Why do British Singers Have American Accents?
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- Опубліковано 26 чер 2024
- Have you ever wanted to know why British singers sound American? In this video, I give you some possible reasons and examples of singers with interesting accents.
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Here's a list of the songs I used in the video
Lily Allen - • Video
One Direction - • One Direction - 'Story...
Ed Sheeran - • Ed Sheeran - Galway Gi...
Paul McCartney interview - • Paul McCartney on Who ...
Paul McCartney 'All you need is love' - • Paul McCartney, Joe Co...
Arctic Monkeys - • Arctic Monkeys Mardy B...
Harry Kane song - • Harry Kane, he's one o...
Why does he somewhat look like Daniel Radcliffe
Because it is actually Daniel Radcliffe
@@noamto 😂
45%
He looks like a young Willem Dafoe had a baby with Topher Grace that had a baby with Daniel Radcliffe all in one.
Maybe same ancestors.
One of the main reasons why I love Arctic Monkeys is that they've kept their beautiful Sheffield accent!!!!
“Have you got color in your cheeks?”
“So have you got the guts?”
That song has so many good examples!
@@brookenjonas yeah, I love it that although AM was a more american-style album, they still kept their accents
I'm gonna quote my favourite examples from Whatever:
1. Anticipation has the habit to set you UP
2. Well, it's ever so fUnny/ 'cause I don't Fink you're special, I don't Fink you're cool
3. *The entire "Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured"*
4. Mardy bUm/ the barrel of a gUn/ cUddles in the kitchen/ Up, Up and away/ REIGHT hard to remember
5. When the sUn goes down/ scUmmy man/ scUmbag/ he mUst be Up to SUMMAT
@@cpulguz I do too. And I’m from the US lol
Now the ones from AM:
1. So have you got the gUts?/ what time it shUts
2. I'm a pUppet on a string
3. Arabella's got sOme interstellar-gator skin boots
4. The whole "Number One Party Anthem" bridge:
The look of lOve, the rUsh of blOOd/ the Gallic shrUg/ the shUtterbUgs, the camera plUs/ the house of fUn, the nUmber One
5. Breathing in your dUst/ I will never rUst/ I jUst wanna be yours/ let me be your LECCY meter/ An' I'll never rUn out
I grew up in the 70’s listening to Eric Clapton. I remember my surprise when I found out he was British. What did I know as a kid. He sings with a U.S. southern blues accent.
I can't believe I just learned this now. omg my life is a lie.
Same here
Mississippi delta bluesmen had been singing in that style for generations and Chicago bluesmen had been playing it with electric guitars for at least 20 years before the Brits.
The reason it didn’t take off in the US at the time was because music labels and the charts were segregated and only marketed to Black people. Eventually it caught on in the UK and bands started covering Blues musicians and making new songs in that style.
In fact it was so successful that American audiences re-imported the music without crediting the original Black artists that created some of those songs until decades later at best.
Why do British singers have American accent?
Louis Tomlinson: Not Me
Liam Gallagher: Hold my beer!
Damon Albarn: Hold mine too!
LILY ALLEN
Kate Nash (Foundations was a tune)
also lewis capaldi
Sophie Ellis-bextor as well
The Beatles really used a lot the flapped sound with the letter "t". The song "Let it Be" is a good example.
But, interestingly, many American singers, especially coloured singers, they'll glottalize the "t", and not pronounce all the "r"...
But it would also be part of their spoken accent.
Or "Her Majesty"
"Her Majesty's a pretty (with flapped T) nice girl"
Other example is the _so let it out and let it in_ from "Hey Jude"
@@chungshingtatkazaf2222 You know it’s okay to say Black, right? As in Black singers. The term “colored” is outdated.
Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode and other New wave artists sang with and English Accent.
I always wondered why this happens. I thought Lorde and Kylie Minogue were American when I first heard their music. Thank you for explaining this! I speak Spanish and in Latin music you can easily tell if someone is Mexican, Puerto Rican, Colombian, or from Spain. But with English-language songs everyone sounds American.
For me Manu Chao for example doesn't sound like a person from Spain,but like a person from a South American continent.But maybe it is like that because he grew up in France,just wondering.
Not Eric Idle of Monty Pythons. Not Roger Waters of Pink Floyd.
