What's the Big Music Thing That's Going on Outside the US?

[FriscoBassAce]

I've often wondered what the popular music scene is like in Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, etc. In the US, the most popular music seems to be Hip-Hop/R&B, if the Billboard Charts are any indication. Hard rock and pop are represented, but not as dramatically as the other genre. Is this just an American thing, or is it now worldwide? My impressions are that metal and hard rock seem to be more alive in Europe...although I don't know that for sure. I have no clue about the other geographic areas of the world. So help clue me in: what's THE most popular genre in your area of the world, as measured by what's getting played on TV and radio, as well as actual sales charts like Billboard here in the US?

[Low E Louie]

These were the most topical figures that I could find

Most sold albums 2003 in Sweden

1 PER GESSLE - MAZARIN
2 CAROLA - GULD PLATINA & PASSION - DET BÄSTA
3 NORAH JONES - COME AWAY WITH ME
4 THE CARDIGANS - LONG GONE BEFORE DAYLIGHT
5 EVANESCENCE - FALLEN
6 LARS WINNERBÄCK OCH HOVET - SÖNDERMARKEN
7 KENT - VAPEN & AMMUNITION
8 LASSE STEFANZ - DET HÄR ÄR BARA BÖRJAN
9 DIDO - LIFE FOR RENT
10 METALLICA - ST. ANGER

There were about 20 Hiphop/RnB albums in the top 100

http://sys2.grammotex.se/netdata/grp...&dfom=20030101

The current album list is here
http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/noje/l...itlistan/album
not that much hiphop/rnb

Regarding hard rock my impression is that it is REALLY big in Eastern Europe.

[Petebass]

What's big in Australia? That's Easy - whatever was big in the USA and UK 3-6 months ago. That of course means a lot of the American music over here is represented by R&B, and the UK stuff is mostly Robbie Williams type pop and lots of doof.

We get a little bit of rock from those parts of the world too, but luckily for us, the local acts are mostly rock and indie. So as long as Powderfinger, Thirsty Merc, and Jebediah keep churning out albums, the commercial charts over here are always a fairly good balance of everything.

[syciprider]

Yeah but you guys get Kylie all the time!

[Petebass]

Originally Posted by syciprider

Yeah but you guys get Kylie all the time!

Not really. She's much bigger in the UK than here. She's out of action at the moment anyway for breast cancer treatment.

[FriscoBassAce]

By the way, thanks for AC/DC and INXS!

[westland]

Asia ... Japan is the biggest market by far; Hong Kong's Cantopop continues in decline; China is producing more and more good musicians, and should be very influential in short order. Live concerts are more important in Asia that CDs because of the piracy problem (it hurts the local musicians worst)

[FriscoBassAce]

Originally Posted by westland

Asia ... Japan is the biggest market by far; Hong Kong's Cantopop continues in decline; China is producing more and more good musicians, and should be very influential in short order. Live concerts are more important in Asia that CDs because of the piracy problem (it hurts the local musicians worst)

What kind of music is most popular there? Is it rock, pop, metal, soul, R&B, or what?

[syciprider]

Animetal.

[Aj*]

What's big in the UK?

Franz Ferdinand (Met the bassist)
Kaiser Chiefs (Met the drummer)

Those two bands have exploded lately, I guess it's sorta pop-rock, Franz Ferdinand being more pop than Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand set out to make music for girls to dance to, it's actually pretty groovey and at times pretty rocking stuff. Bands in a similar vein are currently doing well commercially. Also, huge amounts of crap hip-hop are being poured on us but finally the ranks of talentless fools are being stemmed by falling record sales. And pop, well pop is still pop, manufactured and with a short shelf life.

Outside of the mainstream (and on the edges of it at times), it's currently attack of the Emos. Fortunatley there are good bands playing proper ol' rock to fight back the hoards of emos. It's a messed up situation, basically, mainstream is largely crumby and even the alternative scene is suffering at the hands of emos. Damn it.

[The_D]

New band as of last December in UK are the Arctic Monkeys.
Awesome band, album was released on Friday past but I had it ages ago (I know a guy who knows a guy).

Funeral for a friend are quite good too a bit too EMO for me to tell the truth but some good tunes.

It seems like we in the UK are a bit tired of all the rubbish girl/boybands at the mo which suits me fine!

[The_D]

Oh yeah, Bloc party and Maximo park kick ass too!

