To ask: Why do English singers sing in an American accent?

[rainydaysarebad]

I can only think of a hand full of exceptions: lily Allen, the streets...that man who sings "our house", Damon albarn. Everyone else sings in an American accent. Even my daughter sings in an American accent. Wth is this? Why does it happen?

My ds's been awake for 40mins and this is all ican think about....

I am still laughing here at the notion that Lily Allen can actually sing... she talks her way though her songs, with a mockney accent and sounds dreadful.

Walton John is a brilliant typo/autocorrect

rainydaysarebad he swears that's his normal sex voice.

Lily Allen's mockney accent grates but I think she's got quite a nice voice, even in her 40-a-day days

Elton walton John is the worst offender in this department. He's always sung in an American accent but it was really pleasant to listen to in his early days - now he sounds like he's got the constipation from hell

My DH is a rock singer and he never does this. He puts it down to being trained by an opera tutor who would not have tolerated it. Most of the 'singers' in the charts these days have had very little or no proper training. My own singing teacher from years back used to stop me in the middle of a song if I lapsed into Yank and enquire "why on earth are you singing it in that odd, nasal tone?!" (She was v.posh)

There are now loads of Scottish bands now singing in Scottish accents as ratspeaker mentions - make me feel all warm inside :)

I like American bands singing in their own accents but manufactured groups like shitey One Direction makes me want to cut my ears off

The Twang sing in Black Country accents. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy it does :o

angrybeaver

but Lily Allen doesnt sing in an american accent - i think she sings in an awful mockney accent as said upthread ^ ditto for Damon Albarn and Suggs ('our house' bloke) i thought they were annoyingly mockney (Damon and Lily are 'posh' normally)

but yes i get your OP, people like Ronan Keating make my teeth itch. Loving the quote from Sinead O'Connor btw!

In one of my old Linguistics textbooks there is a graph (an actual graph!) charting the occurrence of American accent features in Beatles songs from their first single to their last. IIRC the graph goes in a smooth downward slope! I always found that quite interesting, that they sounded so American at the beginning and less so by the end.

it is very hard to sing certain vowel sounds and so in order to many singers have to sing a different pronunciation in order to keep keep an open throat and mouth.

but agree lots of singers do just sing with fake american accents.

I change according to the song. If I'm doing Iris DeMent or Emmy Lou Harris, my normal middle class anglicised ulster just sounds weird.

Doing my own stuff, I use my own accent. But you can't get a sufficient amount of whiney country twang in the song with that

Billy Bragg, Ian Dury, Gruff Rhys, Stuart Murdoch, many named above plus I could go on. Basically anyone worth listening to doesn't sing in a fake American accent.

YANBU.

Noah and the Whale.

Shut up. You are not Portland hipsters. You're from Twickenham.

My DD sings and role pays in an American accent too, it drives me crazy! Definitely too much Disney...

Also YANBU. It's awful when they do.

Agred it's really annoying, although sometimes necessary. I was once in a fab bar in New York where all the staff were really good singers. They were doing a thing where they sang but occassionally stuck the microphone in front of someone and you had to sing the next work in the song. When they did "You're So Vain" by Carly Simon they got to the line about "Your scarf it was....." then the next thing I knew the microphone was under my nose and I ended up saying "apricot" in a ridiculously posh English accent (think Ayy-pricot rather than the American a-pricot). Sounded utterly ridiculous and I felt a real numpty.....!

(agreed even)

urgh yes Noah and the Whale - nonono!

The Wurzels dont sing in American

sniggers

Artesia- I bet they loved it though. When I was in New York they couldn't get enough of my accent.

I'm glad I'm not the only person who gets really really completely irrationally annoyed by this

Also non-US rappers who rap with an American accent. WHY?

Well at least if America took over there would finally be some decent weather in this country. Not to mention, you had your chance. If your soldiers weren't wearing bloody redcoats so every patriot could see them, maybe they would have won the revolution and the British accent would have stuck.

Quoting letsblowthistacostandIt's part of the whole American world dominance plan. Take over the tv, get all the children to say MOM instead of MUM, pants instead of trousers.... The next thing you know, Britain will be an American colony and all its rich culture will be lost!!!! Muwahahaha!!!! Lock up your children before the Americans come and make them stupid and fat!!

Americans can make the weather better?????? Fuck independence Scotland should become a US State if they can stop it bloody raining!

Right, you've just had me singing You're So Vain in a broad Glasgow accent, or maybe more in the style of The Proclaimers - it's not pretty. Maybe we just try and mime the original artist and whatever accent they use.

I think people just lose their accent when singing though. It's a strange phenomenon.

this is why i love Gruff Rhys and Roots Manuva

i think mumford and sons are the worst offenders though - desperate to be from Wexford when they're from Wimbledon