Very interesting. And British actors do the American accent so well, but is not the same for American actors whose attemps trying to sound British fails.
Well not EVERYONE sound American, you can clearly hear German singers putting soft L everywhere, see Scorpions, Helloween, Accept or Angela Gossow era Arch Enemy. So... there's two singing English accents: German and... not German. xD
I love in the Pink Floyd's song "Another Brick In The Wall" when the kids sing "All in all its just another brick in the wall" cause they can't hide their accent.
YES!
Oh I noticed one more thing when kids were singing: we don't need no educAtion, it's more /ai/ than /ei/
I believe that the band insisted that the children sing in Received Pronunciation.
Yeah
@@billcoleman4258 ♫♫ We don't need NO... edu-KYE-shun♫♫.... they may have insisted on RP, but they got working-class Ipswich
I see your point, but I still hear a bit of a British accent when Adele sings.
I don't.
that's why he referred to it as "mid-atlantic" - a blending of british and american accents
@@johneyon5257 These Yanks & Brits always wanting to blend together! Didn't we fight a war over that- twice? 😎
@@JML6988 - that was before rock-n-roll ;-)
Small correction from a US Southerner: Country music isn’t specifically a Texas accent, it’s a Southern accent. Funny thing is: what outsiders think of as “Southern” or “Country” American accents are actually central to the Southeastern US, and much less so in Texas itself. So Georgia, the Carolinas (North and South), Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama. There are subtle variations between these states, and even within them, but Country music has a Southern accent. Texans don’t tend to have a southern accent like we do in “The South”.
That said, absolutely love your content. Sooooo fascinating to learn all the subtleties, and especially to hear you try American accents!!!!
It depends on which part of Texas. East Texans really sound Southern, West Texans have the classic "Texas accent", South Texans have a sing-song accent based on the Spanish of Mexican Spanish, North and Central Texans...a mixture.
Louis Tomlinson has left the chat*
my exact thought haha
Exactly
definitely 😍
_EXACTLY_
Hahahahaha --- Niall Horan
Something similar occurs in European Portuguese. Some singers from Portugal sound like they are using Brazilian Portuguese accent, and the main reason that I see is that Brazilian Portuguese is more melodic, and we do pronounce the vowels, while European Portuguese tends not to pronounce some.
No one:
Ed Sheeran: Pretty Lidl
Cheaper singer. LOLLLLLLLL
Also Lidl Buy Lidl by Oasis!
Lol! But I love that he's not forcing an American accent!
''Pretty Lidl'' is exactly what I thought hahaha
@@cerebrummaximus3762 Golway guhl
Meanwhile Niall: We took a chonce :b
LITERALLY BAHAHA
Yes haha
AHAHAHHAHAHAHA
And then Hazza "chAnce"
i was about to comment this Xd but i saw yours haha we love chonce!
Listen to The Proclaimers for singing in an authentic accent.
Love them! Go Scottish accent! 😍
It's hardly singing, they literally are proclaiming their words, not singing (except the chorus).
Agree! and try 'Peat and Diesel' too. They sing with a strong Western Isles accent.
Yes! And to some extent Jim Kerr from Simple Minds.
As a Brit, I have often wondered this. It does seem to come naturally to us to sing in an American accent. Especially in rock music. When I listen to Led Zep, it sounds so authentic, bluesy and American. Robert Plant is from the West Midlands, but when you hear him sing 'Rock n Roll' from Led Zeppelin IV, his voice is a perfect synthesis of American rock. Great stuff.
This is also evident in Irish country music, when the artists make covers of existing US hits they take on the American Southern accent and drawl as well. This can be hugely irritating to some people but is not noticed by their fans. Many of our commercial radio Dj's also adopt
"mid atlantic" accents and usages in their work, much to the disdain and amusement of their more discerning listeners.
We need to give credit to Morrissey for keeping his norf English accent like almost no other vocalist in rock music.
There’s no mistaking where The Proclaimers are from!
Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd sang in a classy British English as well as Robyn Hitchcock
The same happens with Harry Style he sounds more American when he sings
that cause he just sing and pronounce everyrhing different
No does not sound American when he sings he sounds British when he sings.
Pretty much every British Rock Band sounds American.