[JMX]

In Germany, the traditional band is kind of coming back after the last wave of Big Brother "singers" and "Star Search" clones.
Also, more and more artists sing in German instead of English, which often improves the quality of the lyrics tremendously.
Last year there was a domination of rock bands with female vocals, such as Wir Sind Helden, Silbermond, Juli and Die Happy.
There are also some nice exceptions to the otherwise stupid German rap/hiphop, older hiphop bands like Die Fantastischen Vier und Fettes Brot, and the sensational Seeed, a great mix of dub, dancehall, reggae, ska and hiphop.
Punkbands Die Ärzte and Die Toten Hosen are still going strong, there's a German "Norah Jones" with Annett Louisan.

More maybe later, that's all off the top of my head for now.

[Marcus]

In Puerto Rico, it's reggaeton.

[velvetkevorkian]

Originally Posted by Aj*

What's big in the UK?

Franz Ferdinand (Met the bassist)
Kaiser Chiefs (Met the drummer)

Those two bands have exploded lately, I guess it's sorta pop-rock, Franz Ferdinand being more pop than Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand set out to make music for girls to dance to, it's actually pretty groovey and at times pretty rocking stuff. Bands in a similar vein are currently doing well commercially. Also, huge amounts of crap hip-hop are being poured on us but finally the ranks of talentless fools are being stemmed by falling record sales. And pop, well pop is still pop, manufactured and with a short shelf life.

Outside of the mainstream (and on the edges of it at times), it's currently attack of the Emos. Fortunatley there are good bands playing proper ol' rock to fight back the hoards of emos. It's a messed up situation, basically, mainstream is largely crumby and even the alternative scene is suffering at the hands of emos. Damn it.

all the "cool" bands about just now in the UK are taking their (very obvious) cues from the 80s post punk scene- whenever i hear the kaiser chiefs it sounds like the talking heads and magazine that my dad listened to back in the day

and yeah, the alternative scene is under siege (and practically dead on its feet ) from the emo hordes. something must be done!!

[SteveC]

I thought David Hasselhoff was big everywhere but the US.

[daglar]

In Greece the most popular songs are Greek and they more or less s*ck, no music, no lyrics, most of the singers are the winners of television shows... Then comes pop followed by RnB. Very little rock is being heard and metal is almost dead since no radio station plays it.

[doublestop]

Rock. Melodic metal ("girl in gothic dress" type).

In the jazz world there is a clearly 'European' scene, which is less "swinging" but (IME) more adventurous, mixing in local ethnic music, classical and all sorts of improvised music. This in contrast to the more 'conservative' US jazz scene. Think Wynton Marsalis etc. However, guys like Jon Zorn or John Scofield are also from the USA (but they come to Europe to make a living....why do you think Gary Willis lives in Barcelona, Spain ?)

[Vorago]

On Stubru; the "alternative" radio

01 (03) ZORNIK Keep me down 05
02 (01) GREEN DAY Jesus of suburbia 09
03 (02) COLDPLAY Talk 09
04 (05) dEUS The real sugar 05
05 (06) FRANZ FERDINAND Walk away 06
06 (04) SYSTEM OF A DOWN Hypnotize 11
07 (08) FOO FIGHTERS Resolve 07
08 (19) GORKI Joeri 02
09 (07) ABSYNTHE MINDED My heroics, part one 17
10 (09) BLOC PARTY 2 more years 15
11 (10) HOOVERPHONIC You hurt me 07
12 (13) MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE I'm not okay (I promise) 07
13 (11) PRODIGY Voodoo people (Pendulum remix) 10
14 (12) THE DARKNESS One way ticket 06
15 (17) ASIMOV Metron5 08
16 (20) MILLIONAIRE Rise and fall 04
17 (14) KAISER CHIEFS I predict a riot 12
18 (21) ANOUK One word 04
19 (15) HIM (Rip out the) Wings of a butterfly 15
20 (16) JANEZ DETD Deep 21
21 (30) RAMMSTEIN Rosenrot 02
22 (25) WITHIN TEMPTATION Jillian (I'd give my heart) 04
23 (00) ADMIRAL FREEBEE Boy you never found 01
24 (24) GORILLAZ Dirty Harry 08
25 (27) HARD-FI Cash machine 03
26 (18) RAMMSTEIN Benzin 13
27 (28) THOF VAN COMMERCE Super commerce bros. 03
28 (00) STARSAILOR Faith hope love 01
29 (23) DEPECHE MODE Precious 18
30 (00) MINT Your shopping lists are poetry 01

[Petebass]

Originally Posted by SteveC

I thought David Hasselhoff was big everywhere but the US.

Oh Puhlleeease! He is big in Germany and Austria (not to be confused with Australia), no-where else! You're probably thinking of Robbie Williams