Pet Shop Boys Community

In terms of quality as well as popularity, obviously the top 2 are the US and UK. I think US artists have sold more worldwide, but only as they have a much larger population to draw artists from. Per capita its UK fo' sho', plus the quality that comes from there is something the US can't match. Give me Beatles, Stones, Bowie, Elton, Floyd, Queen, Collins, Pet Shop Boys, Oasis, and Coldplay over Elvis, Dylan, Jackson, Madonna, Nirvana, and The Killers anyday.

So I was thinking who would be third (albeit a distant third), and I think lately its become Canada. The last, say 7 years, Canadian music has really come into its own, into a stratosphere never before achieved by our small population that has an inferiority complex, which comes from living next to a superpower. Epic, top-shelf bands consistently emanate from the UK somehow, there's something in that culture that produces music unlike anywhere else. I would never have imagined Canada would come close to matching it, as there is half as many people living in a country 50 times as big (fact: not a researched statistic). There's not really a shared culture, just disparate regions with the same flag.

But look at this list of big artists who have recently emerged:

Nickelback, Michael Buble, Justin Bieber, Drake, Arcade Fire, Avril Lavigne, Feist, Metric, Deadmau5, Rufus Wainwright, Billy Talent, Nelly Furtado, Dragonette

The list above has either highly acclaimed artists, or top selling ones, all at or near the top of their respective genres. Yes half of them are crap but they're selling more than most crappy US or UK acts.

And then you can add up the rest of the top selling, influential, or highly acclaimed acts before the recent surge:

Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Anne Murray, Rush, Celine Dion, Paul Anka, Leonard Cohen, Gordon Lightfoot, Shania Twain, Bryan Adams, Alanis Morissette, Tragically Hip

And I think overall, for contributing good and/or popular music to the world stage, they're a distant third but well ahead of Japan, Australia, France and Germany, the last two being quite disappointing for producing many top quality acts (Air, Daft Punk, Enigma, and Rammstein are the only ones that come to mind). So that's my argument, does anyone disagree and what country would you put in third?

Did you forget about Italy by any chance? Easily the third in place, and beating hands-down 95% of the Canadian acts (old or new) that you have mentioned. Your list also smells a lot like the classic male-biased list à la Rolling Stone. What about all the women? It's not just Madonna. What about Streisand, Bassey, Garland, Franklin (though I don't like her that much) and the list is endless.

whateverman42 wrote:

Nickelback, Michael Buble, Justin Bieber, Drake, Arcade Fire, Avril Lavigne, Feist, Metric, Deadmau5, Rufus Wainwright, Billy Talent, Nelly Furtado, Dragonette

There is a few there that i've not heard anything from. The other 80% or so, i wouldn't wipe my arse on the covers.

PoloPony wrote:Did you forget about Italy by any chance? Easily the third in place, and beating hands-down 95% of the Canadian acts (old or new) that you have mentioned. Your list also smells a lot like the classic male-biased list à la Rolling Stone. What about all the women? It's not just Madonna. What about Streisand, Bassey, Garland, Franklin (though I don't like her that much) and the list is endless.

Undertaker wrote:There is a few there that I've not heard anything from. The other 80% or so, i wouldn't wipe my arse on the covers.

Absolutely, a lot of them are crap, but I was discussing a balance of popularity as well as critical acclaim. There's Nickelback and Arcade Fire. In terms of producing music most of the world is aware of, regardless of quality, in addition to different acts making really good music, its a varied and large output coming from a pretty small country. Its what you'd expect from the US or UK. Britney Spears and Moby. Adele and Pet Shop Boys. Having a multitude of both is the criteria I'm using, because the music is influencing everyone the world over; the masses as well as appreciators of art.

And I can't name a single Italian act, save for classical music. Its probably been a while since an Italian had a #1 US album.

PoloPony wrote:Did you forget about Italy by any chance? Easily the third in place, and beating hands-down 95% of the Canadian acts (old or new) that you have mentioned. Your list also smells a lot like the classic male-biased list à la Rolling Stone. What about all the women? It's not just Madonna. What about Streisand, Bassey, Garland, Franklin (though I don't like her that much) and the list is endless.

Hrrm! I thought Sweden was number three actually.

On a per capita basis, Sweden is one of the worlds most successful exporters of popular music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Sweden

Also if you count all popular music that is written and produced by Swedes (eg numerous world-wide hits by Backstreet Boys, Westlife, Britney Spears), Sweden easily comes third!

Sweden, easily, especially if you look at writers and producers instead of performers, as Hillbilly correctly points out. Sweden is where UK and US pop acts go when they want hits.

Interesting, never occurred to me at all. Abba has apparently sold 380 million records, so them alone might be enough to put Sweden in the top 10. Though there is a caveat:

'Some of the most successful post-ABBA popular music artists from Sweden are Europe, Roxette, Secret_Service_(band),Agnes, The Wannadies, Ace of Base, Kent, Carola Häggkvist, Army of Lovers, Neneh and Eagle-Eye Cherry, Leila K, Robyn, A*Teens, Nanne Grönvall, The Cardigans, Bodies Without Organs, Andreas Johnson, Alcazar and Play.'

Using Alcazar when trying to list the most popular Swedish acts is pretty sad.

As for writing and producing, that's a tough call. Its a generic enough argument I'm making that's very hard to prove one way or the other, with tons of variables, I was mainly just thinking of bands and musicians. If PSB's version of Numb sold 10 million, I'd think of it more as a British achievement rather than an American one. But Canada has plenty of producers as well, Daniel Lanois, and the completely trash but hugely influential David Foster.

whateverman42 wrote:As for writing and producing, that's a tough call. Its a generic enough argument I'm making that's very hard to prove one way or the other, with tons of variables, I was mainly just thinking of bands and musicians. If PSB's version of Numb sold 10 million, I'd think of it more as a British achievement rather than an American one. But Canada has plenty of producers as well, Daniel Lanois, and the completely trash but hugely influential David Foster.

But in the case of Sweden we are not talking about a few individual writers/producers, it is very much an industry of pure pop music productions where lots of people work in teams. This was basically started with Dennis Pops Cheiron productions project, where he gathered a big team of writers, producers and engineers and started utterly dominating the whole teen-pop market (Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, Britney Spears, etyc.) in the late 90's/early 00's. The Cheiron project was put to a halt, but the industry concept continues to this day.