Pop on some old AC/DC to under what I am talking about.
@@dontaescisson7472 he's ashame
Just listen to Oasis, you can really hear their accent
Exactly, Liam Gallagher and his Midland Mancunian accent... I love it!!
But not always , i mean, not all the bands ;)
Save people their poor ears and avert them from the over hyped band. Look at biffy Clyro instead
Blur, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Hard-Fi, Depeche Mode etc etc, the list goes on and on of artists that clearly sounds British.
Tears for Fears
Adele also uses a modicum of Multicultural London English in her singing accent as did Amy Winehouse.
Finally someone answered this question! Similarly in french, I lose my southern accent when I sing. The Quebec accent is also reduced for most singers from Quebec (Céline Dion for example). I wonder if this occurs with other languages.
The biggest features in Quebec French are diphthongs, the added t or d, and a lower placement of vowels inside the mouth. All those differences are smoothed out when we sing, especially those classically trained or singing with their head voice. Singers like Céline Dion have a higher placement of vowels when they sing, then their normal placement. We don’t do it to sound more French or less quebecois, it’s more related to singing techniques and trainings. Another example, we normally pronounce thes words like “dire/dit” “du”, [dzire/dzi], [dzu]. When we sing, the [dz] sound isn’t pretty so we force ourselves to [d] sound sounds clearer. By sound so, we sound less quebecois.
I sing in Spanish and I can definitely sound like a Porteña (from Buenos Aires) by adding some key vocal features.
They asked John Lemon : Why do you sing this way? He said : it sells more !!
While all of these are certainly factors, the real reasons are what vocalists know as "vowel modification" and "r-dropping." When any of these singers are trained by a vocal coach, they are told to do things like "Don't pronounce the 'r' in 'heart'" or "Open your mouth wider" or "Linger longer on the first vowel of a diphthong and clip the note with the second vowel." These two things play a major role in helping execute extreme notes-The term "extreme" is relative to each singer's range.-and help prevent falling flat or going sharp.
For example, in O Holy Night, the lyric "Fall on your knees" is typically belted, which puts it at most singer's extreme end of their voice. (Some people may call this a chesty mix or a variety of other terms, but the terminology is not relevant here.) The /iː/ vowel in "knee" is typically modified into either an /ɪː/ or an /ɛː/ by dropping the jaw. If you look closely at a singer's mouth, you'll notice that you can't produce an /iː/ with that mouth shape.
Similarly, the high-belt "anymore" from Celine Dion's All By Myself is modified into /ɛnimɑː/ with the r sound dropped and the /ɔ/ completely modified.
However, if the notes sung are relatively easy to manage-within the same range as a singer's speaking voice-they might retain their normal speech features.
Someone also mentions the Beatles' use of the flapped t sound in Let It Be. This is done because it's easier to sing with the flapped t. Using a glottal t carries a higher chance of messing up the note. In general, you do not want to constrict your throat while singing, and a glottal t is a throat constriction. In opera, however, the flapped t is frowned upon, and an opera singer is required to use a true t or be ridiculed. So, the choice between a flapped t and a true T is entirely stylistic.
okay let's be honest, i am trying to learn more about british accents to understand arctic monkeys' song better
i feel attacked😂
same
@Ezgi ilçi
It’s the local slang you need to learn more than anything to understand the songs
@@elizabethk2072 I know, but when you start with slangs situation gets interesting then here the accents now
And another thing, country music actually doesn’t use a “Texan” accent. As it is, the Carter family, who were the first country music group to make recordings of country music, were from Tennessee-they even made their records in a city called Bristol, which neatly sits on the borders of Tennessee and Virginia.
I wondered about the specifics when he said "Texan" rather than "American southern" but it's definitely an interesting view from across the pond.
@@kiarafroste you call it “interesting”, I call it “wildly inaccurate”. Such as it is, even the state of Texas has a wide range of accents unto itself. Austin, TX definitely doesn’t have any of the hallmarks of a typified “southern” accent.
Indeed! That caught me up too. Tennessee, Appalachia. Texan, in addition to being highly varied as you say, is different. Of course, some Austin-based singers do use Texan, but it’s not all the same.
