Germany, Netherlands, and China top hits

This post is, like the past few posts, based on the website top40-charts.com and will first look at German top 40 hits. It is clear now why Germany felt they needed a radio quota because never has globalization been more present than in the German top forty charts. There are over 12 different countries represented in just 40 songs! German artists only accounted for 15%, as did U.K. artists. However, American artists made up an overwhelming 47.5%. This is not too surprising after seeing the results from other European countries. Romania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Finland, France, Australia, Switzerland, Ireland, and Belgium were each represented with 2.5%. What is more interesting are some of the American and U.K. songs that made the list were songs that were popular here some time ago. Also, it appears out of 40 songs- only 4 are in German. This is a big difference to France, but that also has something to do with the radio quota, which is not in effect in Germany. The top song sung in German is not even very high, at number 12. That song is "Still" by Jupiter Jones. The video can be found here:

This next artist, Broke Fraser, is from New Zealand, so it's interesting that she has the number eleven song in Germany right now, yet is not popular here in America, although watching the video here, you would think she would:

This next video is at number 16 and is the epitome of globalization because it is a German band, Cascada, yet they are singing not only in English, but about a city in America, "San Francisco." This band may not be well known in America, but they have had some hits like with "Everytime we touch." The video can be found here:

And to show the other side of globalization, of remaining true to your local culture, this song "Nur In Meinem Kopf" by Andreas Bourani is at number 19 in Germany right now. The video can be found here:

Overall, Germany did have a fair degree of westernization and a huge amount of globalization found in their music, yet despite this, they are able to be true to their country and culture with German artists and German lyrics being popular in at least a handful of songs. 

The Netherlands top 40 charts paint a different picture of slightly less variety, but also more local artists than Germany had. There is 27.5% Dutch artists, 12.5% U.K. artists and at the most is once again America with 32.5%. However, unlike the usual American artists, Lady Gaga did not even make it on the lists when she had multiple hits on other top chart lists. Spain, Romania, and France all had 5% while Barbados, Sweden, Germany, and Ireland all had 2.5%. 

Globalization is present here as well, with the number 2 song there being an American cover song that Rochelle, winner of Dutch X-factor covered. You can find that video here:

Another winner of a Dutch reality show made the top 40 with the number 39 song being by Ben Saunders who was featured in a previous post on this blog. And the number five song is by an American artist from Columbia, SC named Alexis Jordan and she has multiple hits on the Netherlands top forty hits. I find this strange since I am only a few hours away from her town, yet I have never heard of her. This is another interesting effect of globalization and a factor facilitated by the ease of access to music thousands of miles away due to the internet. Actually, her song is pretty bad and I'm really surprised she's so popular in the Netherlands, but see for yourself and watch her video here:

Another interesting aspect of globalization present in the Dutch top forty is the majority of the songs are in English and only three are in Dutch and there is one in French and one is Spanish. It definitely seems that, like mentioned in earlier posts, Dutch people are very comfortable singing in English and statistically prefer it. The number 33 song is by a Dutch artist and Krystl is singing her song "Bottles" in English. You can hear that song here:

Lastly I am going to look at the top 20 hits in China, since earlier in this blog I looked at hip hop and rock music becoming popular in China and that there is a one-way flow of globalization from the west to the rest. If most of the music is from the west, this will confirm those studies. Without looking at anything else but the very first song, I can definitely say that westernization is present in China. The number 1 song is Miley Cyrus "Party in the USA" . . . this is the number one song in CHINA! Despite this fact, China actually had a large number of Chinese artists, at 50%. American singers composed 40% of the top 20 hits in China. The other 10% comes from Australia and Columbia. Here is the number two video in China by Australian band Empire of the Sun:

The top local, Chinese artist is at number 4 and is the first song in Chinese (although about 50% are). This video can be found here:

The number 9 video is also Chinese and is "Big Ben" by Ivana Wong. Most of the Chinese songs have the titles in English, but the lyrics are all in Chinese. That video can be found here:

Most of the other songs were difficult to find here in America. But pop/rock seems to be the popular genre in China. The hip hop article mentioned in previous posts is probably just a small subculture and isn't seen in popular music yet. But globalization is present, but not as much as expected. They do have their own stars and artists, but they have not made an impact outside of China yet, unlike most American artist.

Europe did seem to share a lot of their music, like a German artist can be popular in Norway, for instance. Perhaps that is why American music is popular everywhere because we have such a large scope of area and pool of artists to choose from that other countries don't have simply because of the size of the population.