What is in the water in the UK?

Alvolake

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I loved that when it was a single, it was a clear departure after the demise of Led Zeppelin.
I liked what Robert has done since, whereas Jimmy sort of "clung to the wreckage" for a few years too long. And still has a life raft nearby with "The good ship Zeppelin" written across it.
 

Alvolake

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I suspect there are many factors but thinking of "pop" songs, I have no doubt that the versatility of the English language is one of them. Most mainstream languages have "superior institutions" that govern accented syllables, length of vowels etc. while in English you can get away with murder or even invent your own synonyms, add doowop, say is not, ´s not, isn´t or even change the rhyme by saying "ain´t". Then there are phrasal verbs whereby by changing a preposition you can give an entirely different meaning e.g give in, up, off, out, away or over in other words it´s easy to make the words fit the beat or vice-versa.
 
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nomore landings

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It is the way of these islands to adopt the best from the rest of the world. In the late 50s and 60s the Beatles and others were listening to blues artists from the USA that probably only mostly the ethnic population of the USA had heard or followed.
We have absorbed musical cultures and progressed.
Any lack of progression or reduced progression is down to the music scene as a whole now. Record companies are not out looking for the next new thing (they wait for it to be planted in their laps) .. On top of that the number of music venues has reduced and prices are massive.
In the 70s our local Art and Technical college put on concerts where you got to see big named bands of the time for not a lot of money. I saw Thin Lizzy as a support band as they did the treadmill of venues to gain popularity.
I got to see King Crimson, Caravan, Head Hands and feet, Manfed Manns Earth Band, BJH, Lindisfarne, Status Quo, Focus, Atomic Rooster, Formerly Fat Harry, Thin Lizzy and many more in a space of a couple of years .. I guess we were just very lucky to grow up in those times.
 
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nomore landings

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Agree Uzzy, count myself as very lucky that as a student could afford to see even the top bands on my grant. Groups worked very hard and honed their skills. The Odeon, Birmingham hosted the WHO and Zep. Floyd, a replacement for a sick Bowie at Lanchester polly music festival, played 90 gigs that calendar year. " posh" boy band from Charterhouse played at Brum students Union for less than a £1, wings for 50 p. There was a tiny cinema in Monmouth that hosted Atomic Rooster including drummer Carl Palmer. Must have netted them a fiver at best. With the unscrupulous managers and record labels creaming most of the profits, it was making it in the USA with their vast stadiums that added wealth to the fame. To make it, they had to perform. No cancelling show in vegas because you are too precious!
 
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toms wait

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I suspect there are many factors but thinking of "pop" songs, I have no doubt that the versatility of the English language is one of them. Most mainstream languages have "superior institutions" that govern accented syllables, length of vowels etc. while in English you can get away with murder or even invent your own synonyms, add doowop, say is not, ´s not, isn´t or even change the rhyme by saying "ain´t". Then there are phrasal verbs whereby by changing a preposition you can give an entirely different meaning e.g give in, up, off, out, away or over in other words it´s easy to make the words fit the beat or vice-versa.
English is a great language flexible and adaptable, I am no linguist but I remember from French and some German and Italian how scholarly or precise it all had to be, or maybe that was just schools!
 
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audio_PHIL_e

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English is a great language flexible and adaptable, I am no linguist but I remember from French and some German and Italian how scholarly or precise it all had to be, or maybe that was just schools!
French is just weird: while in English (or German) you would say "His|her chair" with the gender of the possessive pronoun taking the same gender as the subject, in French you have to say "Sa chaise" even if the owner is masculine, because the chair is feminine! Rear-end about face language if ever there was one. Have you ever noticed a bag of frozen "petits pois"? Littles Peas? I ask you! Each pea on its own is little but the adjective has to be pluralised because the noun is plural. FFS!!

Precision: I suspect the "grammar nazis" would have us all using English "correctly". I think it helps if we do, it is easy enough to twist someone else's use of English to infer that they said something they didn't, but IMO if the grammar were used correctly, this would be more difficult, and the lawyers would earn less in court. Having said that, we do all know that "ain't" is a substitute for "isn't", don't we?
 
