Singing in an American accent

[babycart]

I just heard Amy Winehouse on the radio yowling like a New Orleans cathouse madam selling crawfish.
Why do they still do it? Hardly anybody raps in American any more (apart from Americans), but if it's soul y'all gotta give it that thang.

[JamesF]

There have been a few female artists on the radio two playlist singing with put-on Dickensian street urchin-ish accents (to my ears, anyway) recently. Not really soul stuff though.

[ginghamkitchen]

I just heard Amy Winehouse on the radio yowling like a New Orleans cathouse madam selling crawfish.
Why do they still do it? Hardly anybody raps in American any more (apart from Americans), but if it's soul y'all gotta give it that thang.

Joss Stone is a favourite of mine for faux Americanism. Bad enough that she chooses to sing in that ersatz 'soulful' way but I also noticed that. after a few minutes in the US, she was already speaking in an American accent. Curse her and her bare footed rubbish!

[Rush-goalie]

This is something you can't accuse The Proclaimers of.

[SirSlim]

I just heard Amy Winehouse on the radio yowling like a New Orleans cathouse madam selling crawfish.

This is how it should be done...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa7gT2V8WE4

[Belson]

Joss Stone is a favourite of mine for faux Americanism. Bad enough that she chooses to sing in that ersatz 'soulful' way but I also noticed that. after a few minutes in the US, she was already speaking in an American accent. Curse her and her bare footed rubbish!

It's difficult to call it faux though....she started by singing classic southern US soul covers, something she couldn't of pulled off with a Somerset drawl. And she was co-produced by US singers.....I still cringe. She's had a crack at breaking the US but her lip wobble was way too much.

Now for 'accents' - did Tom Jones sing with a Welsh or an American twang?

[mike sondek]

I finally decided to stop listening to the Rolling Stones when I heard Mick Jagger sing a particularly contrived US vowel sound for the umpteenth time.

There have been a few female artists on the radio two playlist singing with put-on Dickensian street urchin-ish accents (to my ears, anyway) recently

Lily "Professional Mockney "Allen & others I presume.

[medlar]

No contest.

[son of stan]

It's disgraceful. And you can't even make out the words. Or tell whether half of them are meant to be boys or girls these days.....!

[BeatsDeluxe]

Or how about those american oi!-bands singers with fake british accents

[Ian Townsend]

Respect to Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys. English diction is always excellent.

[jakartajive]

Respect to Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys. English diction is always excellent.

This is one of the many reasons why I fell in love with a lot of English mod / pop psych stuff. The very distinctively English pronunciation of things like 'Tales of Flossie Fillet' or 'Created by Clive' just seemed far more honest and natural than fake Americana.

Indeed, 'Created by Clive' plays with the whole class-ridden consciousness of accent and clipped-ness and RP, which adds to its many charms.

Plenty of others like that, where bands either adopted fake posh accents to laff around (presumably influenced by Ray Davies' style on things like 'End of the Season' or 'Lazy Afternoon') - or else adopted a real Stevie Marriott barrow boy lower end of the spectrum accent.

That said, I will love the Stones to death, so there you go.

And there's loads of American sike 45s by bands who went the opposite way and adopted very English accents - and names, of course! The English Setters and so forth.

[piglit'n'rolf]

That said, I will love the Stones to death....

Indeed.

Give me Mick Taylor's guitar in any accent.

[eclectiktronik]

that stones comment reminded me of a track from the 60s by billy j kramer and the dakotas: 'little children'. that has to be one the most toe-curlingly faux- americana songs ever, check that pronunciation... And from a geezer who grew up in liverpool, for cliff's sake! I'm with the kinks-vocal-sound folk on this.

...and now i'm on the ol' soapbox, even today I cringe when I hear people in the UK say 'issues' instead of 'problems' like the americans do. A few years back nobody did. Reminds me of something from a psychiatrist's consultancy, or to be more precise, 'doublespeak' to use the orwellian term. Seems like the situation is: 'we can't say 'problems', as that's too truthful, so lets dress it up as something less serious instead' ....

[jakartajive]

I cringe when I hear people in the UK say 'issues' instead of 'problems' like the americans do. A few years back nobody did.

I know! And let's not even get started on 'less' and 'fewer'.

[medlar]

Or "Nah what I meeen", once heard the length and breadth of South Londinium, now it's all "Nah what I'm sayin'"

[d7bohs]

I know! And let's not even get started on 'less' and 'fewer'.

'going forward' (sometimes even 'in the future going forward'), 'proactive' 'impact' as a transitive verb.......

Back on topic, the strangest example i can think of is the Stones 'Hang Fire' from Tattoo You where Jagger in his usual transatlantic tones sings about ' the weird old country where I come from.....' where 'nobody works, they all just hang fire' along with much nonsense about the dole and tea..... 'hang fire' seems to me a particularly American expression, probably not what people in the 'weird old country' would ever say; who's he talking to? what's he talking about?

[jakartajive]

Or "Nah what I meeen", once heard the length and breadth of South Londinium, now it's all "Nah what I'm sayin'"

woss tha country comin' to?

[babycart]

And 'yeah' and 'cool' and 'man'. As if we're a nation of zoot-suit clad hipsters...

I think there's a difference between appropriating words and aping an accent. That nob from Coldplay sometimes sings in a northern accent - what's the difference between that and Peter Sellers doing an Indian doctor, apart from Goodness Gracious Me having a better chorus than anything Coldplay have done. ?

