We’re Not Rocking all over the World
Posted on January 9th, 2009
by Freddy Gray |
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Stephen Walt takes a break from foreign policy matters to ask a good cultural question: has there ever been a great European rock-and-roll band?
Well it’s Friday, so this is worth discussing. And perhaps @TAC readers can help with the answer.
By Europe, Walt means continental Europe, of course. There have obviously been a fair few decent British acts (though probably not as many as Brits make out).
“But what about France, Germany, Spain, Holland, Denmark, Sweden?” Walt asks.
“These cultures have produced a number of important jazz musicians (Django Reinhardt, Niels-Henning Orsted-Pedersen) and world-class popular music artists (Edith Piaf) plus a few one-hit wonders (e.g. Golden Earring’s “Radar Love”) but continental Europe has never produced a rock and roll band of any global significance. And I hope nobody counters by mentioning Abba — whatever you might think of their music, it ain’t rock.
It is strange, isn’t it? Continentals just don’t seem to get le Rock, or das Rock, or whatever they call it.
The best example I can come up with is Noir Désir, the infamous French rock group. They are mostly famous because lead singer Bertrand Cantat drunkenly killed his beautiful girlfriend, actress Marie Trintignant.
Putting this horrible affair aside, ND were a fantastic band who blended elements of the chanson with more American-style rock. It is worth noting, however, that their worst songs were also their most rocky.
As for other great European bands, I’m stuck. It’s a mystery. Walt’s explanation seems plausible, however:
My own theory, based on absolutely no research whatsoever, is that you can’t have rock music without a blues and R & B foundation. Blues and R & B and early American rock and roll spread to England in the 1950s and helped ignite the British rock scene. Result: the British invasion of the 1960s. But blues and R and B were never a large influence on the continent, and it has therefore remained focused on (or to be unkind, mired in) an irretrievably “pop” sensibility.
On a more serious note: does this phenomenon tell us something about the limits of globalization? We can send digital music anywhere now, but that doesn’t mean it sprouts and grows everywhere it lands, and national and regional cultures continue to retain a lot of individuality, even in the face of the Internet and the iPod.
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I’ll throw Iceland’s Bjork out there …. Germany and Austria truly lead the globe, in my mind, in Electronica, an exciting pop mutant genre with endless sub (dub) genres of its own. For that, I nominate Vienna’s Kruder & Dorfmeister. I’m not sure this is relevant to the conversation. But the R & B and Jazz roots are indeed alive and well in the non-rock & roll universe. Maybe it’s not globalization that has its limits, but rock & roll itself.
There’s a Danish band called Mew that rocks pretty hard. M83 is French, and they first did the shoegaze ala My Bloody Valentine (Irish) pretty well and now they’re doing more big 80’s pop thing. Also, Swedish psychedelic rock band, Dungen are pretty good and getting popular over here. I think that more hardcore electronica comes out of Europe though and is kind of unmatched — check out Ellen Allien’s Berlinette if you want to hear an outstanding example of German electro/techno/pop-electronica.
What about the Scorpions?
Heavy metal does seem to have gone native in Germany and Scandinavia.
I think one reason may be that American blues runs into native musical tradition in most of these places–if an Italian wants to express bluesy ideas, he’s got Italian music to fall back on. Plus the language barrier–the Romance languages have a different phonic structure (for instance, the predominance of vowel endings in Spanish and Italian)–it may be hard to translate blues/R&B/rock poetics into other languages (which is why it succeeded in the UK–no language barrier). (And since English is a Germanic language, it’s easier to transfer across the language barrier in Northern Europe, hence Scandi-German metal.)
When I saw there was 1 comment, I wondered if I had been scooped on The Sugarcubes and their frontwoman Björk Guðmundsdóttir, as indeed I had. Wikipedia:
“They first came to notice in the UK when radio DJ John Peel played “Birthday”, later voted by his listeners as a single of the year. The band’s music was characterized by a psychedelic post-punk sound sometimes reminiscent of The B-52’s, whimsical yet heartfelt lyrics, and the imploring, girlish voice of vocalist Björk Guðmundsdóttir, who later went on to great success as a solo artist. While not as successful as Björk’s solo career would be, the band is still very highly regarded and was the most influential Icelandic group until the rise of Sigur Rós.”
Now if only Robert Christgau were a paleocon instead of a Paleoleftic, he’d be all over this…
Yes, it is fair to say the Brtis and the Irish have made some solid contributions to rock.
