What is the difference of music from America and Europe???

I have noticed that for my original music, which is a mix between Rock, Metal, and Symphonic Metal, that I have more fans and lilsteners from European countries than I do from listeners in the United States. It seems that that type of music is just not “main stream” in the United States.

I have even heard that many radio stations in the United States are dropping Rock as a format and saying that it is just not a viable format anymore for making money and keeping listeners. Has the “death of Rock” finally come. I sure hope not.

I don’t know if there is really a difference between music in the U.S. and music in Europe though. But certainly there could be some differences in what is popular, especially in certain formats and styles of popular music.

I have been noticing an influx of music in U.S. popular music right now that reminds me of the great Australian and Eoropean waves of music that hit in the early 80s. Listen to all of the bands that sound like MGMT for example. Many of these bands are hitting it big right now on U.S. radio. To tell you the truth, it’s a welcome change from what has been playing on the radio for the past 10 years. Popular music has remained stagnant in the U.S. for a long time now. I just hope record companies don’t attempt to destroy the music that has been on the radio in order to create what they see as a new genre of music like they did with popular Rock and Metal back at the start of the 90s. They decided to terminiate many famous rock band’s contracts and start a scene they called “Grunge.” Grunge was great, but they terminated bands that were being listened to and making money. I think it was a part of the early demise of record companies, much earlier than needed, as a pre-cursor to the rise of music popularity on the internet. Seemed like a major mistake and unrecoverable blow to record companies.

Anyway, even though your question seems vague to many people here on the forums, I think it is an interesting topic and it should generate a lot of interesting discourse here.

Wital said
Music in the United States differs from European music. Why?

Because almost all the European bands are trying to sing in English, and you can surely hear the difference in pronunciation!
Also they’re trying to copy American and British musical trends, ‘cause it means world trends. Well, excluding Scandinavian metal-guys, who are some kind of geniuses.

Can’t tell about electronic music, but as I see it, European dj’s (opposite thing) are rule.

Well, jokes aside ) Speaking very, very generally – different music traditions, different audience. Different understanding of what is good at music. Different mixing techniques after all ) Different at what exactly? Depends on style.
Though Internet is really erasing the differences nowadays. And may be (may be!) it’s for good.

garethcoker said
What an incredibly broad question!

What is ‘music in the United States?’

Is it hip-hop? Rock? Country? California is almost 40% Hispanic so what is the music of California?!

RussellBellMusic said
we are becoming united in a sound that i guess has stemmed from the US.

This to me, is truly depressing, but also inevitable given that the vast majority of the developed world will be mixed-race in a couple of generations.

Well, the music in the US has stemmed in Irish dance music, African culture (rhythm, pentatonic scales…), European instruments (beside electric guitar, Rhodes piano and Hammond organ)... etc
And on top of that, most of the “American instruments” are based on, guess what, older European instruments. Would be no electric guitar without the acoustic/ classical guitar in the first place. Same goes for electric pianos or organs.
The only advantage of American music is that it made possible to gather all of those influences in one place and make them to interact. I guess it just fast forwarded the normal evolution, got faster to the inevitable

garethcoker said

RussellBellMusic said
we are becoming united in a sound that i guess has stemmed from the US.

This to me, is truly depressing, but also inevitable given that the vast majority of the developed world will be mixed-race in a couple of generations.

it is depressing.very much so.when it becomes very easy to sound “acceptably” good to most layman ears, and the technology is literally the cheapest its ever been for the power an range, you are left with a huge market of very average sounding music.

everyone looks to the US as its the biggest money making country for media by far.every sector has a bigger budget than anything else and anywhere else.you literally cannot compare UK to the US in terms of TV budgets lol.even the very small cable network shows based in the US have a far greater budget for the show than we have here.

and with bigger budgets come expectations.they all want that big glossy finished sound.for tv, yes its true their happy to pay quite little to fill the minutes.but the sound??? its still very identifiable as a ‘US media’ friendly format.it has to appear to be a million buck cue lol, even thou we know most of which are very tame and “thin” on substance musically speaking.

all the tricks,cliches,mechanisms and devices you employ into these cues are the trends and faves of these show producers.same old guit riser into cymbal crash, same beats and string stab stacc lines in the hip hop,classic cross over sound.

from what i can see, because it filters down from the very top where big blockbuster scores have a certain epic trailer sound through them and mighty production, everyone wants this in any production regardless of how inappropriate it might be for the visuals lol. the ray of hope, are those opportunities that sometimes crop up where you CAN take the higher ground and forge your own identity into a prodcution.these chances are rare,dont waste them

Part of business, and especially this, one is going with the flow. You have to produce what the markets want and you could argue that this is not the place for originality (I use the word “originality” with caution as there is a lot of excellent and original music here). But, if you want to compose for composing sake i.e. creating musically challenging music and pushing the boundaries of an artistic medium then this probably is not the place for that. Commercial is the keyword here.

Although, I would have to agree that this will mean that we will end up with music, in some cases, that sounds like it’s been produced by a robot with epic proportions.

richspeller_music said
But, if you want to compose for composing sake i.e. creating musically challenging music and pushing the boundaries of an artistic medium then this probably is not the place for that. Commercial is the keyword here.

Totally und absolutely.

As far as I know there’s no difference between music from different countries, unless we talk about traditional/folk music. Two different people from the same country can create entirely different music, you know, so geographic location is indication for nothing but stereotypes. That’s why I think that those flag icons are unnecessary. Let’s say you see 4 artists with the flags of US, France, Russia and Kazakhstan. Although you didn’t hear their music yet, you already have certain expectations and preconceived opinions about what you are going to hear, right?