@@sueellenwright491 and then of course there’s Johnny Cash, who really was the definition of country music for a lot of people for many decades. Was he from Texas? Absolutely not; he was from Arkansas.
he should have said "southern" - i've heard brits identify american accents according to a specific state - which heped them i suppose - eg i've heard them sometimes refer to standard american as "californian" - it should be called "midwest" but that doesn't help the brits
Just imagine the Beatles singing in Scouse, or Black Sabbath in a Brummie accent! Or Lisa Stansfield in her native Rochdale accent for that matter.
Listen to Penny Lane. Lennon sings in his natural accent.
Doesn't John Polythene Pam and Maggie Mae with a Liverpool accent?
@@abdullahshanawaz3483 Paul sings lead vocal on "Penny Lane." Do you mean Lennon's back-up vocals?
Yungblud sings with a northern British accent and this makes me looove his songs even more
Fun video, Tom! Thank you. Off the top of my head, Robert Smith of The Cure and Kate Nash both sounds pretty English when they sing.
1:04 already thinking about One Direction..
I love Hello from Adele and 1D songs. Good examples! And this video is as great as other videos~ Thanks!
I’ve actually wondered why but with this video I guess I won’t have to anymore.
Great video as always Tom😍
Great video, Tom! Thanks so much. I’m going to use this in class, not an English class however, a French class. You see, I’m asked all the time why so many Canadians when they sing in French don’t sound Canadian and your answer goes into much more detail than mine has in the past. We talk about the “Mid-Atlantic accent” in French or sometimes we call it the “Radio Canada accent,” but I’ve never heard that term used in reference to the English language. Super interesting!
I’ve lived in Europe, Asia and Africa. While there, upon hearing another American speak, it was absolute music to my ears. The casualness, the beautiful familiarity of it. It’s not inferior to any other language. Especially if someone has a rich vocabulary.
I know exactly what you mean, as someone that moved from the US in 2016 to South America. It's something so familiar and nice when you come across it lol.
Finally, someone giving good and thorough answers to this question. Thank you.
In choir, we were taught to soften our Rs, much like British English.
Correct. Most singers in the US and Canada become non-rhotic when singing (country singers and certain other genres being an exception). We also will change certain vowel sounds to a softer pronunciation. For example, you don’t sing dance with an “ahhhhh” sound you sing it with an “awww” sound.
Growing up in America, I took singing lessons and was in choir. A big thing I was taught was to put on an English accent when singing to help open up my vowels. Interesting.
That is very interesting...Julie Andrews (Sound of Music) enunciates her words so clearly when she sings...
@??? lol what?
@ივანე თანაშვილი I was called out for this mistake in my twenties by an English gentleman, and I was so embarrassed then. But later on, it donned on me that this is just one of those simplified evolutionary progress of local language usages. Especially in the USA, people’s life is very hectic, we are known for grabbing fast food on the run. Americans have to work much more hours than lots of the rest of the world for their high standard of living. In France, citizens fought the government for trying to pass the bill to require people working more than 35 hours a week. Here, the better paying jobs often require people to work more than 50, 60 hours a week. Hence, our mentality operates on a different level: moving faster, making things simpler for better efficiency including shortens and combines words in our language. I am not saying it is a better way of doing things, but locally people know what you mean when we use the term America to refer to the United States of America. When words are often used by people, they will gradually become new vocabularies in one society. For instance the word ‘bad’ had become good, desirable, awesome… in American language in the past decades. Language evolves constantly and we unfortunately have to keep up with it to understand the younger generations.
I love the David Crystal quote. I just finished his books "Spell it Out" and "Making Sense", highly recommend.
This was such an interesting break down, great video!
Bowie would very deliberately choose which accent to use for each song, whether American ("Sweet Thing") or British ("Space Oddity"), and even which "British" he would use, sometimes affecting a Cockney accent ("Scary Monsters" for example)
David Bowie was just a dude carrying the news from Beckenem inney?
I’d be interested in a breakdown of Morrissey’s accent as he sings.
thanks mate! this is so fascinating to watch your videos!