[jakartajive]

And 'yeah' and 'cool' and 'man'. As if we're a nation of zoot-suit clad hipsters...

I think there's a difference between appropriating words and aping an accent. That nob from Coldplay sometimes sings in a northern accent - what's the difference between that and Peter Sellers doing an Indian doctor, apart from Goodness Gracious Me having a better chorus than anything Coldplay have done. ?

I was at a comedy club in Crouch End a while back - very white, mainly middle class crowd. One particular good stand-up did a fair bit of accent using in his set - Yorkshire, Glasweigan, New York, Aussie . . . when he came to do Jamaican, a plank from the crowd shouted out "That's racist!".

Working in a profession where accents are at the heart of my everday life, and where everyone sends everyone else up as they are all in equally leaky boats, this strikes me as somewhat perverse and misguided, however well-intentioned it may have been.









So I decked him.

[babycart]

I was at a comedy club in Crouch End a while back - very white, mainly middle class crowd. One particular good stand-up did a fair bit of accent using in his set - Yorkshire, Glasweigan, New York, Aussie . . . when he came to do Jamaican, a plank from the crowd shouted out "That's racist!"

I thought Jim Davidson had jacked it in.

[son of stan]

And what about when you go to the Opera and they are all pretending to be Italian?

[Lady J]

Respect to Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys. English diction is always excellent.

Completely. I believe he consciously wanted to make West End Girls a rap song with a British accent. I love the fact that early PSB combine Bobby O with the minutae of British culture. Their first few records are just brilliant, and even now I'm always interested in them, even though they do far too many self-indulgent musicals for my taste.
Neil Tennant was a very good music journo in my opinion, we need more people who can actually write writing lyrics.

[wayne]

Seems like the situation is: 'we can't say 'problems', as that's too truthful, so lets dress it up as something less serious instead' ....

Don't mind a bit of linguistic mongrelisation and cross-cultural carnage myself (lifeblood of English at the best of times) but you're bang on about things like this: 'problems' are external, things a person is struggling to get through such as divorce, loss of a job, bereavement, next door being idiots etc, while 'issues' are purely imaginary hang-ups you need to 'get over'. The change is Orwellian in the truest sense, because it shifts the blame from actual events and situations to the 'attitude' of the person on the sharp end of them, thus absolving the user of the phrase from any need to acknowledge or take responsibility for the suffering of others. This kind of therapy-garbage/management-speak infection of language is, basically, pretty nasty stuff. Makes the odd daft 'yo' blood, comin' oop me'yard' in a fake Jamaican East Midlands accent or a bit of Mockney seem relatively innocuous.

[Lady J]

Don't mind a bit of linguistic mongrelisation and cross-cultural carnage myself (lifeblood of English at the best of times) but you're bang on about things like this: 'problems' are external, things a person is struggling to get through such as divorce, loss of a job, bereavement, next door being idiots etc, while 'issues' are purely imaginary hang-ups you need to 'get over'. The change is Orwellian in the truest sense, because it shifts the blame from actual events and situations to the 'attitude' of the person on the sharp end of them, thus absolving the user of the phrase from any need to acknowledge or take responsibility for the suffering of others. This kind of therapy-garbage/management-speak infection of language is, basically, pretty nasty stuff. Makes the odd daft 'yo' blood, comin' oop me'yard' in a fake Jamaican East Midlands accent or a bit of Mockney seem relatively innocuous.

Couldn't agree more. I hate 'issues' and it seems to have quickly become the norm in social care literature. I would add to your points that the word 'issues' comprehensively downplays whatever the person is struggling to come to terms with. It's similar to the subtle shift from 'risk' to 'safeguarding'. By not vocally acknowledging problems there's a real danger that everything becomes so wishy-washy that people's natural difficulties, frustrations and triumphs in dealing with adverse situations are thoroughly undermined, which was your point - the norm becomes to deal successfully with whatever life throws, and if you can't it's an attitude problem.

Similar situations are found in workplaces all over the country where people who are overworked have 'time management issues' not just too much to bloody do.

[Xavier_Blake]

Completely. I believe he consciously wanted to make West End Girls a rap song with a British accent. I love the fact that early PSB combine Bobby O with the minutae of British culture. Their first few records are just brilliant, and even now I'm always interested in them, even though they do far too many self-indulgent musicals for my taste.
Neil Tennant was a very good music journo in my opinion, we need more people who can actually write writing lyrics.

They were my absolute favourite pop act back in the 80s - I religiously went out and bought each new single on 12" on the day it was released, and drove my sister crazy by listening to them over and over. She HATED them with a passion (and probably still does!). My interest began to wane around 1991, but I still bought a few more of their albums after that and I loved the disco-like excesses of Go West and New York City Boy

I so want to rush home and listen to the first Disco LP very loud now but sadly I have a Parents' Evening to blag my way through!!!

[Lady J]

I so want to rush home and listen to the first Disco LP very loud now but sadly I have a Parents' Evening to blag my way through!!!

Passion. Love. Sex. Money. Violence. Religion. Injustice. Death.

[babycart]

Passion. Love. Sex. Money. Violence. Religion. Injustice. Death.

I think I've got issues with all of those.

[Xavier_Blake]

Passion. Love. Sex. Money. Violence. Religion. Injustice. Death.

Paninaro Oh, Oh Oh!

[jakartajive]

One-nil to the Arse-a-nal