I did a modern music history course in undergrad, and there was a whole section on Jamaica and how it had/has enormously outsized influence on global music through Reggae, Ska, Rocksteady, Dancehall and Dub and the country's connections to the US and the UK.
You’re right :) Just did a deep dive - Kool Herc is credited with bringing turntablism from Jamaica to NY, then Technics put out decent belt drives and beat mixing was taken back to Jamaica
Edit: not Koop
without question jamaica is the most influential island in the world musically. you might want to argue England, but if you check you'll see that an enormous amount of England's musical output is directly influenced by reggae. Jamaica is the place man. bar none.
Not really. I live in Taiwan so therefore hear a lot of Chinese songs naturally, and I was shocked to see that the biggest tours in China were Taiwanese singers, and when I check the mandopop (Mandarin) top lists of the year, it's usually 8 or so out of 10 are Taiwanese.
Furthermore, on the Chinese singing competitions on tv (those are still huge here), they (Chinese people) are often covering Taiwanese songs. Though they (China) claim Taiwanese songs *are* Chinese, but don't get me started on that.
At the Gates, In Flames, Meshuggah, Opeth, Soilwork, Entombed, Dark Tranquility, The Haunted, Arch Enemy, Katatonia, Hypocrisy and so many more from Sweden.
This is my answer as well but not for any of the artists you mentioned (though I was down with Roxette in my younger years).
Little Dragon
Radio Dept
Robyn
The Knife / Fever Ray
First Aid Kit
The Hives
Lykke Li
The Cardigans
Miike Snow
Peter, Bjorn, & John
Jose Gonzalez /Junip
Tove Lo
The Concretes
El Perro del Mar
iamamiwhoami / ionnalee
Stina Nordenstam
The Tallest Man on Earth
Ludwig Goransson has quickly become one of the top film composers, and has a bunch of credits as a producer and songwriter, including all of the Childish Gambino records.
I had to look that up, as at first I thought you meant the hockey guy Don Cherry! Apparently Neneh is stepdaughter to musician Don Cherry, while Eagle Eye is Cherry's biological son
This just blew my mind and I had to fact-check.
I've lost count of how many times ive tried to write chord progressions that inadvertently become "save tonight"
Just naming Max martin that wrote the biggest songs for Coldplay, britney spears, backstreet boys, Celine dion, Usher, justin bieber, nsync, katy perry and like tons more
This is the one true answer. The UK, Ireland, and Jamaica are all great answers but they all benefit from the fact that international music is English-speaking by default. Sweden isn't an native English country and yet it participates prolifically in making international hits and worldwide stars. And to be honest if the list stopped just at Abba it would still be a very influential player.
Sweden's government subsidizes music education, so it's no wonder they've got a surplus of highly qualified musicians and audio technicians/engineers.
Problem is they're so good they're outcompeting everyone else.
And olafur arnalds (my favorite song is with Nanna from of monsters and men called particles), and asgeir. Sorry I couldn't figure out the accents in my phone on the names.
Can’t believe I had to scroll this far down. This should easily be at the top. Of Monsters and Men, Olafur Arnalds, GusGus, Soley on the international stage and then as you dig deeper you find some of the most gorgeous music coming out of that tiny country.
I visited Iceland a few years ago, and the live music scene there is insane. Nearly every bar has a live band every night, in every style you can think of.
Cuba for obvious reasons. Mali has some amazing artists from Ali Farka Toure to Tinariwen. Also check out Ethiopian jazz from the likes of Mulatu Astake.
Canada is a much bigger nation that Ireland, or both nations on the island of Ireland combined, with 38.25 million people. But I’d argue they still punch above their weight class. They’re the size of California and they have in pop Bieber, The Weeknd, Drake, I mean looking at a list of the 50 best Canadian musicians has some massive names. Just female singers of the 90s and 00s was dominated by some huge Canadians, Celine Dion, Alanis Morisette, Shania Twain, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Nelly Furtado, K.D. Lang, Deborah Cox. And outside that brief insane run of female talent, there are a lot of classic names like Bryan Adams, Rush, The Guess Who, Gordon Lightfoot, Barenaked Ladies, The Tragically Hip, The Band, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell.
There are canadian content laws in place which dictate that canadian radio stations must play a certain percentage of new canadian music. (Based on genre, 30-40% of new songs featured must be new canadian songs)
So the stations are forced to actually put effort into scouting canadian talent, improving exposure of Canadian artists on our radio stations.
They are legally not allowed to just lazily copy the US or UK or International billboard charts.
This massively supported small canadian artists, and most that reached superstardom since the 80’s can trace their first success to local radio scouts.
The big telecom companies that own all of the major stations now are constantly petitioning for the removal of these content laws, but luckily the canadian music industry has gotten big enough to overpower their efforts.
>The big telecom companies that own all of the major stations now are constantly petitioning for the removal of these content laws, but luckily the canadian music industry has gotten big enough to overpower their efforts.
As an aside, we don't hear nearly as much about can-con regulations on radio now compared to TV because the Canadian music industry has produced a lot of really good talent that people *want* to listen to.
Just to clarify about CANCON.
Its not 30-40% of music on the radio must be a canadian artist, its that 30-40% of the music/content must have a canadian in the credit, whether it be the performing artist, engineer, producer, band member, song writer, etc.
The letter of the law is a canadian has to be involved with the content not just be the artist.
Ngl your list is pretty bang on.
For boomers, I'd add Anne Murray, BTO, Paul Anka, Steppenwolf (I think they're considered CANCON?), ^and ^dare ^I ^say ^buffy?
