Why don't British singers sing with a British accent?
Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:32 am
Why is it that British singers such as the Beatles don't sing with a British accent?
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I had the same experience when watching Celtic Woman in concert back when they were a huge thing in the late 2000s.linguoboy wrote:And it wasn't just American bands; I was shocked when I first heard Sinéad O'Connor speak how thick her Irish accent was since it wasn't noticeable in her singing at all.
We call this "mid-atlantic"Ryusenshi wrote:a half-American, half-British hybrid.
Honestly I think this is more of a side-effect of most songs being written in standard English anyway, and many of these don't work if you try to sing them with regionalisms (the same applies to Church hymns incidentally), so people therefore will gravitate towards it in order to sing them better; so I wouldn't say it's a general feature of singing pronunciation per se. And of course the same applies the other way, so a song written in, say, Geordie (like Blaydon Races) won't work so well sung like standard.Another factor is that a lot of what makes an accent noticeable simply disappears when we sing. The accent's particular rhythm and intonation patterns disappear behind the melody; the accent's "timbre" and "vocal setting" are also less noticeable, because of the need to project (indeed, a lot of vocal training is about losing the bad habits we have in everyday speech). So singers automatically have a more "neutral" accent.
As opposed to this Mid-Atlantic accent, or that one?Frislander wrote:We call this "mid-atlantic"
That may be part of it, yes. But rock lyricists also tend to use features of Southern US English and AAVE, for the same reasons as above (e.g. "ain't", double negations, "I got" instead of "I have"...). As Zaarin said here :Frislander wrote:Honestly I think this is more of a side-effect of most songs being written in standard English anyway, and many of these don't work if you try to sing them with regionalisms
Zaarin wrote: I really think "Old Rocker" is a legit dialect
That's not actually what I said. I said certain genres are associated with particular singing accents, at least at outset. A Canadian singing Country music singer may not be mimicking any particular American Country singer when they add a "country" inflexion to their lyrics. That's just the accent associated with that particular style of music (with its epicentre in Nashville). Mick Jagger, for instance, is known for singing with a "Southern American" accent that matches no accent of anyone from the American South, since it's actually a blend of features from various sources.Ryusenshi wrote:As linguoboy said, it has to do with the fact that singers tend to mimic the singers they like, including their accent.
Or didn't. I would argue that they tended to start out with a hybrid since they weren't fully versed in American accents. Some of their original accents inevitably crept in--and became stronger with time, to the point where some abandoned American features altogether.Ryusenshi wrote:Rock music originated in the US, so the first British bands used American accents - and then settled on a half-American, half-British hybrid.
This is a result of the ongoing influence of the blues and R&B on American popular music. A lot of influential singers had naturally non-rhotic accents and it's natural that this feature has been associated with the "smoothness" of their delivery. But not every American vocalist wants to sound like an R&B singer.Ryusenshi wrote:Also, lots of American singers tend to use a non-rhotic pronunciation when singing, even if their normal speech is rhotic.
Except this again is heavily dependent on genre. Some genres (e.g. dub, hip-hop, some metal) incorporate a delivery which is closer to ordinary speech than formal singing and those vocalists naturally have more opportunity to incorporate their native accents. If the genre emphasises comprehensible lyrics then the singers will be under pressure to adopt a more conservative pronunciation (I think this may be part of what you're getting at when you mention "losing...bad habits") as well as writing them in standard English, as Frislander pointed out.Ryusenshi wrote:Another factor is that a lot of what makes an accent noticeable simply disappears when we sing. The accent's particular rhythm and intonation patterns disappear behind the melody; the accent's "timbre" and "vocal setting" are also less noticeable, because of the need to project (indeed, a lot of vocal training is about losing the bad habits we have in everyday speech). So singers automatically have a more "neutral" accent.
