When British people sing, why can't I hear their British accents?

[Baitball Blogger]

I think it's a combination of two things: My range of musical bands is very limited--Top 40ish stuff; and the ones I do hear are trying to appeal to an American audience.

If anyone has a youtube video where the accent is very clear, please post here for our enjoyment.

[arcane1]

1. I only hear them in "Another Brick in the Wall" when the little kids sing n/t

[leftyohiolib]

2. my daughter listens to a song by cher lloyd and when she raps you can hear the accent but when she

sings it's gone

[Pab Sungenis]

3. Because the main reason we hear "British" accents

is the resonance of that accent. Americans tend to swallow our words; we speak from the middle and back of our mouths. British accents come from the front of the mouths, around the teeth. Try it some time, even without changing vowel sounds or emphasis of "r's" and "t's" if you speak from the front of your mouth you will tend to sound British-ish.

Singers, at least those who have been trained, use a different form of resonance than people do when speaking. This hides a lot of the accent. and you have to rely on vowel sounds to hear any difference (if there is any there).

[Baitball Blogger]

6. LOL! I thought I had swallowed helium when I tried it.

[pink-o]

48. Holy crap! That's a major revelation!

I moved from San Francisco to London when I was 18, and being young, I perfected a Brit accent. I can still call it up 40 years later, but I never realized how one's voice moves from the back to the front of the throat until you articulated it. I've spent the last ten minutes moving from one dialect to the other, and it's like the centre of gravity shifts each time.

Certain Brit bands sing with deliberate accents, like the Jam from the 80s. But more interesting: pre rock n roll, everyone sounded whiter than Clorox. Once an African American accent was affected in vocalizing, the Brits, the white yanks and African Americans all sounded the same. Before MTV, we never knew who was from where...they all sang amazingly!

[Aristus]

4. The Cure sound very British when they sing.

n/t.

[geardaddy]

9. +1000

[Ahpook]

17. Robert Smith for sure

I went to one of their shows in 96' and his accent was clearly audible. There was some dork in the front row that yelled at Robert to speak more clearly. That statement really pissed him off to the point he wouldn't say anything in the mic besides lyrics

Great show before that redneck fucked it up

[hedgehog]

5. I sing in choir, and we are constantly chided about our enunciation -

"ower", not "are" for our, etc. Also, we deliberately drop the r out of words like earth and shepherd ( uth, shephud) to avoid the dreaded rrrrrr effect.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. And that goes double if your choir director is FROM England, as mine is

Here's an example of a well-known English choral group, the Sixteen, very definitely singing this Christmas carol in an English accent.

"Pahst three o'clawk awn a cohld and froasty mawning, pahst three o'clawk, good morrow mahstuhs awl."

[Baitball Blogger]

20. LOL! It's funny how we develop our perspectives.

I never associated that level of choir music as "british" per se, but more like traditional choir singing.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. If you're singing in English, the English choral tradition is older and had

developed to a very high level, mostly in the Church of England cathedrals, by the time of American independence.

Anyway, most choir directors will tell you to drop the "r" sounds. It's only an English one who will tell you to sing "pahst" for "past," "frawm" for "from," "awv" for "of," "bean" for "been," and "I-zy-ah" for "Isaiah."

[geardaddy]

7. Any of the following and you'll hear strong accents:

Billy Bragg
The Smiths
The Sex Pistols
The Specials
Madness
The Arctic Monkeys

[alarimer]

14. Billy Bragg was the first person I thought of.

Also (and you may not have heard of him) Frank Turner.

[T_i_B]

23. Very much for the Arctic Monkeys

I should know, I'm from Hunter's Bar! Even if I don't talk of San Francisco.

Alex Turner's Sheffield twang is pretty obvious.

[geardaddy]

28. Yep, they were the first to come to mind

after Billy Bragg.

[Arugula Latte]

34. and The Jam:

[geardaddy]

35. Yes!

[progressoid]

51. I just picked up "The Jam - That's Entertainment Collection"

[pink-o]

49. Don't forget early Jam

Paul Weller and Co sound like working class West End for the first few LPS they released. When they went Motown they lost that accent somewhat.

[cemaphonic]

8. Also, in a lot of cases, they're emulating American artists

The 60s British Invasion groups all loved American R&B, and early rock&roll, and cut their teeth learning how to play and sing like Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Buddy Holly. (and even there, lots of British singers had British accents)

By the 70s, plenty of British singers were singing with British accents. By now, I think it just depends on the singer's influences. (and style/genre too - I have yet to hear a British soul singer from Dusty Springfield to Adele that didn't sound 100% American when singing)

[Nye Bevan]

10. Brits tend to sing in fake American accents. Here are a couple where they don't:

[Baitball Blogger]

11. Very familiar with the top one. Thanks for refreshing the mem cells.

Bottom one was a first time.