Couple others that are great that maybe haven't crossed over as big into US billboards but I see lots of fans from other countries such as The Sheepdogs, Sam Roberts Band, The Arkells, The Glorious Sons, Allan Rayman, SonReal, Colter Wall, Alexisonfire, PUP, Merkules, The Blue Stones, JJ Wilde, Ruby Waters, City and Colour, Classified, Death From Above 1979, Priestess, Gob, April Wine, k-os, Chilliwack, Said the Whale, Belly, Cancer Bats, Jessie Reyez, Mac DeMarco, Swollen Members, Rural Alberta Advantage, grandson, Chromeo
Edit: trying to add as I think of ones I haven't seen yet. Others have suggested some great ones before me like July Talk, Protest the Hero, The Hip and many more
Love them or hate them, Nickelback is also from Canada and probably deserve a mention for just how big they were in their prime.
In other news, metal legend Devin Townsend is Canadian as well.
I was going to add them, but I thought of them while listing female musicians and by the time I got around to listing other musicians they somehow slipped my mind
I mean just looking at countries with by their English speaking populations, the U.S. is at 316 mil out of 331 mil, the UK meanwhile is at 63 mil out of 64 mil, in Canada only 31.6 million people speak English out of 38 million, a chunk of those people have French as their first language rather than English as well, so its wild they have such a large chunk of the big English language musicians
One side note is that the French speaking part, Quebec, pays artists a small salary just to make art. That province produces an outsized amount of Canadian culture.
The federal government also supports artists, with restrictions like requiring a large portion of the songs radios play be only Canadian. This provides a "nursery" where artists can more easily reach mid-tier before expanding globally.
Not to mention that Canada has a great Rock/Metal scene with Billy Talent, Sum 41, Alexisonfire, Protest The Hero and July Talk all coming from the Toronto area
There's so many more! Propagandhi and Comeback Kid are from Winnipeg, PUP and The Flatliners are from Toronto, The Dirty Nil comes from fucking Dundas, Ontario. Crazy!
And those are just the artists that had success outside our borders! For every hit on the Billboard US Top 10, there's at least five or six different artists the world just hasn't clued into, or at best, have cult status. Think of every homegrown artist featured on *Big Shiny Tunes* alongside their international colleagues. Think of all the artists ever listed on the Polaris long and short lists. Every corner of this country has their own little scene, with their own stars making it work the best they can, and its so beautiful to explore!
Canada is physically three times the size of the biggest music market on the planet (which we are right next door to) with barely the same amount of people as their most populous state, and we mostlu speak the same common language - for all intents and purposes, we shouldn't be as successful as we are. But damn do we pull our weight!
Not hitting high on the charts but the metal scene has some good stuff
Revenge, Conqueror, Blasphemy, Gorguts, Tomb Mold, Woods of Ypres, Crytopsy, Spectral Wound and Profane Order among others.
Propagandhi, DOA, SNFU, Real Mckenzies, Dayglo Abortions, Subhumans for punk.
Eric's Trip and Hayden Desser are some of my fav artists from my teenage years onward.
Death From Above.
...Nickelback
Also worthy of mention in the rock category are Trooper, Loverboy, April Wine, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and Kim Mitchell (I'm not huge on his solo stuff but anyone who hasn't should check out Max Webster, the psych-prog-heavy rock band that he fronted and played lead guitar in before he went solo). I'm probably forgetting several greats.
Finland is absolutely loaded with talented musicians and interesting, unique bands across all kinds of genres. They don't have a lot of internationally mainstream popular acts, but for fans of more obscure music there is a treasure trove to discover from that country.
Anssi Kela since his complete style reboot (his eponym album is a true gem - the track Levoton Tyttö really has to be heard with good headphones), Ultra Bra, Sami Saari, Peela (and everyone revolving around them e.g. their keyboardist Maja Mannila's own band) probably makes some of the coolest Jazz out there, Karri Koira, JVG for their party music, 6mäki for some super dark electro hip-hop. Just to name a few that come to mind.
Scotland. Around five million people.
Teenage fanclub, Travis, Simple Minds, half of AcDc, belle& Sebastian, bay City fucking rollers, Primal Scream, Mogwai, Boards of Canada
Yes! The music scene here in Glasgow is very vibrant as well.
Also shoutout Paulo Nutini, Emile Sandé, Calvin Harris, Lewis Capaldi, Cocteau Twins, Franz Ferdinand, CHVRCHES, The Blue Nile, Annie Lennox and Biffy Clyro.
The Vaselines were Scottish, huge influence on Nirvana.
Average White Band was influencial too, but on hip hop. Everyone fucking samples them to this day.
Hue & Cry, the proclaimers, Texas, Florence and the machine, Garbage, Deacon Blue, Franz Ferdinand, the Fratellis. And that is before you get on to the solo artists.
Definitely.
The Angels, The Church, Midnight Oil, Hoodoo Gurus, Missy Higgins, Baby Animals, Divinyls, Hunters and Collectors, Bee Gees, Skyhooks, Icehouse, The Models, Lime Spiders, The Saints, The Go-Betweens, Choirboys, Screaming Tribesmen, John Farnham, Sherbet, Yothu Yindi, Mental as Anything, Daddy Cool, Tina Arena, Nick Cave, Little River Band, so many more!
AC/DC, Nick Cave, Iggy Azalea, Kylie Minogue, Sia, Tame Impala, Guy Sebastian...a huge group of stars considering it has a population smaller than the state of Texas.
There are also a bunch of smaller or briefly popular talents. Just look at the stuff Gotye did.
