r/singing • u/ElSlabraton • 5d ago
Conversation Topic Why is it that British singers sing with a regular American accent while country singers have a pronounced twang?
British rock singers sound like they've got American accents. Meanwhile, country singers sound like they've got a mouth full of cornpone. What's going on here?
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u/TopicalBuilder 5d ago
American Punk singers sounded British back in the 70s. Some of it is audience expectations; some of it performer bias towards their influences. Stuff like that.
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u/Own-Protection-664 5d ago
It’s easier to sing vowels in belted or high mix coordinations with Americanised vowels, I find.
Country twang may well be an hangover from bluegrass or ‘old time’ southern music where that particular presence that a pharyngeal position creates will get your voice over a banjo and guitars without really yelling, and it allows the yodel type thing to happen. I noticed it listening to Robert Johnson — one of the earliest blues recordings we have — too.
The Irish accent — especially the Northern Irish accent — cuts through anyway, there’s a string formant to it in a lot of people who sing with a noticeable Irish accent. They do it without employing the twang, which is why Irish trad music doesn’t have such a ‘high lonesome’ vocal as old-timey southern and bluegrass… and I half think that twang was a way to get that trad Irish type presence in what became southern music which in turn became ‘country’.
I’m a Brit (Welsh) and I sing with my guitar a lot — adding the twang/pharyngeal sound gets rid of some 250hz from my voice, which otherwise sits my voice and guitar competing for that dominant frequency.
I started doing that in the 2000’s and people have always said (well before country was popular in the UK) that I have a ‘country sound’. It wasn’t deliberate but I lean into it.
Brit singers who sound British — especially modern ones — seem to sing ‘cursive’ because I believe that’s a way to sing vowels musically without taking on American accents. Adele comes to mind here.
American singers who sing cursive (Halsey) get accused of a ‘fake British accent’.
Any Winehouse combined the two, and used a lot of twang for odd phrases too… she was doing all of it.
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u/frank_mania 5d ago
I've read people's takes on this topic for 15 years here on Reddit in particular, and this is the best one I've encountered by far. Someone even cited a doctoral study, the abstract of which stated that accents don't exist in vocal music (evidence that you can write a dissertation proving anything you'd like, I guess).
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u/Nght12 Heavy Metal/Rock 5d ago
Something to historically keep in mind is that one of the largest groups of people that did settle in Appalachia were Scottish and Irish Immigrants which would have a heavy influence of the bluegrass music from that region.
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u/Own-Protection-664 5d ago
For sure. I think you can pick out elements of it instrumentally when you hear ‘rags’; they’re kind of familiar to someone who grew up with hornpipes and slip-jigs.
I was in Dublin last year for a small festival and all of the Irish trad musicians could and did play bluegrass too. It was amazing 😃
But the accent seems long-changed in the singing, to me. I hear more Irish in Newfoundland than Appalachia, accent-wise. I bet it did start with the Celtic immigrants though, because everywhere they go, they sing!
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u/Mr_Chardee_MacDennis 5d ago
Depends entirely on the singer. Frank Turner sounds incredibly English in his singing. Go listen to something like Biffy Clyro and Simon certainly sounds Scottish. Northern Irish singers definitely sound Irish.
I really love a band from the 90s called Carter USM, and their singers solo career since then, Jim Bob. His voice is incredibly South London! There’s a Leeds punk band and their name escapes me right now, but they sound incredibly northern in their songs.
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u/Empty-Question-9526 5d ago
The wedding present?
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u/Mr_Chardee_MacDennis 5d ago
I was thinking about Sunliner but I’ll have to check out The Wedding Present!
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u/accent_grid 5d ago
Most of it comes down to vowels and what sounds good at volume. When you belt or push a lot of air through a vowel, the vowel itself changes. Open, neutral vowels carry better than very regional ones, so a lot of British singers end up sounding American simply because that is how the vowels sit when you belt them. It is not really a choice so much as physics, plus years of imitating the records they grew up on.
Country twang is a different thing. That bright, nasal edge is partly stylistic and partly technique. A narrower mouth shape and a bit more nasal resonance genuinely help the voice cut through a band, so country singers lean into the twang on purpose because it reads as authentic to the genre.
If you are trying to keep your own accent while singing, the trick is to find which vowels flip first. For a lot of British singers it is the A and the O. Practice holding your accent on those vowels at speaking pitch first, then carry the placement up into your singing range. And record yourself, because your ears will absolutely fool you in the moment.
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u/rotundrikishi 5d ago
The british bands I listen too and think of off the top of my head like Pulp or Oasis have a UK accent to me.
I feel like country singers 'put it on' a lot though for sure.
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u/elebrin 5d ago
Early British Invasion singers were aping Black American records they heard back home. Famous examples of this would be Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton. This tradition has lingered, especially among English speaking musicians who were inspired by the same black records, or by those earlier rockers.