Greetings from Chile. Excellent video!!! I will reference it in my Intro to Linguistics course at PUCV. I especially enjoyed the fact that you cited David Crystal, an academic source ;)
I love it how you casually bring 1d in ... love it!
your vids are the only learn vids i like to watch
Hehehehe if there's an opportunity to mention 1D, I'll take it : )
"I might say 'donce', someone in the north might say 'dance' and someone from america might say 'dAAAAnce'"... lmao, Americans would pronounce it roughly the same way as in 'the north'
The “A” in dance when pronounced by a northern English person in shortened. Americans tend to elongate their vowels. Especially their A’s.
@@Rashy225 You are trying to school and American about how Americans speak
@@rykloog9578 'darnce' is a closer approximation of southern (eastern) British English pronunciation. Also sometimes it's easier to identify certain norms from without.
@@bengolious I approximate what I heard him say form an American's perspective. From an American's perspective, 'darnce' looks like it should be pronounced with a hard R--which is not how he says the word dance. I don't believe outsiders have a better understanding of a people than the inside people themselves. After all, stereotyping is a thing.
@@rykloog9578 You don't think it's easier to identify a trend if you have something else with which to compare it?
Elton John was asked this years ago and he said in his case that he was so influenced by American artists like a lot of artists from his era.
I really love this one Tom, thank u for explaining
They are singing for the American audience - that’s where the money is.
Can you please do a video about George Harrison's accent?
A couple examples of American singers sounding British: The Ramones channel The Clash on “I Wanna Be Sedated”; the pop duo Sparks sound like Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, on their track “When Do I Get to Sing My Way?”
You answered THE question of my heart man!
The Geordie band, Lindisfarne, back in the day, sang “locally”, but were nevertheless very successful internationally.p, because their music was fabulous.
Beatles started using their natural accents in the later albums and works.
Syd Barrett and David Bowie also didn't lose their accents while singing. That's what made them sound so authentic and poetic
The most American accent Bowie ever sung was Rebel Rebel.
Love listening to music in English and I really enjoyed this lesson! Thanks, Tom!! :)
I’ve been wondering about this for so long! Thank you, it’s so interesting 🤩
This was so interesting! Thanks for the video! This explains why I like British hip hop so much. I love Raleigh Ritchie and pop/rock artists like Arctic Monkeys, Nothing But Thieves, and Ed Sheeran because I can hear their British accent.
Alex Turner sounds so British when he sings though
in their recent albums they really toned down the British accent which kinda pisses me off, which is why I much prefer their earlier albums like Whatever people say I am or FWN. you can really hear the south Yorkshire accent in them
@@blubfishuwaaa Yeah I have to agree with this because I’ve noticed it as well. Even though I love all of their albums, their first few ones have a noticeably more prominent Sheffield accent
Hey, Tom! I've been following your videos for quite some time now and I must say that I heartily LOVE all of them! Keep making more such entertaining and educational videos for us to enjoy! Thank you so much for this! 🧡
Fantastic video Tom. Splendid Work 🤩
That's the reason why I love "brit pop " songs.
I've always thought that it's harder to rap in British accent, except for some Cockney accent features that make it easier
its not you need a specific brand of Black british accent to NAIL it. see Estelle in 1980 song . she is the prototype.
Ty.
This question has always fascinated me.
This is something I have been asked before as an English teacher, so thanks for an excellent explanation of how this might happen.
Let's not forget that wonderful accent of Blur's songs 😍😍😍
I saw the video and I was like " yap he's definitely gonna mention 1d so there's no way I'm missing out on that "
Hehe it's a shame I had to mute their song because of copyright though : (
@@EatSleepDreamEnglishlol it's k cuz I was hoping to learn something too. Btw great lesson :)
Thank you for the video!🤩
I've often wondered this. Love your channel.
I hate being nit picky but country music having a Texan accent really gave me a laugh 😅
That also made me pause ...
Texas gets way too much credit. Tennessee is where the Grand Ole Opry for a reason and get singers from Kentucky, West Virginia, Alabama, North Carolina for another.
Great video Tom. Very very interesting.
We have the same in Spanish where most southern South American reggaeton singers copy Puerto Rico's accent or at least they attempt a more Caribbean accent. It's also pretty interesting to listen
Thank you for this! I’ve always wondered about this!
As always, great job man!
