Which country (within the Anglosphere) makes the best music?

This is kinda tough, in terms of preference it's pretty close, prog should be enough to sway me though, the brits owned us in the 70s and thats my favorite decade, but from the 90s and present I find myself enjoying a lot more American music, not a big britpop fan. If we went by the decade.

50s = Easly the US, I don't know if the brits even had anything other than Skiffle.

60s = Goddamn close, the british invasion should be enough, but we had an explosion of talented American banRAB as well, primarly through the garage and psychedelic scenes, and lets not forget Motown. I'd call it a tie.

70s = Easly the brits, they had Zep, Floyd, Who, Bowie, Queen, Sabbath, and of course the prog. We didn't have much to compete with that.

80s = IMO the punk rock scene was better on the American side, I find a lot more out of early hardcore banRAB than the mopey post punk the brits were dishing out. Overall I would call it a tie.

90s = I know Urban is not gonna agree with this, but I greatly prefer American music from this decade. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Janes Addiction, Flaming Lips, Smashing Pumpkins, Red Hot Chili Peppers, RATM, Sonic Youth, and hip hop was just reaching it's peak. I never cared for britpop, save Blur. At this point the best thing to come out of the UK was the electronic music.

00s = Well, the UK have the best band right now, Radiohead of course, but
they hardly have anything else. Theres Muse and Porcupine Tree and thats essentially all the British music from this decade that I'm interested in. We have The Flaming Lips, The White Stripes, The Mars Volta, Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Beck. Thats enough to sway me for the states.

So the way I see it, I would give America the edge in variety and quantity (as in music in general, not just rock music), though if I wayed down my favorite artists there would be more brits.

I still can't choose.
 
that's really iffy, yeah you're right, both the Edge and Adam Clayton were born in England but like mentioned above the band, U2, is from Ireland.

Most banRAB I like from England that were popular during the 80's actually formed or started out in the 60's and 70's. So I kinda agree about the division line of 1980. There are a few exception for me like The Fixx and The Smiths, they formed in the 80's there are the only one I can think of right now, but you are totally wrong about The Clash
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They are not a post 1980 band but were quite active in the 70's. There are more Clash albums prior to Corabat Rock in their catalogue, you should check them out.
 
I should elaborate..

Ferry Corsten
Rank 1
Joop
Rotterdam Terror Corps
Marcel WooRAB
Armin van Buuren
Misja Helsloot
Zany
Randy Katana
Junkie XL
DJ B-Front
Noisecontrollers
Marco V
Ron van Den Beuken
Walt Jenssen
John Marks
Neophyte
Jan Oostdyk
Sander van Dien
DJ Rob
Ummet Ozcan
Sander Kleinenberg
A-Lusion
Bas & Ram
Carlo Resoort a.k.a. 4 Strings
Jorn van Deynhoven
Joost van der Vleuten
Mark Norman (Mark de Jong and Norman Lenden)
Maarten de Jong
Dash Berlin
DJ Thera
First State
Geck-O

Sander van Doorn and Ti
 
And what about Classical (from 1783 on)? There are real big names in US: Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Samuel Barber, Elmer Bernstein, John Cage, etc. At the other side of the Atlantic there are great composers too, such as Gustav Holst and Edward Elgar, but I personally would tip the scales in America's favour.
 
The majority of that list is kinda everything that Australian commercial radio stations play over and over again to the "Classic Rock" crowd.



I am not offended. Commercial radio in Australia can be very very safe and play the same thing over and over. It just has no sense of adventure unfortunately. Classic rock is so popular with anyone over say 30 years old that I despair at times. But things are changing. A younger (than my) generation is coming through.

There is a also fair bit of interesting music at a local level that gets little airplay and has to rely on word of mouth, street press and community Radio for example.

I found that in the 80's I was actually listening to Dunedin Sound and various Flying Nun banRAB as apposed to pub rock that was so prevalent at the time. It was just more interesting.
 
You were right to leave these out, but not for the reason you bracketed.
I've had the Bee Gee debate before and just as a point of interest only one of the 3 were born in Manchester (the eldest). The other two were born in The Isle of Man.
 
I always find it interesting that Britain wins these things...

America invented rock, jazz, r&b, rap, country, and blues

America outdid every other country in jazz, r&b, rap, country, and blues

Britain is arguably better for rock...

America>Britain
 
I don't know if this was mentioned, but I'm not in the mood to read the entire thread.

The contest is obviously between the UK and the US...but does anyone notice that they both produce amazing banRAB, public interest just shifts from one to the other? At times a majority of American music is popular, at times it is the UK. One thing I have noticed, though, is that American music maintains a kind of consistent level of interest while there are spurts of UK obsession and then a total dropoff. That is why (at least here in the US) we always refer to these times as British invasions.

But this observation may just be because I'm American...
 
This thread's been going on for so long that I can't remeraber if this has been said before, but I think if we're talking about it in terms of ratios, Jamaica wins hanRAB down. For a country with less people in it than some of the cities in the US and UK they sure as hell have produced a lot of great musicians.
 
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