Hard News: Friday is for all the things
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Brand new music from Bobby Womack, last seen in NZ with Damon Albarn's outfit The Gorillaz. Produced by Albarn and Richard Russell, off his new album, out June. Free DL, gorgeous tune.
http://dubdotdash.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/new-bobby-womack.html
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Loving First Aid Kit, but agree, would never have thought them Swedish. They're touring Sydney and am seeing them later this month... try the track Emmylou
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"Would you have guessed that they are Swedish?"
Are they actually trying to sound American?
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In my very limited experience, Scandanavian people tend to have an oddily American accent. I assumed it was a function of whatever language resources they use in their schools.
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Love First Aid Kit. No, I wouldn’t have guessed that they are Swedish, but since I knew I didn’t have to. What I can’t get over is that they are only 19 and 21. And sisters. They are currently at No 1 in the Swedish charts.
ETA: I would assume that the accent is deliberate for the genre.
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3410,
The style they're doing is close harmony singing, which is essentially an American style.
That said, the area where that sort of American country music developed largely corresponds with the areas of greatest Swedish settlement in USA in late the 19th / early 20th centuries (Minnesota, Nebraska, the Dakotas...), so maybe that singing style was partly Swedish in the first place. (?)
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I've missed PA for all the reasons evident in 3410's post above.
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The latest White Rabbits album came out this week. "Temporary" is probably the catchiest song, but the whole album is full of subtle and interesting tunes. Similar to Spoon/Radiohead/Beatles
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My understanding is that most Scandanavians sound American because movies and TV programmes over there are not dubbed, but subtitled. Therefore, kids grow up on a diet of American English.
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This might not be your sort of music, but it’s a pretty impressive audience/performer interaction.
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And I just discovered the sabretoothed vampire. Where have I been?
http://culturepulp.typepad.com/culturepulp/the-sabretooth-vampire/
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I like the way the mix of Yoko's vocals makes her sound even more delightfully unhinged.
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Lilith __, in reply to
Love First Aid Kit
We all need one of those in the cupboard ;-)
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Would you have guessed that they are Swedish?
Well….they’ve clearly been using Norsica shampoo!
[Edit: which the internet hasn't heard of! But we all remember the blonde on the white horse, right?!]
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Richard Stewart, in reply to
My experience of Swedes through dealing with them regularly at work is that they speak exceptionally good English, but i have never noticed an American accent as such.
I believe though that this First Aid Kit album was recorded in the US - and this is more likely to have been an influence. Sort of like the way early Kiwi hip-hop artists used to mimic US artists before they found their mojo. -
Hebe,
Ok, so I haven't got a link to a video or picture or anything, but I will ask you to use your imagining to conjure up an ordinary, but somehow special thing today...In the Cashel Street container mall, in a courtyard area off to one side, sunny and warm because it was out of the biting north-easterly. Billy Vallance and Jon Hooker brewing up a quietly good set while me and beloved had a quick flat white under the tree from the caravan and others chomped through lunch souvlaki and sushi. So good just to be; in that place at that time. A snapshot hour I will carry with me.
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BenWilson, in reply to
It's kind of odd to me how virtually every good vocalist sings with an American accent. Is it an especially musical accent? Perhaps it's because singers are expected to be capable of high volume, and the American accent is especially appropriate for that? It's quite high pitched and clear. Words like "I" and "my" become "Ah", and "mah".
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Thanks Russel. What a spread of wonderful music… on such a delightful early autumn Auckland day.
Loving the new Bobby Womack tracks. His voice is still golden, and the Albarn production is a lively counterpart. I’m so glad Womack’s still around.
Dropping this here, because this album is blowing up my speakers. Rich deep Barcelona house:
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Marcus Turner, in reply to
I think it's how we learn to sing. We hear American accents (which have long been prominent in popular music) and, consciously or otherwise, copy them. It's no longer "American", necessarily; simply part of the genre. I remember a series about popular music on TV years ago, in which one interviewee traced a lot of it back to the Appalachian influence in Country music which, itself, had a strong influence on early Rock and Roll.
I can remember singing teachers (and others) of the 60s and 70s being really disparaging about American accents. (Actually, I remember some people being pretty negative about the Kiwi accent(s) in singing. The word "the", for example, pronounced in a NZ accent, was anathema to one choir conductor. I think that was partly because of what it tended to do to the length of the sung note.)
A similar thing used to happen in theatre with English accents.
One of the best ways to learn is by imitation. In the early stages, we don't know which parts of what we're imitating are going to be most important to us. As we become more confident and experienced, we find our own "voice" (see "mojo" above).
If market forces are important to us, then we might tend to stay with an "American" pronunciation. It does seem to be easy to sell to the "world market" by comparison to other accents.
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BenWilson, in reply to
It does seem to be easy to sell to the "world market" by comparison to other accents.
Mind you, Hip hop, whilst predominantly American in origin, has accents all of its own and seems to have little trouble selling. Similarly with one really obvious non-American one, the Jamaican. But when they go melodic, then it blends back. So again, I can't help but think there is something strangely apt to that kind of singing in that accent.
It could just be what we've modeled, as you say.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
A snapshot hour I will carry with me.
When music meets the moment. I get you.
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More Swedish gold - but with a more natural accent
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Since we’re on Swedish music, I thought I’d share this from a few years ago. It won the best music video award and is kinda cool. This one’s in Swedish (or more accurately, in Skånska).
ETA: Forgot to say, it's Familjen - Det snurrar i min skalle
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What you need right now is Four Tet to hook up with Burial and create, well, this: Nova (Hat-tip Charles @DocRaccoon).
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Hebe, in reply to
That's good. Sounds like some of the Gram Parsons-Emmylou Harris songs.
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