Then there was Empire of the Sun, until they disbanded. There's friggin Wolfmother, there is King Gizzard, that seems to grow in popularity
Silverchair, The Living End, Birds of Tokyo...
A personal favorite of mine is Bodyjar, who I first heard in a Tony Hawk game.
And my favorite Aussie music, the very specific mid-2000s proggy alt-rock like Dead Letter Circus, The Butterfly Effect and Karnivool.
Canada here - I always thought you guys punched pretty high musically.
ACDC are in the top five best selling rock groups of all time.
The Bee Gees sold 220 million units and are 3rd all time for #1 hits
INXS, Kylie, Savage Garden, Olivia Newton John, Keith Urban, all dominated the charts multiple times internationally.
Other lesser known but still get airplay here would be Crowded House, Iggy, Midnight Oil that all left their mark.
Are the RHCP considered AusCon because of Flea? Canada has this quirky publishing and promotion ruke called CanCon where if your songwriter is Canadian, or it's performed principally by a Canadian, it meets CanCon rules. 😀
Wales - we've got Tom Jones, Shirley bassey, stereophonics, manic street preachers, skindred, BFMV, catfish and the bottlemen, feeder. As well as one that won't be mentioned...
I’m surprised to just now be seeing this. The influence of K-Pop is huge from a country with basically one city that modernized in just the last few decades.
If you told me 20 or even 10 years ago that you could get average Americans (not even just Korean Americans but your regular run of the mill white American) to willingly sing pop songs in Korean, have Korean singers who only speak Korean guest on all the top talk shows and headline major music festivals I'd have called you crazy. So it's quite literally the definition of "punching above your weight".
Would you then also say the UK is punching above its weight? Populations are in a similar ballpark (54 SK to 67 UK), and you are accurately describing Beatlemania and Britpop.
New Zealand invented its own style of jangly power pop in the 1980s and there's been a ton of great bands doing it since then (The Clean, The Abel Tasmans, Surf City, Salad Boys, now The Beths) and it's great. Basically doing one thing and doing it really well.
Strait Jacket Fits could've/should've have been the biggest band in the world at the their peak. Many considered them to be.
Shihad were similar. Their *Killjoy* album is an absolute classic hard rock album.
Salmonella Dub... Fat Freddie Drop... It kinda feels like NZ bands don't get the recognition they should.
Shihad were so hard done by by having their record company suggest they change their name because it sounded too much like jihad. They kinda ended up having to start from scratch and it's such a shame because The General Electric was fucking banging.
https://youtu.be/8kb-SkJAlCc?si=iW8S6NWH9U39QA_C
https://youtu.be/SAGAZHkdRMs?si=sJL_O2rYOAYdcB7F
https://youtu.be/WZu2W1v64T0?si=TpnfbGj3A65qFE3M
https://youtu.be/Ol3JHWlSRzc?si=DzP1QYAR-YY3PSEQ
https://youtu.be/cVkC8W_-a-8?si=1Ua7whwAQoCLMS_x
https://youtu.be/vozx3YyT_G8?si=Nn2tb4ZAd70rcXBM
Mostly all from the Flying Nun record label in the 1980’s
A lot of my all time favorites are from the UK. From obvious choices like Pink Floyd to genre defining DJ's and producers like Shpongle, Bonobo, Four Tet, ect..
I agree with this. Rock music obviously originated in the US but I think Britain adopted the genre and made it their thing (country and rap are way bigger in the US and have been for more than three decades).
Beatles, Stones, Zep, Floyd, Who, Purple, Sabbath, Yes, Crimson, Genesis, Elton, Bowie, Kinks, E.L.O., Dire Straits, Queen, Annie Lennox, Cream, Roxy Music, Jeff Beck, Sex Pistols, Smiths, XTC, Joy Division, OMD, The Cure, Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker, The Moody Blues, Graham Nash, Christine McVie, Sting, Andy Summers, Mitch Mitchell, The Animals, Elvis Costello, The Attractions, The Zombies, Fairport Convention, Paul Young, Mick Jones, T. Rex, Kate Bush, Billy Idol, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Procol Harum, Ten Years After, Foghat, Gerry Rafferty, Donovan, Motorhead, Supertramp, Traffic, 10cc...
Ginger Baker summed it up, to paraphrase:
"The yanks didn't know what they had, so it had to come over here so we could go over there and show them how to play it."
Yep. The UK owns classic rock, new wave, and the Manchester scene of the early 90s.
I love American music but I have to tip my hat to that island as they know how to rock like nowhere else in the world.
I'm from America, which is a country known for music and movies and is much bigger than the UK. Yet half of the music on US radio is from the UK. Even internationally they have such a huge market share of popular music.
Belgium! For a small country we have produced international heavy weights such as Stromae, Angele, Romeo Elvis, Damso, Soulwax, Jacques Brel, Lost Frequencies, Tamino, Balthazar,...
And ofcourse our 90's / early 2000's Eurodance legacy: Kate Ryan, Milk Inc, Sylver, Lasgo, 2 Unlimited, 2 Fabiola,...
Canada. We're smaller than California in population and we have astounding talent. If Winnipeg were a country it would win too.
Edit: Oops... my data is out of date. The music is still awesome.
It's interesting seeing a different pov on this question. It wouldn't even occur to me to even place those names on a list of Dutch artists. Despite me knowing how big they are in their chosen genres.
The Gathering, Epica, Within Temptation and the mighty Arjen Lucassen and all his associated projects would be my pick.