I think that Americans also lose some of our own accent when we sing, too. One of the distinctive things about many of our accents relative to the UK is the postvocalic R, and it's considered good habit when singing to drop those. So when we sing and remove them, we sound less like Americans as well.
Billy Joel disagrees! “Brenderrrrrrrrrrr”!
But very good point, Americans do lose their accent too. My voice coach told me that the American accent (I mean the generic one, I know there are lots) is closer to singing than English accents. To sing in an English accent you have to clip a lot of vowels and consonants. It doesn’t flow and it just sounds like talking.
I think the “American” singing accent is simply the most “ergonomic” and natural way to sing in the English language. Americans happen to speak in a way that is closest to this natural flowing way of singing. Except the r’s, as you mentioned!
look at oberhofer "gold" i thought they're were from UK because of the accent, but they're from US LOL
@@Victoria-iu5sb Billy Joel often speaks in an NY area accent that is weak on rhoticism but also intrudes rs.
I don’t entirely agree depending on the genre. Some artists intentionally take on a more pronounced accent than the speak with especially country artists. They emphasize the twang and don’t sound foreign at all.
Yeap, same happens in spanish, thick accents and distinctive intonations from the different spanish speaking countries, sometimes disappear when singing, or in small parts of a song. More often, in fast paced songs. And that "simplified" accent sounds similar to the so called "neutral spanish", which is based on the spanish from central Mexico, parts of Colombia and parts of Peru. And since the largest market for music in spanish is Mexico, some artists prefer to get close to that accent. Many other artists, instead, consciously keep their accent, specially spaniard singers, because spain is also a very large market for music in spanish, but also because spanish people have a lot of pride in their accents.
When I first heard Nek singing "Para Ti Seria", his thick Italian accent was very obvious to me and I don't even speak Spanish! I'm slowly learning to tell one country's accent from the other (Oh my God... CHILE!). But you can IMMEDIATELY tell whether a singer is from Spain or from Latin America. David Bisbal, Enrique Iglesias, and Alejandro Sanz are obviously Spanish, and I LOVE Natalia Jimenez of La Quinta Estacion's Madrid accent... ! My Colombian friends tell me that Juanes doesn't try to "sound Mexican" but that Shakira sings with a somewhat "generic" Spanish accent. Is this true?
fuente: miami me lo confirmó
@@yossarian6799 Juanes doesn't try to sound Mexican at all, Shakira has her very own style, Maluma and Balvin do not by any stretch of the imagination have a Mexican accent, I was born in the same city where Juanes, Maluma and Balvin are from, I know what I'm talking about. In my opinion some of the best Spanish singers come from Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Colombia, but music is like colors, everyone has their own preferences. Cheers!
Meanwhile reggaeton remains caribbean
Thanks Tom, interesting video like always.
you're making great videos, i truly enjoy them!! thankss, greeting from Buenos Aires, Argentina!!
Doesn't it happen also because American accent is easier to be "accepted" all over the world? It's the "standard".
Well, if someone wants to be an internacional star, USA will be the first stage.
This is the answer closest to the truth. People don't want to accept it, hehe.
Yupz, bener banget
@@zeezee6424 yeah just Keith Urban and Iggy Azalea etc anything else sounds weird in mainstream american music. Where as there are many British, Australian etc singers who use their own accent. Just look at Grime or Uk drill
Exactly!
I've asked myself this question a thousand times. Noticed it on Elton John.
Love accent videos! I hope that we could watch more in the future
Excellent video! This question was on my mind for a long time with no answer. Cheers!
I found this interesting because the same phenomena exists here in the US, where I’ve heard some signers with heavy Northeastern accents (New York/Boston) adopt the Mid-Atlantic sound as well. And I don’t want to be pedantic but American Country Music is not primarily sung in a Texas accent. It is quite varied by region. What we call Country-Western is closer to a Texas-Oklahoma accent.
I have always wondered why J.cole switches between British and American accents in that one song he did. Cant remember the name of it now 😅
The BeeGees retained their accents. I love “I Started A Joke” and can’t sing it without doing their accent lol
Finally a video that answers my question!
This was super interesting, thanks for the video! :)
That's funny. I'm an American, and I've tried to sound English when I sing-- sometimes. Depends on the song. "I Melt With You", "Behind Blue Eyes" The Clash...
