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View Poll Results: global domination?
Japan 15 32.61%
United States of America 6 13.04%
United Kingdom 15 32.61%
Australia 0 0%
Canada 2 4.35%
Scandinavia 4 8.70%
Latin America 1 2.17%
Central Eurasia 2 4.35%
South and East Asia 0 0%
Africa 1 2.17%
Voters: 46. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 2007.04.11, 05:17 AM   #21
CatchFiveBats
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I have a friend who STILL likes Spice Girls (and he's a guy who listens mostly to rap O.o).

Anyway, on-topic, I really only listen to music from the US, Japan, and some from the UK, so I don't know if I can properly judge the best answer here. Going by overall quality of music, I think UK takes the hat, but I really prefer Japanese music at the moment, so that's what I voted.

@Tokyo Jihad:
You like Guitar Vader and Puffy too? Man, with PGSM and these on the ticket, our tastes are looking more similar all the time. XD
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Old 2007.04.11, 05:28 AM   #22
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I think there's good music in every corner of the world, but in some countries "good" and less commercial music has more promotion than in other contries. I think Scandinavia has really great mainstream music, but i'll vote for Japan since it has tons of original and explendid music which is not known at all.
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Old 2007.04.11, 05:42 AM   #23
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despite having the largest industry in the world, the American music industry is filled with crap. I would listen to manufracted bubble-gum j-pop over American pop anydays. What gets played on American airwaves makes me shudder.

The UK has a good scene in some ways but I am not really into too many bands there. Most of the music I am into remains to be American artists who retain very creative roots or have strong international influences.

A good example would be someone like say, Tori Amos. She is American, but one who has lived in England with her British husband for over 10 years and thus has a really good perspective about what is going on in America AND Europe, and is able to do objectively.

But don't get me wrong. Koda Kumi is still crap IMHO.
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Old 2007.04.11, 06:33 AM   #24
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^Have you tried listening to any american music that isn't on MTV or the radio? lol

I think as far as what country has the best music, it depends on your taste. If you reword it to what country has done the most for music then arguably it's the U.S., which is what I voted. We may not have been the first musicians or anything close but the U.S. really redefined just what music is. We went from an era of classical symphonies into a million new genres.
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Old 2007.04.11, 09:35 AM   #25
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Europe in general has the best music (for my taste, obviously). I choosed Central Eurasia but also Scandinavia (especially Norway, but also Sweden) could be a good choice.
I think Japan will "win" in this poll, of course it has many many artists I like, but I'm a big fan only of few of them and they are mostly influenced by western music.
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Old 2007.04.11, 01:04 PM   #26
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Italy has the best music only because of Rhapsody.
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Old 2007.04.11, 02:14 PM   #27
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I voted for Canada solely outta pride, the music scene here doesn't really grab my attention (except feist, of course).

The music scene in Japan is bad (like the U.S, I'll never understand how Koda and ayumi outsells shiina after all those kickass live Heisei performances), but at least there are bands like TBG, Go!go!, and shiina which we can boast about liking.

Chinese music is the worst. I listen to a lot of 80s and 90s chinese songs but i'll have to admit that the best of these songs are just love ballads, or just covers of japanese songs. Now there is absolutely nothing in the chinese market to boast about, most of the songs are unbearable, incoherent melody and akward lyrics. Plus most of the 'artists' can't sing
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Old 2007.04.12, 10:57 AM   #28
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When you say Chinese do you refer to HK, Taiwan or China?

I can safely say that almost all Taiwanese pop music is based on the chord progression of Canon in D. Really.

80s 90s HK songs are considered the better of the bunch already. I adore Sam Hui just because his lyrics make me laugh. In my opinion the entire industry is made up of mostly singers/performers, not musicians. Strangely, the HK songs that I like the most are 99% covers of Japanese songs. I don't think there is any worthy talent coming out from the Chinese (HK+TW+CN) music industry recently though.
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Last edited by justriiingo : 2007.04.12 at 11:20 AM. Reason: dammnit, typo!
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Old 2007.04.12, 11:07 AM   #29
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Originally Posted by justriiingo View Post
When you say Chinese do you refer to HK, Taiwan of China?

I can safely say that almost all Taiwanese pop music is based on the chord progression of Canon in D. Really.