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Cable Monkey

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So is the USA but a lot black music does not come from wealth. For our population, we have produced many top artists, must be the most in the world, the USA is about 5 times our population.
Black music was made for and sold to black people pretty much exclusively until it was discovered by foreign predominantly English collectors. These people covered and copied that music and sold it back to white America.
 

rabski

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French is just weird:
When anyone suggests any language other then English is weird, I suggest thinking about the man who bought a trough though hard work, but used part of a bough to prop it up when he'd had enough of it falling over.
 
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audio_PHIL_e

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When anyone suggests any language other then English is weird, I suggest thinking about the man who bought a trough though hard work, but used part of a bough to prop it up when he'd had enough of it falling over.
English inherits spellings and pronunciations from a variety of different sources. Blame the foreigners!
 
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toms wait

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When anyone suggests any language other then English is weird, I suggest thinking about the man who bought a trough though hard work, but used part of a bough to prop it up when he'd had enough of it falling over.
Clever stuff, pronunciation often occupies my thoughts wondering if other languages have such strong accents as the UK. Think west country, scouse, geordie, welsh, lincolnshire, various scottish twangs etc. My suspicion is they do but not quite as marked.

I know that Provencal has a different sound to most french, as well as its own language which is probably where the accent comes from. For example, wine is vin pronounced van but in Provence it is vain.
 

audio_PHIL_e

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Clever stuff, pronunciation often occupies my thoughts wondering if other languages have such strong accents as the UK. Think west country, scouse, geordie, welsh, lincolnshire, various scottish twangs etc. My suspicion is they do but not quite as marked.

I know that Provencal has a different sound to most french, as well as its own language which is probably where the accent comes from. For example, wine is vin pronounced van but in Provence it is vain.
Apparently, if you learned Hoch Deutsch you'd have difficulty understanding Schwäbisch
 

audio_PHIL_e

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French is also weird in its constructions.
What is it that it is, how go you, etc
They also have no concept of putting smaller words together to make a bigger word. For example we eat in the dining room, the Germans eat in das Essenzimmer but the French eat in la salle a manger. And, no, I don't know how to put grave|acute accents on, neither do I know which is which, or even which one I should use! [Neither do I care much]
 

DomT

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They also have no concept of putting smaller words together to make a bigger word. For example we eat in the dining room, the Germans eat in das Essenzimmer but the French eat in la salle a manger. And, no, I don't know how to put grave|acute accents on, neither do I know which is which, or even which one I should use! [Neither do I care much]
Er… we cook in the kitchen or cooking room? Listen to music in the Lounge or lounging room? Plenty of problems with the English language as it has so many other languages infused into it including French. Had the English been better at defending many centuries ago the Roman and French influence on the English language would not have happened.

Plenty of great music all around the world. English bands tend to sometimes do well globally due to it being in English. In Portugal most people grew up in the 70s and 80s listening to English singing bands but not so much in Spain because Spain had a stronger output of local music.
 

toms wait

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Plenty of great music all around the world. English bands tend to sometimes do well globally due to it being in English. In Portugal most people grew up in the 70s and 80s listening to English singing bands but not so much in Spain because Spain had a stronger output of local music.
These are the influences I was looking for, apart from being a global language, that's how UK bands do so well.

Local music keeping locals interested would resist a UK/US music influx, you mention Spain. I imagine Asian and African have similar local traditional music that resisted UK/US invasions. And Bollywood in India.
 

audio_PHIL_e

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Er… we cook in the kitchen or cooking room? Listen to music in the Lounge or lounging room?
so ... what is your point? does kitchen come from die Küche?
Plenty of problems with the English language as it has so many other languages infused into it including French. Had the English been better at defending many centuries ago the Roman and French influence on the English language would not have happened.
Agreed, iirc I've already said as much
 
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nomore landings

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Music can transcend the most unlikely of borders. Baring the 80s, I was a frequent flyer to South Africa. Rather odious in the 70s but much improved in the 90s. Every bar played music by an American, Sixto Rodriguez, virtually unknown elsewhere even in his home town. In SA he was a cult figure. There is a charming documovie about him called " searching for the Sugar Man".
African music has made cameos with the Stones in Hyde park, Sting's dessert rose, Robert Plant and Paul Simon's Graceland off the top of my head. artists feature on Radio Paradise from time to time. I had the pleasure of meeting Harry Bellafonte. As a Jamaican growing up in New York, he crossed many barriers. A humble and delightful gent and as there was a famous female pop star across the cabin, he was surprised that I knew who he was and chose to chat to him.
 
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