Why Do You Guys Sound American...

....when you sing? This is something that I've always noticed for years, but just thought to actually ask some foreigners.... when Brits, Aussies, and even some from a non-English speaking background sing, they often times "lose" their accent and "sound American".

Why is this? Do any of you know? Is it by accident, or is it planned? Do they "sound American" on purpose to sell more records in America, or is it just the way the voice changes when the sounds are elongated?

Some examples:

Simon Cowell was their voice coach?

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I dunno actually. I've always wondered this as well when listening to the likes of Led Zep, Pink Floyd, and A.C. D.C. on a Classic Rock radio station here.

Case in point for me is Brian Johnston (AC DC's lead singer) on Top Gear. I know why he's annoymous. It's because his talking voice is NOTHING like his singing voice.

Yes. Your normal talking voice is quite different from your singing (or head) voice. The fact that you have to hit certain notes/tones at certain times and prolong them (or not) quite often means forgoing your accent. Of course some people will do this consciously any way while others won't worry about it and still see it happening. You see it more often nowadays as the young ones try to sound as American (and therefore, mainstream) as possible so that they can appeal to a much broader audience and thus, profit!

That being said, I've heard a lot of singers who haven't forgone their accents (case in point, the Proclaimers and their lovely, lovely Scottish accent *drool*). And if you really fine tune your ears, you can always pick up that bit of cultural background in there.

I would walk 500 miles!

Gotta say though, really sad that Elton John and The Spice Girls are the 2 Brit choices, but the oobservation is accurate. As for why people do it, I've no idea, so will go with The Rrrrabbit on that.

It's actually surprisingly hard to sing with an accent. People like the Proclaimers will have had to make a conscious effort to sound like they do. The vast majority of singers are busy concentrating on the lyrics and melody so as a result people singing in the same language generally sound like they have the same accent.

You could ask why Americans sound like Brits when they sing...

Though they are undoubtedly much less popular, things opera, traditional folk songs and choral elements of classical pieces (all of which I love) are examples to the contrary.

Since a lot of contemporary musical styles can trace their origins to the United States the accent has carried over when those styles are embraced by other cultures.

I think, ultimately, the accent suits the music.

My assumption is that it's all due to Rock'n'Roll being imported from America!

Deep in the mists of time, Johnny Kidd and Roger Daltrey are the first names who spring to mind when I try and think of English rock singers who have an "English Rock Voice" - punk/new wave re-established English accents as rock vocals later, but I think it's probably a style/trend thing.

The English pop and rock industry aped the likes of Elvis, Pat Boone et al in the early sixties (Cliff Richard started as one of the many "British Elvis" types, and Adam Faith's early career was based on impersonating Buddy Holly's vocal style, for example).

People like Jagger and Lennon are kind of mid-Atlantic, I guess, which is only to be expected, given their influences, which also explains why Ray Davies and Steve Marriot could sing like Americans on bluesy/rock songs, but slip into very English on non-traditional numbers.

From your examples, Westley, I'd probably go with the Corrs and ONJ drawing their style from Country, and the Bee Gees started out in the tradition of US vocal harmony groups. U2 have always aspired to be stadium rockers, but Bono and Elton John have both become much more "TransAtlantic" in their phrasing and accent as they've become older and settled more snugly into the American genre.

It's all a part of the homogenization of mainstream rock and pop. The "MOR"ing of international pop has an American accent, I'm afraid - it's what the Spice Girls were told to do when they were created, and it's just gone on and on from there. English used to be a common accent for rock and pop (Noddy Holder! Suggs! Ian Dury!) but is much less so in the mainstream now, not least because these days Simon Cowell has everyone singing power ballads, which means likes of Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke all have to sound like Mariah Carey

Leona and Alexandra fail though. Not at sounding like Mariah Carey, just in general.

I would suggest it's more to do with what European exports actually become popular in the US, than to do with how all European singers sound.

Pop singers here frequently talk about "cracking the US" - most of the home-grown stuff that's popular here in the UK, no one's even heard of in the US. On the other hand, US stuff tends to be popular both sides of the Atlantic. So artists Americanise or genericise themselves (in both accent and content) in an attempt to crack the US market - and that's what you end up hearing. No real insult intended to the artists in question, it makes sense that if you want to sell on a global market, you don't want to sing about cultural references that probably won't make sense to people outside of your area, and you don't want to do it in an accent that people either won't understand or think sounds funny.

Some of it is probably also to do with (over)production techniques used in popular music. And some is probably just down to personal style and choice.

There's plenty of stuff over here, generally the less poppy hip-hop end of things, where you can hear UK accents. The more rock-sounding phase we went through recently over here in popular music not only resulted in generalised UK accents, but even regional ones, being heard in pop music.

Likewise, why does most popular US music not really feature southern or western US accents? Why do country singers always try to sound like they're from the mid-western US, even if they're from a different country?

Its been a long long time since Olivia Newton-John or Bee Gees were considered an Australian band ...
They both have spent more of thier musical careers/lives in US it's no spurise they sound something like American more than Australian.

and this

I've lived in the deep south my whole life. Odd thing is, my accent isn't that strong.
Unless I'm singing, then no matter what, my voice always conjurs up the most campy country twang imaginable!

Even when it's church songs. Heck, I even make White Zombie sound southern...

I don't get it. No one has yet replied: "No, we don't all sound American, you lot sound English."

Actually, there's something to Bindweed's comment. Certainly when 'Rock and Roll' initially started moving over here from the US, the performers made an effort to have it sound like American music, because that was what sold. The best example I can think of is Cliff Richard. You just have to see some of the early, black-and-white footage of him doing his stuff to see where the influence comes from. He's even acting like Elvis, complete with the lip thing.

Beyond that, I strongly believe that most singers who move into a more international market end up with a horribly generic, Ameri-Euro-World-English sound. I'm sitting hear in America, I've spent a week listening to accents from all over, and believe me, none of the American singers I can think of sound like the people who are speaking over here.

The real question would be "why do all singers end up sounding the same" not "why do they sound American."