Hi
Can anyone explain to me why, musically the UK has always been much more creative than our US cousins.
Agree or disagree?
Paulus123
DNFTT.
Xerxes…What!!!
Disagree.
Does anyone in england have the intelligence to reply with anything other than a one word answer Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Yes.
Well since you’re new around here (welcome aboard by the way), I’ll try again. Two slices of dry bread don’t make a sandwich and your question seemed to invite a terse response. You’re lucky it’s only UK people that have replied too - wait till the Yank musos take a look!
Maybe it would help if you explained why you think British music is creative and American music is not? Don Maclean’s American Pie was apparently written out of his disgust that the British invasion of the '60s was killing traditional R&R as embodied by Buddy Holly, and the British bands of the time freely admitted their debt to Holly, Elvis Presley and blues artists such as Muddy Waters, so it would be difficult to claim original creativity from our side of the water there. Current trends towards manufactured pop acts argue against our “creativity” as well don’t they?
Britain has been very creative from time to time - Glam Rock, Prog Rock, Punk Rock are all good examples to quote; Brit Pop was enjoyable but derivative. My feeling is that there has been plenty of bilateral influence across the Atlantic, not the one-way traffic your OP implied.
Disagree. A lot of genres that on the surface appear to have been created in the UK were not. Punk rock and house music spring to mind for a start.
By the way, DNFTT stands for “Do Not Feed The Troll”. Xerxes is warning us not to reply to your thread because he thinks you have deliberately tried to start a fight. It happens all the time - someone posts something inflammatory then sits back to enjoy the results as people argue back and forth getting hotter and hotter under the collar.
Run a search on “trolling” if you want to find out more.
UK music was terrific up to about the end of the 70’s. There was the Beatles, Stones, Bowie, Clash, Police etc. Since then, most of the creativity has come from US music imho. I pretty much stopped listening to UK music about 10 years ago. Now I stick with US artists as a lot of them tend to be more socio-political and actually have something to say (as well as the ability to say it).
Well, chalk me up as a Yank who has an inordinate fascination with music from the U.K.
Not that there’s a hammerlock on creativity there, or anything. For example, in recent years there’s been a small resurgence (or emergence; I’m not sure it’s a *re-*anything) of French pop, of all things.
Could it be as simple as “opposites attract”? 
I think it’s the case that other countries often seem to have more variety in their genres purely because your exposed to constant radio and TV glurge in your own country. I do believe that outside the charts UK music is as varied (if not more) than many other countries in the world. I don’t like many of those styles, but hey, I’m glad someone’s trying.
sirtonyh: radiohead, blur, the chemical brothers, the streets, basement jaxx, the stone roses, pulp, primal scream, pj harvey, the prodigy, mercury rev, supergrass, billy bragg, new order etc.
not that there haven;'t been many fine US bands in the same period.
There’s a diference between UK music being more creative and only being exposed to US pop music in the UK.
You mean like the Allman Brothers?
Mercury Rev are a US band ya numpty.
Personally I think it is not the UK as a whole but Scotland specifically which has produced the best music over the past 20 years, but that’s just MHO …
Sorry ruadh, with the exception of some of the Glasgow bands on the smaller labels I think Scottish music deserves a slap for inflicting Travis, Idlewild and Texas on everyone else.
Hey, I never said all Scottish bands were good (I mean, come on, Wet Wet Wet?). Just that a larger percentage of the best bands of the past couple decades have been from Scotland than from any other country.
And of course, most of them are on smaller labels …
ruadh: oh, wow - you’re right. Who’d have thunk it? They sound so English.
In that case, I’ll change it to Doves (they’re British, right?)
Yep. IIIRC the Doves are Mancs who were behind the '90s dance outfit Sub Sub.