@Grand Moff Porkins the idea behind any cover song is to perfectly replicate the original.
@Grand Moff Porkins I disagree. If you want to go on a different direction, do something new and make it yours. If you're just doing a cover, stay true to the original.
@Grand Moff Porkins to demonstrate your ability.
It's so cringy when Americans try to mimic English accents.
Very interesting. When I saw the title of this video, my reaction was, "How is this a question? No one has an accent while singing!" Although, I have a Canadian accent, which to me isn't an accent, and is of course very similar to an American one. But in any case, thanks to your video, I can now see the subtle ways in which an accent is still there. I can think of a few examples of the opposite as well: American singers trying to sound British, particularly in punk or Beatles inspired bands. Thanks! :)
I hear Celine Dion's accent when she sings in French. And in th Cranberries' Zombie, you hear Irish pronunciation in "guns." It's usually just little bits like that that catch my attention
Jimmy Carr (UK comedian) has a bit where he is speaking to an out-of-town crowd who generally have a much different accent to him. He says something like "I'm from ___ it may sound like I have an accent... this is just what it sounds like when words are pronounced correctly." It's in fun of course. Would work subbing Canada. I used it once while speaking to someone from New England area USA. (grew up in Detroit area--miss HNIC badly)
5:09 Neck Deep is a perfect example of this, they are Welsh, but they're music style is that of a 00s pop punk band like Blink 182 so they impersonate that very distinctive Southern California pop punk sound. Millencolin's No Cigar is another good example of this they're Swedish but sing in a very off sounding (at least to my West Coast ears), but still So-Cail pop punk sound, I've also always been fascinated by how much Scandinavian people sound like Americans when they speak English.
I love the example of Millencolin. I used to listen to them and it took me a year until I realised they were from Sweden such was the accuracy of the accent. Great point Edward, thanks for adding this to the discussion : )
I love the west-country version of Hard Day's Night; it sounds like The Wurzels
Louis Tomlinson n Harry styles u should make a whole new vid abt there accent one more tym....
yes yes i agree
This was very interesting, although I feel like you had posted this previously, several years ago which I watched then? I remember when Herman's Hermits sang" Mrs. Brown , you've got a lovely daughter". They sounded SO English!
Thanks for your contributions to Popular Linguistics! Your videos are fascinating!
Glad you think so Rob! Cheers mate
I was expecting to hear a mention of "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter"
And "Henry the VIII, I Am."
Oh I mentioned this 5 days after you did, before I read your comment!
Listen to the very heavy Essex accent of Keith Flint when he sings Firestarter (The Prodigy)... 😉
Ah yeah that's a good one!
great video, really interesting!!
I always wondered about this. So hard as an American from Texas understanding British people especially comedians (don’t even try to watch them) but can easily understand their singing. And knowing country music still has its southern draw which of course for me is like the person next door. Thanks
Anybody remember Louis Tomlinson's song Two Of Us? He really use his british accent on the word 'us'
when it come to pronouncing R, the British accent is appealing to sing a song. You're my lover,
Americans drop their Rs in these situations, especially when they’re trained by a vocal coach. It’s part of any beginners singing lesson.
Always here for a Taylor Swift reference 😍
Which British accent?
Try that line in Bristolian! 😂
I was just wondering about this a few days ago. How nice that you made this video haha. It's so informative! 👍
Glad you enjoyed it Azhiza : )
LOVE THIS!!! When I was in school, I gave a presentation on Peter Trudgill's analysis of the Beatles' americanisms. Google tells me there have been many subsequent follow-up studies!!!
Have you ever heard Louis Tomlinson or Yungblud singing ???? U SHOULD TOM !!!!!!
Yeah. Like in the starting years in the band, Louis's accent was changed but over the years when his accent became deeper, his accent started reflecting when he sang. Especially Copy of a copy of a copy. I hope Tom hears it.
Yeah, in the band they had to do everything according to the management which preferred 'mid-Atlantic' accent but now you can clearly hear his accent in the songs
@@srivarshinethoppe1703 exactly
İ think Louie is the only member of 1d that when he sings you can clearly realize that he is British hmm at least some of his songs anyway this is my opinion:)
@@srivarshinethoppe1703 I can hear you howling till you lOngs hurt lol