[AmyDeLune]

44. Throw the R Away

another one from The Proclaimers who were repeatedly turned down by agents for refusing to drop their Scottish accents while singing (or speaking).

[pipi_k]

12. I can hear the slightest trace

of Cockney in the Beatles song "Her Majesty".

There are others as well that I can't remember right now.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. And this one contemporary with the Beatles

[LeftinOH]

13. It's too hard for most people to sing and do an accent at the same time--

[sakabatou]

15. It's mostly in other styles, folk especially, you'll hear it

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. And you can sing in a Scottish or Irish accent, too

[pipi_k]

27. The loveliest of all

was the unicorn...

[Ron Obvious]

42. Damn You!

Now that bloody song is stuck in my head for the remainder of my waking day!

Oh, my old man's a dustman...

[Iggo]

22. Sex Pistols. (n/t)

[Socal31]

24. Sometimes you can.

Wonderwall....Oasis in general. Good stuff.


<iframe width="640" height="360" src="

?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[ashling]

25. 'Ere ya go Bloggie

[bif]

26. How about Adele? Amy Winehouse?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

29. Here's another song with an audible English accent:

The Kinks "Come Dancing" from the 1980s

[WhoIsNumberNone]

30. Go with British Invasion and early punk and you'll always be able to find something...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

40. Good examples, except that Donovan is Scottish

The accent does come through, though.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

31. Here's another good example I just remembered...

[datasuspect]

32. full on south london cockney

[Turborama]

33. Lily Allen, Chas 'n' Dave, The Happy Mondays, The Wurzels have the clearest accents I can think of

I'll pop back with more if I remember some others...

(I can't add YouTubes of them as I'm on my phone but you're guaranteed to have a lot of fun looking them up there)

[T_i_B]

37. The Wurzels? ROFLMAO!!!

Somebody needs to post "I've got a brand new combine harvester" here ASAP!

If I get the time I might post something by Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer as well for a bit of a laugh.

[Turborama]

46. LOL Does this link work?

http://m.

&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dtb63PdPweDc

Have you heard MC Pitman? He's hilarious, like a rapping George Fornby.

[T_i_B]

52. Rapping George Formby?

Sounds a lot like Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer

[Turborama]

50. YES! Looks like the links are working. Here's "Cider Drinker"

http://m.

&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DLHtfZCMYCP0#watch_actions

[WhoIsNumberNone]

36. ...

[Ron Obvious]

38. Penny Lane

Interesting point. A lot of British pop groups strive for Mid-Atlantic accents, but you can often hear their native accents from time to time anyway. Partly they do it in immitation, because they think that is the way rock and pop is supposed to sound. Amy Winehouse sounded like a 50 year black woman from the Mississippi Delta for example, rather than a 20 year old Welsh girl.

I always heard it most clearly in the Beatles' Penny Lane... "The Barber shaves another customer"... No American says 'customer' like that.

Americans seem poor at identifying regional accents, though. Most seem to think I sound Scottish. I cannae imagine why.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

41. Even worse, when I moved from the Pacific Northwest back to my native Minnesota

some people who obviously hadn't been around much misidentified my accent as English!

I will admit that the Pacific Northwest accent sounds more Canadian than other American accents, but English? No way!

[Ron Obvious]

43. It's the clipped diction, you know.

I love the PNW. The English spoken here is as close to being unaccented as I can think of, but I can't deny that it sounds too clipped for the average American to be entirely native.

My wife's from Wisconsin. Ya, sure, ya betcha, we all sound like Bob Newhart. Goodbye now, ya hear. We lissen to Prairie Home Companion and laugh just a bit in Lutheran, repressed fashion, we do, though we feel guilty aboot it.

Me, I really am a Scottish Highlander. You wouldn't believe how hard it is too unnerstand me in real life. Hell, other Highlanders don't unnerstand me Lassie. Burn me buttocks, if I lie.

[Socal31]

53. I promise you that due to the size of the US, any non-native would have the same problem.

There is the standard "Newscaster" accent, and then there are many more. I would be surprised if an Englishman could distinguish and Northern California v Southern California accent, and that is only 1 state.

[merrily]

39. Many accents soften in song.

For example, you've never heard President Kennedy's accent when someone from Massachusetts sings.

And Frank Sinatra did not sing in a Hoboken New Jersey accent, even in his very early recordings, long before he became an actor.

Stutterers tend not to stutter when singing.

I can't say why any of the above is true.

[pipi_k]

45. Plus...

Just about everything sung by Jethro Tull.



and then there's

Gotta love that Lemmy...

[kentauros]

47. Depends on what they're singing.

Singing example starts at 3:30