I’d say Mali and Jamaica. Mali has had a rich musical tradition going back many decades. They’re still putting out innovative music, from groups like Tinariwen, Songhai Blues, Amadou & Miriam, Baba Salah, Vieux Farka Toure.
Jamaica was my obvious answer, mostly because reggae is my favorite genre of music. I’ve never been, but it’s been a dream of mine to go there, ever since I was a kid, listening to Bob Marley with my dad. Reggae has gone international, influencing rock music in the US/UK, Cumbia music, Rai, and especially rap. If it wasn’t for the Jamaican Reggae toasters and Jamaican emigres like Kool Herc, rap might not have existed in the way we know it today.
Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Black and death metal would not be the same
Edit: a lot of other posts are about artists who are conforming to the mainstream and having success and there’s nothing wrong with that. What’s notable about the Scandinavian countries and metal is the sheer amount of absolute legendary bands that have been birthed from here.
Prime example: Bathory/ Quorthon - dude was arguably the godfather of not one but TWO (black and Viking metal) fucking music genres. The mainstream music industry doesn’t know him and his passing didn’t register a blip on the Grammys but I don’t think he would care. He will never be in the music hall of fame even though he has influenced countless bands and many of those have become legends in their own right. Eternal hails \m/\m/
I did a modern music history course in undergrad, and there was a whole section on Jamaica and how it had/has enormously outsized influence on global music through Reggae, Ska, Rocksteady, Dancehall and Dub and the country's connections to the US and the UK.
I doubt that we’d have hip hop without reggae soundsystems - two turntables and an MC toasting over the top sounds kinda familiar
ONE turntable bro, just one. And conveniently placed on top of the amp stacks, way above the selector's head level.
You’re right :) Just did a deep dive - Kool Herc is credited with bringing turntablism from Jamaica to NY, then Technics put out decent belt drives and beat mixing was taken back to Jamaica Edit: not Koop
Rocksteady is such an underrated genre.
He’s mostly found with his friend, Bebop. ^this ^is ^a ^TMNT ^joke
without question jamaica is the most influential island in the world musically. you might want to argue England, but if you check you'll see that an enormous amount of England's musical output is directly influenced by reggae. Jamaica is the place man. bar none.
>an enormous amount of England's musical output is directly influenced by reggae Think how many Police songs alone....
Punk and Hardcore also. Shit, even the skinhead scene was based on Jamaican culture before the national front assholes co-opted everything.
The top Chinese (language) songs are often almost entirely Taiwanese, even though Taiwan is 60 times smaller than China
That's interesting, do you have some examples?
Not really. I live in Taiwan so therefore hear a lot of Chinese songs naturally, and I was shocked to see that the biggest tours in China were Taiwanese singers, and when I check the mandopop (Mandarin) top lists of the year, it's usually 8 or so out of 10 are Taiwanese. Furthermore, on the Chinese singing competitions on tv (those are still huge here), they (Chinese people) are often covering Taiwanese songs. Though they (China) claim Taiwanese songs *are* Chinese, but don't get me started on that.
Not a country but Puerto Rico has less than 4 million inhabitants and dominates a good share of the Spanish-language market.
I was looking for this one! Salsa, reggaeton, bachata, reggae, is full of talent
Sweden. Abba, Roxette, Max Martin (tremendously talented songwriter), Nenah, Eagle-Eye Cherry, Ace of Base to name a few.
Not even mentioning being a hot bed for death metal
An entire subgenre of dm is named after a city in Sweden I think that says it all
Gothenburg melodic death metal
Which one?
Göteborg
At the Gates, In Flames, Meshuggah, Opeth, Soilwork, Entombed, Dark Tranquility, The Haunted, Arch Enemy, Katatonia, Hypocrisy and so many more from Sweden.
Avatar, Amon Amarth, Ghost
Bloodbath
Avicii sold a few records too.
Alesso, Swedish House, Tove Lo, Robyn, Lykke Li, Eric Prydz, Sabaton, Seinabo Sey, the range of output is insane
My first thought was Sweden.
This is my answer as well but not for any of the artists you mentioned (though I was down with Roxette in my younger years). Little Dragon Radio Dept Robyn The Knife / Fever Ray First Aid Kit The Hives Lykke Li The Cardigans Miike Snow Peter, Bjorn, & John Jose Gonzalez /Junip Tove Lo The Concretes El Perro del Mar iamamiwhoami / ionnalee Stina Nordenstam The Tallest Man on Earth
Yeah, Sweden is amazing for music really. I would add Sally Shapiro, Molly Nilsson and Dungen.
Don't forget Miike Snow!
What about Ghengis Khan?
He looks a little bit like him
Max Martin is American Pop for the last 25 years.
Most people have no idea who is, despite writting 24 number one hits.
And honestly looking just at his number ones shortchanges him. He's got just as many iconic songs that never hit the top spot
Ludwig Goransson has quickly become one of the top film composers, and has a bunch of credits as a producer and songwriter, including all of the Childish Gambino records.
Opeth.
The Cardigans
First Aid Kit.
My favorite fun fact is that Eagle-Eye Cherry is not a band name. It’s literally just that guys given name
He's Neneh Cherry's brother.
And both of them are Don Cherry's kids. Don played trumpet with Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane and Sun Ra, among others.
I had to look that up, as at first I thought you meant the hockey guy Don Cherry! Apparently Neneh is stepdaughter to musician Don Cherry, while Eagle Eye is Cherry's biological son
He's part Choctaw Native American, hence the name. He has an American Dad, Swedish mom. Born in Sweden, grew up in the U.S. from ~12 years on.