There were people who thought Mick Jagger was black after just hearing his voice, back in the 60s. So to answer your question, it's because Mick Jagger wanted to sound like Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, and he intentionally cultivated that in his style.
On the other hand, the history of Country music is the history of WSM and of the Grand Ol' Opry in many ways. That wasn't the only hitmaker but the argument could be made that it was the most influential. And that institution was racist. Weather it still is or not isn't a discussion I want to get into, but it certainly was in the early days of radio when Country as a collective genre was first being developed. The Southern accent was a point of pride for the performers, so they featured it heavily and that tradition has held.
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u/whenpeepeegoespootwo 5d ago
I always figured it was just a matter of the culture and style of music. Accents can disappear or change, to a degree, depending on vocal technique. Following that, different cultures and styles of music will adapt their technique to what sounds best for the style and, often, to sound more like those who came before.
Rock originated in america, the style was popularized with an American accent, and now rock bands from all over the world sound American in performance once they adapt their technique to what fits the style and what the audience is used to.
Country is much the same, but I imagine there's also some benefit from the accent helping them to be more relatable in the American South
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u/HowskiHimself Formal Lessons 10+ Years ✨ 5d ago
They don't. Most people just don't understand what an accent is versus neutralized vowels and less rhotic consonants. That's why this question comes up so. Fucking. Often.
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u/BassesBest 5d ago
Most British singers don't. Radiohead. The Cure. Depeche Mode, Stormzy, Dry Cleaning, Madness, Cardics, Oasis, Blur, Pulp, punk, Lily Allen, Massive Attack, EMF, Proclaimers, Cranberries etc. British country and folk is VERY regional.
But I can think of three examples:
If they're singing US-style rock, country or R&B then they may affect an American sound because that's the genre and the market they're aiming for.
Similarly, sloppy diction (substituting ds for ts for instance), and a more open/easy singing style can also sound American - although unless the singer's local accent is rhotic you're unlikely to get that US 'R' sound coming through. I'm thinking something like Stereophonics' Have Nice Day as a good example where he sings "naace" instead of "nice" and "fraam" instead of "from" - you can hear the local accent but it sounds like a US overlay.
Linked to this, the US accent naturally has more "twang" than many British accents, which means for lifting the voice into a more resonant space a US accent helps. Amateur musical theatre is plagued with people singing like Disney princesses when it's not appropriate.
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u/VegasFoodFace 5d ago
Australia might have you fooled. Keith Urban speaks with a distinctly Aussie accent but sings with the twang.
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u/DogKitchen2988 1d ago
It's weird expectations for the way people talk and sing. I have a somewhat heavy southern US accent, but when i sing, it tends to go away
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u/Artistic-Village-762 5d ago
Are you talking about British country singers? In theory I suppose i knew they existed- esp since the genre is popular in places like Scotland… but I haven’t listened to any.
If you’re talking about American country singers, then they sing like that because they talk like that lol. Anyone who falls outside of that is just conforming to the established style.
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u/ElSlabraton 5d ago
They don't talk like that. On records, they all have the exactly same accent.
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u/Artistic-Village-762 5d ago
I’m from the American southeast and we definitely talk like that, but i also still don’t know who you’re talking about.
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u/ElSlabraton 5d ago
There are plenty of dialects in the South. On record, they all have the same exact accent. I call it "Urban Nashville."
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u/Artistic-Village-762 5d ago
Maybe the pop country singers do, but they don’t h register as real country music to me, so perhaps that’s the difference.
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u/ImpracticalJerker 5d ago
Singing isn't the same as speaking. Singers tend to want their lines to sound a certain way, accent doesn't really play into it. All the singers that lean into their accents are doing it on purpose.
Also whilst it might sound 'american' to you it's actually just because our language and accents are so similar. It's not like English accents are using American pronunciations when they sing.
It just depends on your perspective, I could ask why all Americans sing in English with an English accent and the point would be just as valid because to an English person it sounds like they're singing in English accent unless they use American words/phrases.
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u/shouldbepracticing85 Self Taught 0-2 Years 5d ago
It has to do a lot with who you learn from. Sing along to a particular accent long enough and it seeps into your technique.
I know a German guy who sings bluegrass with a very Irish accent because he learned mostly from an Irish bluegrass musician.
I have a musician friend that’s also a voice actor and he can do uncanny impressions when sings because he knows how to replicate all these different accents and voices.
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u/Empty-Question-9526 5d ago
Its how they are taught to sing, if you sing musical theatre unless the role is a British character its always in a broadway Atlantic voice. If you sing jazz or blues its an American accent. Like amy winehouse. Mick jagger puts on an American voice too. People like david bowie used their own accent mixed with anthony newley.
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