we’re talking about rock songs, pronouncing things correctly is just not a focus, at all. You can see other kinds of accent blurring, like Northerners pronouncing words in a Southern way. Some of it may be that ‘parts of the brain’ thing, but it might trace back to oft-imitated American black singers.
morrissey maintains a pretty noticable accent when he sings.
but yeah, a lot of british singers seem to supress their accents.
Brit here. It’s iardly “supress”. This implies that our default accent would be American (as in Shagnasty’s tongue-in-cheek post).
The point is actually that English (not necessarily all British) people actually put on an American accent to sing, including inserting the trailing ‘R’ sound that many of us miss out.
I believe this is for a couple of simple reasons: firstly, the glottal stops and clipped vowels of many English accents don’t lead themselves to singing in a fluid manner, and secondly, Rock ‘n’ Roll started in America, and we can’t stop copying it. When I sing a rock song, I tend to fake an American accent; when I sing an Irish song I fake an Irish accent.
There are several notable exceptions to this, including the Kinks as mentioned, some Beatles songs, Marc Bolan, Elizabeth Fraser, Mike Skinner, Dizzee Rascal, Oasis, and Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay.
“Hardly”, not “iardly”. Damned English accent making me type all wrong.
Even the Japanese sound American when they sing in English. At least Church of Misery. The first time I heard them, I couldn’t believe they were Japanese, there’s absolutely no hint of an accent. Yet, my friend who knows them says they don’t even fully know English, they speak Japanese almost all the time.
Weird.
Even the Japanese sound American when they sing in English. At least Church of Misery. The first time I heard them, I couldn’t believe they were Japanese, there’s absolutely no hint of an accent. Yet, my friend who knows them says they don’t even fully know English, they speak Japanese almost all the time.
Weird.
Damn double-post, sorry about that.
Hmmmm…well I think if we’re going to bring up the question of why Ozzy “sounded” American, we’ll have to bring up the question of why Elvis “sounded” black.
As was often noted of him at the time, including a number of black people who reported being geuninly suprised that that he was a white boy.
Personally I can’t hear it…he sounds white enough to me (whatever that means) but apparently he sounded black to people at the time. Which makes me think that what it comes down to is taking on the vocal stylings of the musical genre you are…giving homage to?..ripping off??..contributiing to the growth of??? Or whatever.
Ozzy was on a talk show with Frank Skinner about six or seven years ago and sang “Paranoid” in a Brummie accent. It was hilarious.