British vs American Music

It has been seen in recent years, that while American music has sold very well both in America and over here, British music has failed to make much of an impact on the American scene. This differs much from the 1960's, when british music such as The Beatles heavily influenced the American music scene and arguably started off today's musical culture. It is easy to see this shift by looking at the top selling singles charts for both nations, Britain appears to have a mix of both home grown and American talent where as the American charts are more or less dominated by American artists. This is the case even more so in the modern rock charts, with the very Americanised rendition of popular rock dominating the charts. It would be unfair to argue that the quality of music is better across the atlantic although the catchy riffs and deep, expressive lyrics of the 'emocore' genre originated over there. The has been evidence however, of british bands such as Funeral For A Friend and Lostprophets taking on these characteristics and thus expanding the genre to include original British artists using the 'emocore' characteristics to reach out to an otherwise American dominated area of music and audience.

It has been argued that the reason British music is no longer as popular over the atlantic is due to the capitolist nature of the American media at the moment, with members of the American public having learnt from the media to fear or reject anything foreign and only accept things they believe to be wholly American. On the contrary some British bands have been able to be somewhat successful in America in recent years, one of which being Lostprophets, who on one of their most recent records "Liberation Transmission", borrow heavily from the 'emocore' genre, and have successfully broadcasted their music over to the ever growing 'emocore' audience in America, where the genre began.

British bands do also often deal with issues in their lyrics that are very British, such as our politics or society, which is the main argument given as to why Britpop never really took of in America. 'Emocore', however draws solely on emotion and experiences generalisable to people in any developed country, such as loneliness and heartbreak, which may be why bands such as Lostprophets have found some success with American audiences.