Singers don't have accents, except these guys

[Fedorgasm]

Most of the time you can't pick up on someone's accent when they're singing.

There are tons of British invasion bands that you wouldn't know were British until you'd hear them talk in an interview.

I didn't know AC/DC was Australian for a long time.

Then you have the swedish bands like ABBA, roxette, ace of base... You'd never know where they're from just by hearing their music.

Then you have Scottish bands like Garbage and Simple Minds. No trace of a Scottish accent in their singing.

So then.... WTF happened to these guys?



Are they doing it on purpose or what? How come their accents don't get lost in the song like everyone else's?

 

[Osculater]

Didn't the Brits used to make fun of the singer of Green Day for trying to sound British?

 

[milliniar]

Bjork has an accent singing too.

 

[whocares]

You can add accents and any kind of inflections to your vocal arsenal if you have technical proficiency and a clean template. My roots are in soul/r&b and blues but I can put on country inflections, an irish accent, or jamaican/reggae, rasp and distortion for rock, sing in Spanish etc. I can go from imitating Stevie Wonder to Ian Anderson to Layne Staley and while I'm still doing it in "my voice", you just throw whatever colors and inflections into it to capture the sound you're going for. Yet my speaking voice teeters between educated to idiotic Southern New England/Fall River trash dialect, don't pronounce r's and all that.

There's basically very little correlation between singing and speaking voice unless you want there to be. One caveat is like I'm conditioned to not pronounce R's, different regions and dialects have specfic ways of pronouncing or mispronoucing things and if you have a predispositon to pronounce some vowels or consonants a certain way, that's bound to show up in your singing unless you train yourself to change the way you pronounce them.

 

[Madmick]

Even sneakier is that rare Brit who manages to glide by you without you realizing he/she is British despite that they actually are singing with a pronounced British accent. This was Gorillaz for me. Early on, when this song blew up, it never occurred to me how obvious it was the leader singer was British. I only casually liked it, at the time, I didn't learn Damon's identity and history until later. Ironically, I did know who Del the Funky Homosapien was.

 

[HHJ]

lol @ this thread

 

[IDGETKTFO]

Thats more talking then singing. Catchy tune though.

 

[Osculater]

lol @ this thread

Strange culture

 

[ObsoleteSoul]

Didn't the Brits used to make fun of the singer of Green Day for trying to sound British?

Lots of punk/pop-punk from the 80’s and 90’s did this too. We all kind of laughed at and with it.

 

[Flower2dPeople]

Most new romantics/new wave bands don't hide their accents.

 

[Kingz]

Ray Davies of The Kinks was so obviously British if you listen past their initial British Invasion hits

 

[Spam On Rye]

Brits usually have the strongest accents in the West as far as singing imo. Notice a few Swedish bands are pretty noticeable too. On a similar note, singers also lose their stutter when singing too. Drugs turned Ozzy into a stuttering retard and you would never know as long as he's screaming about coming home to his momma.

 

[Leonard Haid]

I was just listening to Ian Dury before I read your post. His cockney accent comes through loud and clear.

 

[NoSmilez]

They all adapt standardized engrish for the American audience. I had a British GF and her real accent was terrible. It's like Adele's real accent.

 

[IDGETKTFO]

This is a much better band that has an accent.

 

[PaddyO'malley]

 

[IDGETKTFO]

Again, talking. Man you idiots are retarded. That is not singing.

 

[PaddyO'malley]

Again, talking. Man you idiots are retarded. That is not singing.

How u kno mandem nuh jus sing like dat tho h8r

 

[IDGETKTFO]

How u kno mandem nuh jus sing like dat tho h8r

I rest me case, lol.

 

[IDGETKTFO]

RIP