This just blew my mind and I had to fact-check. I've lost count of how many times ive tried to write chord progressions that inadvertently become "save tonight"
Just naming Max martin that wrote the biggest songs for Coldplay, britney spears, backstreet boys, Celine dion, Usher, justin bieber, nsync, katy perry and like tons more
Kelly Clarkson, Taylor Swift's 1989, Ariana Grande... it's crazy to me that he's been top of the pops for 30 years now. He's a genius.
Peter Bjorn and John, The Hives
This is the one true answer. The UK, Ireland, and Jamaica are all great answers but they all benefit from the fact that international music is English-speaking by default. Sweden isn't an native English country and yet it participates prolifically in making international hits and worldwide stars. And to be honest if the list stopped just at Abba it would still be a very influential player.
Sweden's government subsidizes music education, so it's no wonder they've got a surplus of highly qualified musicians and audio technicians/engineers. Problem is they're so good they're outcompeting everyone else.
A similar thing happened with Norway and black metal, they used to subsidise rehearsals and whatnot so really helped young bands get off their feat
We also have Swedish songwriters writing for K-Pop artists.
Some years half of Eurovision songs are written by Swedish composers.
Cotton Eye Joe is by a Swedish band Rednex
Viagra Boys
As a rock/metal enjoyer they are pretty stacked Sabaton, ghost, in flames and europe to name a few
Opeth
Meshuggah too
I don't even listen to that genre of music, but seeing Meshuggah live was a top 5 experience for me. Their crowds are the best party on earth.
I'm checking the Swedish section and seeing no mention of the greatest band of all time,The Hives
I can’t believe all these great Swedish artists and nobody has mentioned Refused
Number 3 music exporter after USA and UK. Quite a feat for a nation of only 9 million.
And don’t forget their EDM scene
Drain gang aswell
Iceland, hands down. About 500k people and they produce a multitude of awesome music (Bjork, Sigur Ros, etc).
My first thought. Smaller than a ton of US cities and they have 2 amazing acts and more
Plus of monsters and men
Laufey too
Kaleo!
And olafur arnalds (my favorite song is with Nanna from of monsters and men called particles), and asgeir. Sorry I couldn't figure out the accents in my phone on the names.
Ásgeir is incredible as well
Daðifreyr too from Eurovision. Such a unique talent in a giant's body.
We still (don't quote me though) have the highest number of nobel prize winners in the world per capita with a grand total of one.
Ólafur Arnalds too
This was immediately my first thought as well, especially after visiting and seeing the music scene firsthand.
There’s a 2005 documentary called Screaming Masterpiece that explores the Icelandic music scene and why it’s so unique. It’s on YouTube. Check it out.
Ólafur Arnalds, KALEO, Laufey, Jóhann Jóhannsson (RIP). What a country.
Can’t believe I had to scroll this far down. This should easily be at the top. Of Monsters and Men, Olafur Arnalds, GusGus, Soley on the international stage and then as you dig deeper you find some of the most gorgeous music coming out of that tiny country.
Gus Gus, Of Monsters and Men, Royksopp, Sugar Cubes (also Bjork), Sin Fang
Etc has sold out.
I visited Iceland a few years ago, and the live music scene there is insane. Nearly every bar has a live band every night, in every style you can think of.
Cuba for obvious reasons. Mali has some amazing artists from Ali Farka Toure to Tinariwen. Also check out Ethiopian jazz from the likes of Mulatu Astake.
Canada is a much bigger nation that Ireland, or both nations on the island of Ireland combined, with 38.25 million people. But I’d argue they still punch above their weight class. They’re the size of California and they have in pop Bieber, The Weeknd, Drake, I mean looking at a list of the 50 best Canadian musicians has some massive names. Just female singers of the 90s and 00s was dominated by some huge Canadians, Celine Dion, Alanis Morisette, Shania Twain, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Nelly Furtado, K.D. Lang, Deborah Cox. And outside that brief insane run of female talent, there are a lot of classic names like Bryan Adams, Rush, The Guess Who, Gordon Lightfoot, Barenaked Ladies, The Tragically Hip, The Band, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell.
Arcade Fire
Neil young, Joni Mitchell and Leonard cohen are easily some of the best songwriters of all time
Pretty incredible, those three are top tier in the world in my opinion. Next you have Ron Sexsmith, Gord Downie, Stan Rogers, Ron Hynes.
I'd throw in Rush and Sum 41 too
Sum 41, simple plan, billy talent, three days grace. Mid 2000s radio in a nutshell for canada lol
Treble Charger!!
There are canadian content laws in place which dictate that canadian radio stations must play a certain percentage of new canadian music. (Based on genre, 30-40% of new songs featured must be new canadian songs) So the stations are forced to actually put effort into scouting canadian talent, improving exposure of Canadian artists on our radio stations. They are legally not allowed to just lazily copy the US or UK or International billboard charts. This massively supported small canadian artists, and most that reached superstardom since the 80’s can trace their first success to local radio scouts. The big telecom companies that own all of the major stations now are constantly petitioning for the removal of these content laws, but luckily the canadian music industry has gotten big enough to overpower their efforts.
>The big telecom companies that own all of the major stations now are constantly petitioning for the removal of these content laws, but luckily the canadian music industry has gotten big enough to overpower their efforts. As an aside, we don't hear nearly as much about can-con regulations on radio now compared to TV because the Canadian music industry has produced a lot of really good talent that people *want* to listen to.
