Why Isn't Rock More internationally Based?

Question

If you think about it...every great or well known Rock Band in rock history has come from a very small pool of countries
The United States
The United Kingdom
Carada
Australia
Germany
And that's about it
Do you know of a single Great rock Band that comes from France? or Russia? or Algeria for that matter?
Anyone have any thoughts on why this is...or know of a well known bands from countries i didn't mention?

Carada??????
Dagblasted typos

I meant
CANADA

sorry....lol

Sepultra I've heard of

Scandanavia Yes..they do Metal pretty well

GREAT Answer Cinnamon

steven
You're Russian?
Awesome
Allow me to say You're English is Excellent

Pretty cool Steve
The city in the first video was moscow right?
That second band was LOUD
Nice

Squiks
I did say the United Kingdom which includes
England
ireland
Scotland
AND
Wales

no Cinnamon not sarcasm
i meant it

Hi rukrym
Sorry...it was My understanding that those four countries together made up the United Kingdom...
But I surely don't wish to offend
Considering I'm about
1/4 Irish
&
1/4 Scottish

Jordan is a lovely country
Rocket Queen
my Compliments

None Taken whatsoever Smilet
You're quite correct

Even though I'm Aerican if a had to pick a favorite country for rock it would be England by far and away

Fab
WOW Whatta List

Two Headed Girl
I apologize for My incorrect understanding there
And I think Ireland had played a gret part in the History of Rock
Just
Van Morrison
Thin Lizzy
&
U2
Alone guarantee Ireland's place

Answer 1

carada, hehe.

I think it's simply down to language. English is the dominant language internationally but many bands from "foreign" countries choose to sing in their native tongue, which is fine for domestic fame but you can't expect much international success unless you sing in English - that's just how it goes.
But then that doesn't explain why English speaking/singing bands from other countries don't seem to find fame... maybe someone else has that answer.


edit; hehe, I wasn't sure if that was sarcasm or not. Thanks Darth.

edit; Wow, the Irish on the rampage, hehe.

Answer 2

Hey Darth, interesting question.

First off, this doesn't relate to the question, but Ireland isn't part of the UK, and you might want to be careful who you say that around, some people wouldn't take it too well, LOL. Kind of like saying New Zealand is part of Australia, or China and Japan are the same.

But back to the question, like Cinnamon said, I think it's largely due to the language barrier. However, you still find that bands from, for example, England, still have a lot of difficulty getting big in the US. It can be difficult for bands to cross over not only language barriers, but also geographic ones, I think partly because that music industry is so over-saturated, and there's scarcely room for new bands to break through. So I suppose that it's entirely possible, or even likely, that there have been in the past, and are now, really good bands in countries outside of the ones you mentioned that just never get international acclaim.

Edit:
No need to apologise, I'm sure a lot of people make the same mistake. Besides, I wasn't offended in the least :)

Answer 3

I've thought about this many times, and I think that Rock music is usually associated with the English language. The countries you've listed all have English as a first language (well, except for germany) , so I guess that's why most Rock bands come from the U.S., the U.K., etc..

But rock bands coming from other parts of the world do exist, even if they represent a very small portion of all the rock bands.. I don't know about Classic Rock bands, but there are currently many, very popular Spanish Rock bands..

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

Even in my country (Egypt), there are a few.. they just haven't had mainstream success, as people here prefer to listen to folkloric music..

That's an interesting question Darth, it gets a star :)

Answer 4

lol, Darth. Ireland ain't part of the UK. Six counties in the North are, but the rest is a completely different country. (Altough we do share a lot of media with the UK - including the UK/Ireland yahoo site -, so it's understandable that you might think that.)

We've had almost no part in rock hisory. There's Van Morrison and Stiff Little Fingers (who are from the north, and therefore technically from the UK.) Then there's U2 (*shudder*) ,Thin Lizzy, The Boomtown Rats, and Rory Gallagher. That's about it. I doubt I'd know many of them if I wasn't Irish though.

I do listen to a bit of Japanese music, but I can't say I really know a lot about it.

edit:*** Don't worry about it. ^_^ I wrote that before I saw rukrym's answer, I wouldn't have said anything otherwise. I just thought I should say something in case you get bottled by angry IRA types should the topic come up during some future hypothetical St Patrick's Day. I hope I didn't sound like I was ranting or anything. ^_^

Answer 5

Well I'm an internationally based rock *fan*...

Here though, "here" being Jordan, there's a handful of reallllllllly good local rock bands.

Maybe cause those are all English speaking countries?
I mean you can hardly be a rock band and sing in Arabic... or Japanese.. or Swahili.

Edit: Yeah, basically what Cinnamon and some others have said lol. Once again, I'm *so* unoriginal.

Why, thank you very much, Darth!

hedZy - We're practically neighbors. :)

Answer 6

I'm sure Smiley will have more to add....he is the groovy guru.
Russian artists were very restricted in the days of the Iron Curtain. It wasn't until the 80's that the Russian bands got to surface legally. One band I remember from the 70's thru even the 80's is Aquarium. Radio Africa is a bootleg I remember hearing in the early 80's that a friend of mine had. Other than not understanding a word they were singing, the music reminded me of 60's-70's western hard rock sprinkled with jazz.
That's all I have...but thanks for the brain blast.

Answer 7

The origional Mahavishnu Orchestra was a pretty multi-national group
McLaughlin was born in Yorkshire, England;
Cobham was born in Panama;
Hammer hailed from the Czech Republic;
Goodman, an American, was raised in Chicago;
Laird, an Irishman, was born in Dublin.
Bob Marley is Jamaican
Ravi Shankar who is Indian though not necessarily rock had a HUGE impact on rock
Santana is Mexican
Van Morrison is from Ireland

Answer 8

Darth hello

yes there are few Rock bands from Russia.
well LOL "Master", Chrernii coffee

my favorite: Machina vremeni, DDT

Enjoy bro!

Yes I'm and Thank you Darth!! :)

yes that was Moscow, the History of russian rock were built in mainly 2 cities Moscow and St. Petersburg

DDT, and Machina Vremeni came from those 2 cities. as matter a fact friend of mine :) me I just love Makarevich songs and Machina vremeni songs :)

Answer 9

Well the countries you mentioned have probably been longer exposed to the rock genre therefore have had time to develop their 'greats'. Perhaps the other countries are still growing into the rock genre. Of the countries you mentioned and in some answers, they are more well-known and powerful than most so I feel it would be expected that they would have the greats.

Answer 10

Many rock bands now come from Scandinavia.
In Flames and Nightwish both come from Scandinavia (Sweden and Finland respectively) and are very successful at what they do. There are many other bands from Scandinavia such as:
Amon Amarth
Moonsorrow
Trollfest
Windir
Wintersun

There are more bands coming from France in this department now, such as Anorexia Nervosa. As for other countries, Czech Republic has 807 metal bands!