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Music

Who is your country's favourite artist, and why?

Today saw the publication of of the list of the most illegally shared artist's in the world, and whilst the list is comprehensive enough right down to being able to find out who is the most pirated artist in your area, there isn't that much point because the answer is Ed Sheeran (unless you live in Hackney, where the answer is Pitbull, bizarrely). Manchester, Leeds, London as whole, everybody has been sharing the Ginger Prince's stoner balladry like our country folk from previous generations used to share The Black Death with each other. Even the usually difficult Glaswegian's have fallen for his good looks and sultry tones.

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What's slightly more interesting however, is what the rest of the world are listening to. It seems that Mr Sheeran is a god in his homeland only, something of a British Johnny Halliday, a talentless yet inexplicably popular domestic icon who sells albums only to peopley you never want to hang out with.

Although this list takes into account illegal downloading only, it's presumably pretty accurate and representative, because everybody knows that only Mum's pay for albums anymore.

So what is the rest of the world listening to, and who the hell are they? Like a blog game Richard Branson I decided to take a trip across the world in 180kbps to discover who's going to be the next pan-global superstar, and who's going to be a homeland hero.

County: United States Of America

Favourite Artist: Drake

Who?: Candaian softie rapper who's carved out a niche in Vino melancholy and bi-polar posturing.

Why?: America's going through a testing time right now, it's a country with an identity crisis, a few problems with authority and not a lot of money to it's name. Of course they aren't all going to be listening to truck stop mega-sellers like Ted Nugent or Creed anymore, that shit is far too gung-ho, too Christian for a nation going through such a difficult time. Having being birthed around the same time most state's had already found themselves, America is a moody teenage boy right now rather than the wheezing old man that the rest of the world is. America has depression whilst we have dementia. Drake is the perfect artist for an era of uncertainty, his hedonistic self doubt is the sound of a country that knows it can fuck anyone it wants, but ask's itself why.

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Country: Australia

Favourite Artist: Hilltop Hoods

Who?: You thought UK-Hip Hop was a bit naff? Try Australian Hip-Hop. Coming straight outta Adelaide, Hilltop Hoods have been at the forefront of the Aussie Rap scene since 1991, think the Beastie Boys, but only on the albums when they talked about 9/11. And yes, they do Rap in their native accent (although the slight American and UK inflections do make them sound a bit like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins).

Why?: Let's face it, outside of Baz Lurhmann, Australians are a pretty macho bunch. Even their artsy singers like Nick Cave look like they could probably win an arm wrestle in an outback bar. Hilltop Hoods seem to be the sound of that modern, urban Australia that the cliches don't really touch. They look like the supporting cast of Chopper and they sound a bit like Foreign Beggars, or Eminem at his most tediously earnest. Australians have always been fiercely protective of their own culture, and suspicious of other's, so it makes sense that their biggest amongst the kids would be home-grown. They're basically Midnight Oil with a turntables (they probably use turntables).

Country: France

Favourite Artist: Sexion D'Assaut

Who?: The Wu-Tang of the Banlieues, a membership shifting Hip-Hop collective from the violent suburbs that surround Paris. Their name is a kind of Nazi pun, and they have frequently been accused of homophobia. Which is pretty small fry compared to some of the things the Wu have been accused of.

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Why?: The French don't like to talk about their ghettoes much, but as anyone who's seen La Haine or VICE's very own Sound Of The Suburbs series (or just stayed too long on the Metro one night) will know, France is a deeply divided society. Even just spending a few hours in a major city there, you can tell that there's an "in" and an "out" of French life. Sexion D'Assaut's raison d'etre is giving the rest of France a glimpse of the horrors of it's outskirts, their style is uncomprimising and philosophical in that way only the French can do. There's actually government quotas of how much French language music has to be played on the radio, so homegrown acts are stil extremely popular in France, and Sexion D'Assaut are the Urban branch's leading light.

Country-(ies): India, Brazil, Greece, Romania

Favourite Artist: Billy Van

Who?: Good question. The man doesn't even have a Wikipedia, but aparently he's the biggest illegally downloaded artist in some of the world's biggest economies. He might look like Henry Holland, but he actually peddles the kind of lowest common denominator Dubstep that makes Skrillex look one of the original Croydon crew.

Why?: Two words: "Tiesto, Remix". Billy Van is riding on the coat-tails of electronic music's most inexplicable mogul. Billy seems to be a Dubstep producer in the same way that DJ Otzi was a House producer, it's the original idea taken down to it's absolute lowest level. The fact that his website is even called Billyvandubstep.com shows that he's an artist who's not really interested in genre-bending or ambiguity. Dubstep is the biggest growing genre in music right now, and Billy's idea is obviously to capitalise on it by taking out all of the niche elements, and purifying it to it's womp-only core. It's like if somebody heard Thrash Metal and tried to replicate it with only the guitar solo's.

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Country: Sweden

Favourite Artist: Laleh

Who?: Hippy-ish Swedish-Iranian folk singer in the vein of Norah Jones and various other Radio 2 types that still live off getting a a song on an iPod ad.

Why?: Well, with a few obvious exceptions, Scandanavian's are a fairly tolerant, P.C. bunch and no doubt Laleh's brand of rousing, positive ethno-folk vibes no doubt prove a hit with the people. Her's is the sound of a government sanctioned street festival in Gothenburg, it's the liberal European dream personified in a fairly attractive package that has obviously set the Swedish airwaves alight. Although it's odd that so many of her fans have illegally downloaded her work, usually this kind of music is bought exclusively to furnish coffee tables, maybe it's all part of some Euro-Freegan identity that i'm far too colonial to understand.

Country: Canada

Favourite Artist: Kanye West

Who?: Chi-town producer turned producer rapper who used to make beats for Jigga, now makes clothes for Japanese fashion students and people with too much money.

Why?:Maybeit's because they're too loyal to buy his albums, but Canada have chosed Yeezy above their homegrown hero Dreezy when it comes to pirating music. It makes sense though, Canada is a country that's government funds the films of Atom Egoyan and the music of Broken Social Scene, so it's not surprising that they favour Kanye's ultimate creative vision above the Brandy & Babes vision of some of his contemporaries. It's a progressive society, and Kanye's nothing if not progressive. Even if that does involve wearing leather skirts and trying his hand at some kind of high-fash Pygmalion experiment with a Kardashian.