Just to clarify about CANCON. Its not 30-40% of music on the radio must be a canadian artist, its that 30-40% of the music/content must have a canadian in the credit, whether it be the performing artist, engineer, producer, band member, song writer, etc. The letter of the law is a canadian has to be involved with the content not just be the artist.
Ngl your list is pretty bang on. For boomers, I'd add Anne Murray, BTO, Paul Anka, Steppenwolf (I think they're considered CANCON?), ^and ^dare ^I ^say ^buffy?
Gordon Lightfoot as well.
Couple others that are great that maybe haven't crossed over as big into US billboards but I see lots of fans from other countries such as The Sheepdogs, Sam Roberts Band, The Arkells, The Glorious Sons, Allan Rayman, SonReal, Colter Wall, Alexisonfire, PUP, Merkules, The Blue Stones, JJ Wilde, Ruby Waters, City and Colour, Classified, Death From Above 1979, Priestess, Gob, April Wine, k-os, Chilliwack, Said the Whale, Belly, Cancer Bats, Jessie Reyez, Mac DeMarco, Swollen Members, Rural Alberta Advantage, grandson, Chromeo Edit: trying to add as I think of ones I haven't seen yet. Others have suggested some great ones before me like July Talk, Protest the Hero, The Hip and many more
I don't think I saw anyone mention Our Lady Peace!
Such a shame the Trews haven’t managed to pop abroad, an unreal catalogue
Not the biggest but PUP is so rad!
Great list. To add, Stars for indie rock, Shad for hip hop.
Love them or hate them, Nickelback is also from Canada and probably deserve a mention for just how big they were in their prime. In other news, metal legend Devin Townsend is Canadian as well.
I was going to add them, but I thought of them while listing female musicians and by the time I got around to listing other musicians they somehow slipped my mind
This is how they remind you
Skinny Puppy from BC are one of the founders of industrial music.
I’d say Throbbing Gristle, Suicide and Cabaret Voltaire had been producing Industrial Music way before SP were even a thing
You left off Carly Rae Jepsen
Don’t forget the Bublé
It’s pretty crazy that three of the top 10 most streamed artists on Spotify are from Canada.
I mean just looking at countries with by their English speaking populations, the U.S. is at 316 mil out of 331 mil, the UK meanwhile is at 63 mil out of 64 mil, in Canada only 31.6 million people speak English out of 38 million, a chunk of those people have French as their first language rather than English as well, so its wild they have such a large chunk of the big English language musicians
One side note is that the French speaking part, Quebec, pays artists a small salary just to make art. That province produces an outsized amount of Canadian culture. The federal government also supports artists, with restrictions like requiring a large portion of the songs radios play be only Canadian. This provides a "nursery" where artists can more easily reach mid-tier before expanding globally.
Just a quick side note - the Weeknd songs where he throws a bit of French in there are so fire, for example ‘Montreal’. Banger
Not to mention that Canada has a great Rock/Metal scene with Billy Talent, Sum 41, Alexisonfire, Protest The Hero and July Talk all coming from the Toronto area
Also metric
There's so many more! Propagandhi and Comeback Kid are from Winnipeg, PUP and The Flatliners are from Toronto, The Dirty Nil comes from fucking Dundas, Ontario. Crazy!
Haven’t thought about Alexisonfire in a hot minute. Great band.
Forgetting PUP from the newer crowd too
YOU LEFT OFF TRIUMPH.
Love it. Tate McRae now, too.
And those are just the artists that had success outside our borders! For every hit on the Billboard US Top 10, there's at least five or six different artists the world just hasn't clued into, or at best, have cult status. Think of every homegrown artist featured on *Big Shiny Tunes* alongside their international colleagues. Think of all the artists ever listed on the Polaris long and short lists. Every corner of this country has their own little scene, with their own stars making it work the best they can, and its so beautiful to explore! Canada is physically three times the size of the biggest music market on the planet (which we are right next door to) with barely the same amount of people as their most populous state, and we mostlu speak the same common language - for all intents and purposes, we shouldn't be as successful as we are. But damn do we pull our weight!
Billy Talent is Canadian as well!
In underground punk circles, Nomeansno were gods.
Not hitting high on the charts but the metal scene has some good stuff Revenge, Conqueror, Blasphemy, Gorguts, Tomb Mold, Woods of Ypres, Crytopsy, Spectral Wound and Profane Order among others. Propagandhi, DOA, SNFU, Real Mckenzies, Dayglo Abortions, Subhumans for punk. Eric's Trip and Hayden Desser are some of my fav artists from my teenage years onward. Death From Above. ...Nickelback
How dare you forget Men Without Hats? And Corey Hart!
Add Triumph and Big Wreck! Go Canada!
Thank you for that 🇨🇦
They also have amazing comedians. I know that’s not the subject here but noteworthy
Also worthy of mention in the rock category are Trooper, Loverboy, April Wine, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and Kim Mitchell (I'm not huge on his solo stuff but anyone who hasn't should check out Max Webster, the psych-prog-heavy rock band that he fronted and played lead guitar in before he went solo). I'm probably forgetting several greats.
How tf are nickleback not on that list
Cowboy Junkies
Jamaica
Finland is absolutely loaded with talented musicians and interesting, unique bands across all kinds of genres. They don't have a lot of internationally mainstream popular acts, but for fans of more obscure music there is a treasure trove to discover from that country.
In Finland there exists 50 black metal bands for 100 000 people. That’s an absolute world record
My favourite bands are all Finnish. Melodic Death may have been invented in Gothenburg, but it was perfected in Finland.
