This post is based on research of my own. The idea came from the last post where I looked at the top hits for Netherlands, Germany, and U.K. and at the corporations which own each label a particular artist is signed to. Only this time I will look at more nations and look at each song in the top 10, 20, or 40 (depending on what is available) and of those top hits I will determine the percentage or American artists, local (being a native from that country) artists, and other artists. I will use top40-charts.com to determine the top hits from various countries. This is a great resource because it has the top hits for 30 different countries. I can compare the results from each of the different countries and not only will this show a geographical pattern of globalization, but will reveal which countries have a greater percentage of globalization and which countries have the greater percentage of local artists and therefore less globalization. Another fact I would like to determine is if it is solely westernization occurring (or American artists being the most popular) or if what is occurring is truly globalization and the artists outside of the local country are from other countries besides the U.S.
First up are our closest allies- United Kingdom. If anyone will have a great amount of American artists it is a country who created the language we speak and the land of our forefathers. However, even just beginning this research, this trend is not showing up. The top three songs this week in the U.K. are from Example, Calvin Harris and Kelis, Ed Sheeran who are all from the U.K. Ed Sheeran was mentioned in the last post as well. However, after the results were tallied, the percentage of U.K. artists with the top hits in the U.K. were 30% while American artists had an overwhelming 50%. The rest was made up of 5% Romanian artists, 5% Italian artist with an American, 5% French artist with an American, 2.6% Barbadian, and 2.6% Swedish. The Romanian artist Alexandra Stan made it to number 8 on the charts with this video:
Now, comparing these results to the USA top singles results is interesting without even running the numbers yet because Adele "Rolling in the Deep" is the number 1 song in America right now and she is from the U.K. Despite this fact, 90% of the top songs in America are from American artists. Another 7.5% are from the U.K. and then of Rhianna is from Barbados and makes up the other 2.5%. These results aren't as clear as you might think because despite 90% of our artists being American, they all have a variety of rich heritage. Some of their parents are West African, Haitian, Filipino, Cuban, Hispanic, Palestinian, etc. Another strange thing when comparing the U.K. results to the U.S. results is a lot of the American artists popular in the U.K. are not the same ones popular in America. Nicole Scherzinger is much more popular there with the number 7 song in the U.K. I have also never heard of the American artist with the number 12 hit in the U.K., Aloe Blacc. This is due to him signing a contract with Epic Records just for U.K. and Ireland. His song can be found here:
And now for something completely different . . . Argentina. These results have shown me something I wasn't even looking for- the popular genres of music in each country. Without thoroughly examining it, I can sum up U.K. hits as pop and hip hop/rap while U.S. is pop and hip hop/rap and country. Argentina seems to find Latin music and Argentinian rock popular, which for me was an unexpected find. Argentina is much like the U.S. in it's numbers with 50% of their top hits belonging to Argentinian artists. Globalization does not have seemed to have spread much outside of South America and Central America. Puerto Rico holds 12.5% of their hits, as does Uruguay. The rest comes from America, Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia all with 6.25%. This is a surprising result, although I have done little research in South America. I believe the language barrier may be what hinders American music becoming popular here with the only American to breech this gap was Pit Bull, who also does his song in Spanish since he is a Cuban American. More surprisingly still is how much I like the number 2 song there right now, completely in Spanish and I can't understand a word, yet the video and song speaks it's own language here:
Also the number 3 video "Manuel Santillan El Leon" by Catupecu Machu is also worth showing. It's strong rock roots paired with the Spanish make it feel even heavier and I rather like it. You can find the video here:
I'll finish with Argentina by saying I'm impressed how it has managed to have so many great Argentinian artists in the top of their charts. Somehow they have managed to escape globalization, yet with rock music being some of their most popular- remain global and current all at the same time. If I wasn't impressed by Argentina simply because of Messi (the best soccer player in the world, if you didn't know) already . . . well, I am now. And I can't help myself, this number 5 video "Chau" by No Te Va A Gustar is just too cute not to show:
Argentina . . . your music is much better than ours. Now let's see if Brazil has similar taste. Nope, already I am disappointed in Brazil for it's blatant globalization with Adele, Lady Gaga, and Bruno Mars as it's top three hits. American artists represented 45% of the top music in Brazil, yet local Brazilian music still represented an equal 45% with the other 5% coming from Barbados and the United Kingdom. It's strange that two countries with the same language that are even sharing a border can have such different musical tastes. While a lot of Argentinian music was rock, most of Brazil's is pop and hip hop. Such as the number 5 song in Brazil "Um Beijo" by Luan Santana which can be seen here:
You can even hear all the girls singing along in the video. I guess this guy is like the Brazilian Justin Bieber. For a Spanish-speaking nation, it's strange that just over half of the songs are in English when in Argentina little to none were in English. Perhaps this is because Brazil is a larger nation with a better economy which also stems from it's tourist industry? I'm not sure.
Finland is a place that isn't often studied, so I'm going to look at the music there. Exactly 50% of Finland's top music is by Finnish artists, similar to Brazil. 35% is American music while 10% is UK and 2.5% is Romanian. Stereotypically enough, most of the videos associated with Finland's top music is ice hockey related. Most of the popular music is house, pop, electronic, hip hop type of music. I thought I would show the number four video "Haissa" by Jare & Villegalle as an example of the type of music popular in Finland, also in the video is a great example of globalization because in the beginning the man waking up has a poster of New York City behind him and he is drinking "Red Stripe," a Jamaican beer. Near the end of the video there is also a McDonald's shown. You can find this video here:
Actually, Finland has quite a variety of types of music in their top hits, including quite a few with a reggae sort of feel and then just sweet, romantic songs . . . that are in Finnish. The number 5 top song is "Silkkii" Jukka Poika which has the reggae feel I was talking about and that can be seen here:
And the romantic, slow song I was talking about is "Nuori Ja Kaunis" by Anna Jarvinen and made it to number 9 and can be found here:
So far, Argentina, Finland, Brazil all had an equal amount or more local hits than American hits which means that westernization and globalization are not striking with as much force as we might think. Countries are still able to maintain their own culture while globalization brings a few American hits into view, it does not overwhelm the talent that is already present in some many of these wonderful countries.
I will definitely look at more countries, especially France, Germany, the Netherlands, and at least one Asian country in a later post since those are the countries studied in previous posts.
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