OK, I'm sorry for putting words in your mouth. But that doesn't contradict what I said. Why does a music genre become associated with a certain accent in the first place? Mostly because the genre was born in a particular place, with singers using their local accent; and then singers from other places started imitating this accent in general, not necessarily mimicking a particular singer. As the genre grows, the boundary between "imitating singers" and "using the accent associated with the genre" gets increasingly blurry.linguoboy wrote:That's not actually what I said. I said certain genres are associated with particular singing accents, at least at outset. A Canadian singing Country music singer may not be mimicking any particular American Country singer when they add a "country" inflexion to their lyrics. That's just the accent associated with that particular style of music (with its epicentre in Nashville).
Yes, in genres where "authenticity" matters (whatever that means), singers tend to keep their local accent. From UK punk rock ("we're working-class louts and proud of it!") to indie-rock (including what Geoff Lindsey calls Arty White Bands).linguoboy wrote:Listen to UK punk rock and you won't hear any American influence on the speakers' accents at all. It would have been foreign to the working-class punk ethos, which was all about rawness and authenticity and thus favoured thick working-class London accents. From this point on, British accents are the default for UK singers, to the point where, as mentioned before, Americans start imitating them when performing styles which originated in the UK, like synthpop.
It's not just a matter of US vs UK either. The punk movement in the USA was split into various regional "scenes" and you could identify where a band came from by the accents they used. There's no mistaking Jello Biafra of The Dead Kennedys (San Francisco) for Joey Ramone of the Ramones (NYC) or either of them for Joe Genaro of The Dead Milkmen (Philadelphia). The same was true of hip-hop and--to a lesser extant--of "college rock" which grew out of a several distinct scenes.
Sure. Some styles of singing are very close to talking, so singers tend to keep more of their accents (hip-hip is the obvious example, plus there's the matter of "authenticity" you've mentioned above). More "stylized" ways of singing render the original accent less recognizable.linguoboy wrote:Except this again is heavily dependent on genre. Some genres (e.g. dub, hip-hop, some metal) incorporate a delivery which is closer to ordinary speech than formal singing and those vocalists naturally have more opportunity to incorporate their native accents. If the genre emphasises comprehensible lyrics then the singers will be under pressure to adopt a more conservative pronunciation (I think this may be part of what you're getting at when you mention "losing...bad habits") as well as writing them in standard English, as Frislander pointed out.
The same is true for David Bowie, as is fitting for a human chameleon.Salmoneus wrote:The genre theory is strengthened when you look at singers like the Beatles, who moved between many genre influences even on a single album.
Which is kind of shitty to all the POC active in indie rock, like Keke Okereke of Bloc Party, Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio, Shingai Shoniwa of The Noisettes, Reggie Youngblood of Black Kids, Rostam Batmanglij (formerly of Vampire Weekend), Nischay Parekh and Jivraj Singh of Parekh & Singh, Tjinder Singh of Cornershop, half of The Shins' original lineup, all of The Chamanas and Hello Seahorse!, etc. etc. If Geoff Lindsey himself only listens to Arty White Bands when he listens to indie rock, that's very much on him.Ryusenshi wrote:indie-rock (or, as Geoff Lindsey calls them, Arty White Bands).
Cerys Matthews, Max Boyce, Syd Barrett, David Gilmour, Roger Waters, David Bowie, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, The Proclaimers, Sting, Johnny Rotten, Chas & Dave, Kate Bush - all British singers who sing with British accents. Debbie Harry, who's American, has even been noted as sounding quite English when she sings.Fooge wrote:Why is it that British singers such as the Beatles don't sing with a British accent?
Also in their follow-up "I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am". But I would call both of these "novelty songs". The latter is an old music hall favourite made famous by Cockney comedian Harry Champion and the former was originally featured in an ATV teleplay. Peter Noone was deliberately playing up his accent for the American market. (Recall that both songs were released the same year as Walt Disney's Mary Poppins, featuring Dick Van Dyke's outrageously put-on Mockney brogue.) Compare Noone's delivery on "I'm into Something Good" (a cover of a Carole King song) or "Silhouettes" (a doo-wop standard first performed by The Rays).Fooge wrote:In the song "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" by Herman's Hermits, the singer uses a British accent.