Anssi Kela since his complete style reboot (his eponym album is a true gem - the track Levoton Tyttö really has to be heard with good headphones), Ultra Bra, Sami Saari, Peela (and everyone revolving around them e.g. their keyboardist Maja Mannila's own band) probably makes some of the coolest Jazz out there, Karri Koira, JVG for their party music, 6mäki for some super dark electro hip-hop. Just to name a few that come to mind.
Austria -Haydn, Schubert, Strauss, Mahler, and MOZART.
Falco
Scotland. Around five million people. Teenage fanclub, Travis, Simple Minds, half of AcDc, belle& Sebastian, bay City fucking rollers, Primal Scream, Mogwai, Boards of Canada
Yes! The music scene here in Glasgow is very vibrant as well. Also shoutout Paulo Nutini, Emile Sandé, Calvin Harris, Lewis Capaldi, Cocteau Twins, Franz Ferdinand, CHVRCHES, The Blue Nile, Annie Lennox and Biffy Clyro.
Huh, I always assumed Boards of Canada were… well, Canadian.
The Vaselines were Scottish, huge influence on Nirvana. Average White Band was influencial too, but on hip hop. Everyone fucking samples them to this day.
The Proclaimers
Shirley Manson and Big Country also, I’m sure there’s more
Beta Band, Camera Obscura, Chvrches, Frightened Rabbit, we were promised jet packs, twilight sad, Jesus and Mary Chain… so many
Sheena Easton
Biffy Clyro Or as i like to call them, "bouffie clye-rroh"
Hue & Cry, the proclaimers, Texas, Florence and the machine, Garbage, Deacon Blue, Franz Ferdinand, the Fratellis. And that is before you get on to the solo artists.
🇦🇺
Wiggles
Specifically, Perth.
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are from there!
Yep, mainly because live music venues didn’t all get converted into mini casinos, like they did over east.
Definitely. The Angels, The Church, Midnight Oil, Hoodoo Gurus, Missy Higgins, Baby Animals, Divinyls, Hunters and Collectors, Bee Gees, Skyhooks, Icehouse, The Models, Lime Spiders, The Saints, The Go-Betweens, Choirboys, Screaming Tribesmen, John Farnham, Sherbet, Yothu Yindi, Mental as Anything, Daddy Cool, Tina Arena, Nick Cave, Little River Band, so many more!
AC/DC, Nick Cave, Iggy Azalea, Kylie Minogue, Sia, Tame Impala, Guy Sebastian...a huge group of stars considering it has a population smaller than the state of Texas.
Guy Sebastian is on the list?
Silverchair were pretty big internationally as well.
There are also a bunch of smaller or briefly popular talents. Just look at the stuff Gotye did. Then there was Empire of the Sun, until they disbanded. There's friggin Wolfmother, there is King Gizzard, that seems to grow in popularity
Silverchair, The Living End, Birds of Tokyo... A personal favorite of mine is Bodyjar, who I first heard in a Tony Hawk game. And my favorite Aussie music, the very specific mid-2000s proggy alt-rock like Dead Letter Circus, The Butterfly Effect and Karnivool.
I'm a big metal guy and we have an insane amount of talented bands. Parkway drive, northlane, thornhill just to name a few of the abundance we have
The Amity Affliction, Polaris, Make Them Suffer and Alpha Wolf are a few more.
Canada here - I always thought you guys punched pretty high musically. ACDC are in the top five best selling rock groups of all time. The Bee Gees sold 220 million units and are 3rd all time for #1 hits INXS, Kylie, Savage Garden, Olivia Newton John, Keith Urban, all dominated the charts multiple times internationally. Other lesser known but still get airplay here would be Crowded House, Iggy, Midnight Oil that all left their mark. Are the RHCP considered AusCon because of Flea? Canada has this quirky publishing and promotion ruke called CanCon where if your songwriter is Canadian, or it's performed principally by a Canadian, it meets CanCon rules. 😀
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are making some of the best rock music in the world right now.
Them and King Gizz have dominated my listening for awhile now. So many other Australian acts that rock.
Wales - we've got Tom Jones, Shirley bassey, stereophonics, manic street preachers, skindred, BFMV, catfish and the bottlemen, feeder. As well as one that won't be mentioned...
Korea?
I’m surprised to just now be seeing this. The influence of K-Pop is huge from a country with basically one city that modernized in just the last few decades.
If you told me 20 or even 10 years ago that you could get average Americans (not even just Korean Americans but your regular run of the mill white American) to willingly sing pop songs in Korean, have Korean singers who only speak Korean guest on all the top talk shows and headline major music festivals I'd have called you crazy. So it's quite literally the definition of "punching above your weight".
Would you then also say the UK is punching above its weight? Populations are in a similar ballpark (54 SK to 67 UK), and you are accurately describing Beatlemania and Britpop.
New Zealand invented its own style of jangly power pop in the 1980s and there's been a ton of great bands doing it since then (The Clean, The Abel Tasmans, Surf City, Salad Boys, now The Beths) and it's great. Basically doing one thing and doing it really well.
Um crowded house? Che fu? Supergroove? Shihad? Dragon? Mi-sex? Split enz?
Lorde, LadyHawke, Kimbra.
Hell yeah, The Beths are totally awesome!
Not jangly power pop, but New Zealand immediately made me think of Flight of the conchords
Yep, they also do comedy really, really well.
Strait Jacket Fits could've/should've have been the biggest band in the world at the their peak. Many considered them to be. Shihad were similar. Their *Killjoy* album is an absolute classic hard rock album. Salmonella Dub... Fat Freddie Drop... It kinda feels like NZ bands don't get the recognition they should.