80s 90s HK songs are considered the better of the bunch already. I adore Sam Hui just because his lyrics make me laugh. In my opinion the entire industry is made up of mostly singers/performers, not musicians. Strangely, the HK songs that I like the most are 99% covers of Japanese songs. I don't think there is any worthy talent coming out from the Chinese (HK+TW+CN) music industry recently though.
You can just lump those 3 territories together, cause the music scenes are really just mirror images of each other.
They are made up of mostly singers/performers, but rite now most of these top selling stars can't really sing.

80s and 90s japanese writers really knew how to write good ballads, reason why i like Mika Nakashima is that some of her songs remind me of that time.
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Old 2007.04.13, 04:17 PM   #30
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Every month I discover amazing underground bands from the Unites States.
I can safely say that most modern music in Europe, Australia and Japan would not be what it is today without taking influences from the United States and the UK. It is easy to say that Japanese artists are so creative, but for most of them, I could probably find an American (or British) band that has done a similar thing 3 or 4 years before. The advantage of Japanese artists is that they infuse the western influences with a characteristic mindset and personality.

By reading all of these posts, I get the feeling that people are so sick of mainstream american radio that they try to avoid American music altogether. I can understand that. Mainstream United States music (as anywhere else in the whole world) is terrible. But there's a huge number of amazing artists that have changed my life, and they all come from the US. In fact, when I talk to Americans, I get the occasional impression that Europeans know more about cool US music than the Americans themselves.
I suppose it is because for Europeans, we don't care much about English lyrics (I'm talking about non-English Speaking countries). We tend to enjoy English music regardless of the lyrical content, because it's not our mother language.
An English band that swears a lot might get a lot of audience in Europe, because their swearing doesn't disturb us.

But we can still appreciate the tender sounds of someone like Jeff Buckley, or flip out to the crazy electronics of Aphex Twin or DJ Shadow, the extreme mad and raw rock of Shellac or all the bands in the Touch and Go label, like Blonde Redhead, the orchestral chamber glory of Rachels, or the instrumental sweetness of Tristeza, the experimental jazz-electronic sounds of Tortoise, the beautifully delicate pop-electro-jazz of Sea and Cake, the airy acoustics of Archer Prewitt... the unorthodox pop of pavement and Stephen Malkmus...
Not to mention the utter wackyness of the Pixies, Breeders, Peeping Tom or Sparklehorse, or more conventional rock acts like Interpol, !!!, etc...

From the UK I love Nick Drake, the Beatles, Radiohead, Blur, Bôa, Depeche Mode, Gorillaz, Massive Attack, Mogwai, Sluts Of Trust, Belle And Sebastian, etc... It would be a very long list. But the underground scene in the UK doesn't interest me as much as in the US.
In Canada the whole Constellation label is great: A Silver Mt. Zion, Godspeed You Black Emperor...etc.I also like Feist.
Having said this, there's amazing stuff that I enjoy in Scandinavia, Australia, Brazil and Japan.
Scandinavia - Jose Gonzalez, Sigur Ros, The Knife, The Hives, The International Noise Conspiracy, Kaada, Refused, The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, Logh, Refused, Sahara Hotnights, Kent, Kings Of Convenience, Mum, Cult Of Luna...
From France I really like Air...probably more stuff, but Air is all I can remember right now...

Australia - I like Nick Cave, Silverchair, Midnight Oil, The Dissociatives, The Birthday Party, The Sleepy Jackson, Architecture In Helsinki, or I Can't Believe It's Not Rock.
From Brazil I like Cansei De Ser Sexy (CSS), Seu Jorge, Carolina, and all the Bossa Nova masters, some Samba...

As for Japan, besides the obvious music of this forum, there's Lite, Toe, Miaou, Ghost (not the v-k band, the psychedelic folk rock band), Boris, Envy, the Taiko bands like Kodo, Mono, World's End Girlfriend, Yoko Kanno, Kenji Kawai, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Nobuo Uematsu, traditional koto and shamisen classical music, Cornelius, some stuff by Acidman, Chirunuruwowaka, Go!Go!7188, Garlic Boys, Losalios, Zazen Boys, UA, some stuff from Pizicatto Five, Sambomaster and MAD3.

But in the end, I had to choose the US... It was the bands from that country that made me want to play music. I don't even pay much attention to American culture today. I don't watch Hollywood movies (with rare exceptions), I don't listen to mainstream US music, and I don't read much books from US authors these days. But the underground music is what keeps me coming back in the end...
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Last edited by bebio : 2007.04.13 at 04:22 PM. Reason: correcting typos
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