But what’s kept continental Europe’s rock in chains? Symphonic metal people. Symphonic metal. Nightwish from Finland. Grave Digger from Germany. Epica, Within Temptation and After Forever from Holland.
And worst of all Rhapsody of Fire. They used to be called Rhapsody. Their biggest hit over here is “The Magic of the Wizard’s Dream” in which they sing about magical warriors fighting dark powers while CHRISTOPHER LEE sings the chorus. Yes, Saruman the White, Count Dooku, the best Dracula of them all SINGS the chorus.
This is why Europe does not rock.
and yet the Continentals gave us Kraftwerk, which is even better than rock.
Yes, when I read Walt’s post, the only thing I could think of was “Kraftwerk” which ain’t bad, but ain’t rock and roll. When my wife and I spent a year in France (a long time ago) we were pondering this question, and her answer was that the problem was French rhymed poorly (too many words end in the AY sound) which impoverished the lyrical basis of song-writing. Just a thought.
Iceland has also given the world Sigur Ros, whose sound strikes me as somewhat more decisively rock and rolly than Bjork’s. Of course, Iceland isn’t on the European continent anymore than Great Britain, so I’m not sure we’ve still really answered Walt’s question. But I think it’s significant that Bjork sings in English and Sigur Ros in nonsense syllables, thereby posing no language barrier to their music in the US. I wonder how much of the American ignorance of rock music from the continent is rooted in lacking linguistic familiarity with bands from that region?
Rock bands I know of only by reputation but which are considered significant by critics I respect, though, include the German bands Neu, Can and Faust, the Czech band Plastic People of the Universe (whose imprisonment was protested by Vaclav Havel in 1968) and the Russian band Aquarium. I can’t claim to be able to say for myself that those bands are great rock, but it would be worth exploring their music in more detail before deciding that rock doesn’t really travel to the continent.
I heard lots of good rock at clubs while we lived in Italy, Spain, Germany and even Turkey but it was all derivative, i.e. Europeans playing American songs most often in English though sometimes in translation. They were professional and very good as musicians but it was doubtful if the genre were really in their DNA. Never heard a group that did its own r & r in its own idiom that was any good.
Nena?
It’s easy to forget how lyrically driven most Rock is. It is possible that we aren’t even qualified to tell what European Rock is good unless we speak some continental languages.
One genre of Rock that is less lyrics-focused is heavy metal, and many metal groups from Europe (especially Scandinavians, but Germans as well) have dedicated followings here in the States. Personally, none of it excites me enough that I feel compelled to defend it’s greatness, but it is possible that it is great.
I’m amazed by the coincidence that the post immediately following “Rockin all over the world” is Kelley’s “Status Quo…”, an example of Brit rock at its most mediocre albeit still better than most anything from the Continent.
The reasons already mentioned above explain the disconnect pretty well. As a Swede and guitar god lover, I can’t help but mention Yngwie Malmsteen though… it falls well into the Scandi-German penchant for metal already described.
A Finnish (metalhead) friend recently sent me to the Kazakh band Ulytau (there are some YouTube videos). She characterizes them as “folk metal” but at least some of their stuff rocks. Of course Kazakhstan isn’t in Europe except in the mind of Borat fans.
Plenty of great Krautrock, with Can, Faust, Amon Duul, Kraftwerk, and Neu! at the top of the list.
This is really silly. Pop-sociology. It’s like asking why the best “chanson” singers are French or why if you’re looking for great Samba player, go to Brazil. But the fact that jazz and rock and other musical genres that developed in America have spread around the world and have been successfully embraced by many non-Americans does reflect the huge global influence of American culture (and there are many explanations for that). The fact that there isn’t a great American Jacques Brel may or may not reflect American cultural provincialism. In any case, I’m not even sure that you’re right. Off the top of my head I recall several great continental rock bands from the 1970’s (my era..): Shocking Blue from Holland (Venus), Los Bravos from Spain( Black is black), The Tages (Sweden), The Savage Rose (Denmark), and great French singers like Francois Hardy. My guess is that there are today great rock bands and singers around the world representing many new and exciting genres.
Steve Walt said:
“My own theory, based on absolutely no research whatsoever, is that you can’t have rock music without a blues and R & B foundation.”
Okay, but doesn’t that just push the question back one step to why, unlike Great Britain, the continent never got infected with that R & B foundation?