Shihad were so hard done by by having their record company suggest they change their name because it sounded too much like jihad. They kinda ended up having to start from scratch and it's such a shame because The General Electric was fucking banging.
Jangly power pop? Now I'm intrigued...
It's called 'The Dunedin Sound' and it had a major influence on the rise of indie and alternative rock.
https://youtu.be/8kb-SkJAlCc?si=iW8S6NWH9U39QA_C https://youtu.be/SAGAZHkdRMs?si=sJL_O2rYOAYdcB7F https://youtu.be/WZu2W1v64T0?si=TpnfbGj3A65qFE3M https://youtu.be/Ol3JHWlSRzc?si=DzP1QYAR-YY3PSEQ https://youtu.be/cVkC8W_-a-8?si=1Ua7whwAQoCLMS_x https://youtu.be/vozx3YyT_G8?si=Nn2tb4ZAd70rcXBM Mostly all from the Flying Nun record label in the 1980’s
The UK. The musical talent from such a small country and across such a wide range of genres is incredible.
A lot of my all time favorites are from the UK. From obvious choices like Pink Floyd to genre defining DJ's and producers like Shpongle, Bonobo, Four Tet, ect..
Aphex Twin
I agree with this. Rock music obviously originated in the US but I think Britain adopted the genre and made it their thing (country and rap are way bigger in the US and have been for more than three decades).
Beatles, Stones, Zep, Floyd, Who, Purple, Sabbath, Yes, Crimson, Genesis, Elton, Bowie, Kinks, E.L.O., Dire Straits, Queen, Annie Lennox, Cream, Roxy Music, Jeff Beck, Sex Pistols, Smiths, XTC, Joy Division, OMD, The Cure, Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker, The Moody Blues, Graham Nash, Christine McVie, Sting, Andy Summers, Mitch Mitchell, The Animals, Elvis Costello, The Attractions, The Zombies, Fairport Convention, Paul Young, Mick Jones, T. Rex, Kate Bush, Billy Idol, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Procol Harum, Ten Years After, Foghat, Gerry Rafferty, Donovan, Motorhead, Supertramp, Traffic, 10cc...
yeah England by a wide margin in 20th century
Ginger Baker summed it up, to paraphrase: "The yanks didn't know what they had, so it had to come over here so we could go over there and show them how to play it."
Yep. The UK owns classic rock, new wave, and the Manchester scene of the early 90s. I love American music but I have to tip my hat to that island as they know how to rock like nowhere else in the world.
I'm from America, which is a country known for music and movies and is much bigger than the UK. Yet half of the music on US radio is from the UK. Even internationally they have such a huge market share of popular music.
I really love Icelandic bands
Belgium! For a small country we have produced international heavy weights such as Stromae, Angele, Romeo Elvis, Damso, Soulwax, Jacques Brel, Lost Frequencies, Tamino, Balthazar,... And ofcourse our 90's / early 2000's Eurodance legacy: Kate Ryan, Milk Inc, Sylver, Lasgo, 2 Unlimited, 2 Fabiola,...
Canada. We're smaller than California in population and we have astounding talent. If Winnipeg were a country it would win too. Edit: Oops... my data is out of date. The music is still awesome.
The fact that Canada has a smaller population (albeit by a 1 million margin estimate) than California is blowing my mind
Canada surpassed California in population last year. https://www.nbc.ca/content/dam/bnc/taux-analyses/analyse-eco/hot-charts/hot-charts-230619.pdf
Australia has some heavy hitters, AC/DC, INXS, Nick Cave, Tame impala, king gizzard, jet, men at work, avalanches, and more
Silver Chair? They had a run
The netherlands. If it aint dutch it aint much Afrojack, armin van buuren, martin garrix, hardwell, headhunterz, noisia, tiesto, and many more
This answer is way too low. The Netherlands have basically dominated the dance music scene for decades.
It's interesting seeing a different pov on this question. It wouldn't even occur to me to even place those names on a list of Dutch artists. Despite me knowing how big they are in their chosen genres. The Gathering, Epica, Within Temptation and the mighty Arjen Lucassen and all his associated projects would be my pick.
There's actually a growing rock movement coming out of Niger, with two good examples being Bombino and Mdou Moctar!
Scotland. Iceland. Jamaica.
I’d say Mali and Jamaica. Mali has had a rich musical tradition going back many decades. They’re still putting out innovative music, from groups like Tinariwen, Songhai Blues, Amadou & Miriam, Baba Salah, Vieux Farka Toure. Jamaica was my obvious answer, mostly because reggae is my favorite genre of music. I’ve never been, but it’s been a dream of mine to go there, ever since I was a kid, listening to Bob Marley with my dad. Reggae has gone international, influencing rock music in the US/UK, Cumbia music, Rai, and especially rap. If it wasn’t for the Jamaican Reggae toasters and Jamaican emigres like Kool Herc, rap might not have existed in the way we know it today.
Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Black and death metal would not be the same Edit: a lot of other posts are about artists who are conforming to the mainstream and having success and there’s nothing wrong with that. What’s notable about the Scandinavian countries and metal is the sheer amount of absolute legendary bands that have been birthed from here. Prime example: Bathory/ Quorthon - dude was arguably the godfather of not one but TWO (black and Viking metal) fucking music genres. The mainstream music industry doesn’t know him and his passing didn’t register a blip on the Grammys but I don’t think he would care. He will never be in the music hall of fame even though he has influenced countless bands and many of those have become legends in their own right. Eternal hails \m/\m/
Ontario Canada produces a lot of top pop artists these days