Like some others here I wonder if it doesn’t have something deep to do with language and musical notes and the brain, so that to non-English-speakers R&B and rock just don’t strike the same vibes. Almost like language and music has some tuning-fork-like relationship with the brain, and if your fork is struck wrong it just doesn’t resonate?
Sounds a bit like Noam Chomsky’s theory (as I poorly and maybe even wrongly understand it) that the human brain is somewhat “hardwired” in a way for language. Maybe we are, but just not wired for *all* languages and music and instead we just respond well to those that our early childhood wiring was used to?
Hilarious; might just be the ONLY subject in the entire universe people here would be interested in hearing good old Noam talk about.
I agree on Electronica. The best mixers are European, Paul Van Dyk, Armin Van Buuren, DJ Tiesto. In addition to Kraftwerk, legacy German electronica includes Tangerine Dream and Ullrich Schnauss.
A very fine German guitarist is Guido Meyer. You can find a great sample of him here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypzN1U4BAGg
BTW, the Bush neo-cons told us to disdain “Old Europe”. So all of this advice may be heretical. Is that instruction still in play?
The correct answer for Conservatives is: there is no such thing as “good rock music”. Nor is there is any such thing as “good rhythm and blues, good jazz”. There has been some excellent classical music in the last century, and some movie soundtracks are outstanding, but as for the filth called rock and it’s even more degenerate offspring, rap, please leave this kind of discussion for the MTV/NR crowd, not a normally well done conservative website.
Note to Self: put my Everests of recorded “filth” on prominent display whenever the Dons of the world pay me a visit - and try to ensure all conversation at table thus centres round my decade’s work as a music seller grateful for the opportunity afforded me in the marketplace of peddling enthusiastically said “filth” to tens of thousands of impressionable youth from Ketchiikan to Keokuk.
And Post-It-Note to Self: If anyone calls me a Conservative, do not disabuse him of his delusion, after Gilbert from The Critic as Artist by my fellow Decadent, Oscar Wilde: “I live in terror of not being misunderstood.”
kishnevi, on January 9th, 2009 at 2:52 pm Said:
What about the Scorpions?
Dittoes. The Scorpions are about it.
Another way of approaching this is:
can we presume that Rock’n'Roll automatically has some sort of universal value whose lack of proficiency in a culture actually needs an explanation (as though it were an obvious fault or lack)?
While I can actually imagine a Frenchman deliberating on why the US fails to produce great “chansons” (The Tonal Poverty of the Anglosaxon in Advanced Stages of Capitalism), there is the presumption in both cases that other cultures ought to be capable of it, somehow, but strangely don’t.
Not everyone groks Elvis? (Or Edith Piaf?)
E.g. where are the legion of successful Black Rock’n'Rollers, if R’n'B is a prerequisite? And is Rock’n'Roll an objective category that would be mutually recognised by all participants at its origin (Jimi Hendricks _and_ the Beatles?), or is it a retroactive brand that we impose after the fact? Discuss (30 minutes - 500 words).
I like some of the progressive rock from Europe like the Dutch band Ayreon. I love Ayreon’s album “Into the Electric Castle.”
I wonder what Mr Walt’s criteria for what makes a rock band “globally significant?” There are bands that have influenced more well known acts who were “globally significant” but never achieved as much popularity.
Just when I thought I would never have anything to contribute to this site…
Accept - German heavy metal band fronted by the inimitable Udo Dirkschneider briefly popular in the states thanks to the sublime “Balls to the Wall”.
Focus - Dutch progressive rock band fronted by Thijs van Leer. Will live forever by introducing yodeling to prog fans with “Hocus Pocus”. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVcd1RMEfUA)
Rammstein - German industrial metal band
And I would argue that the Brits are disproportionately strong versus the US. Output v population is incredible. Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Beatles, Yes, King Crimson, ELP, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Queen, Deep Purple, Motorhead, Rolling Stones, Radiohead - for many years, the Brits set the bar.
I was gonna mention Can, but it appears another commenter beat me to it. I think the whole Krautrock movement is an absolutely essential, although unknown to the masses, chapter in the history of rock. I think Can be solidly placed as a great rock band, maybe not in the sense of tearing-apart-hotel-rooms-like-the-Zep, but musically-speaking? Abso-f**king-lutely. If by “great” the author means commercially successful, then maybe not so much, but “great” as in, “massively influential”, yes.
That said, it’s a fact that the Norwegians *own* black metal.