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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31886 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023

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In my experience, Europeans are absolutely obsessed with America.

You should provide some data, such as EU music charts.

Here’s a relevant new top-level thread about American culture war in Europe: https://www.themotte.org/post/576/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/118884?context=8#context

Why are Hungarians fighting about Pride month (an American invention based upon events that happened in the US)?

Having spent several months in Europe, the dominance of US music seems so obvious as to not need explanation.

But here you go.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Hot_100_Singles

The European Hot 100 Singles was compiled by Billboard and Music & Media magazine from March 1984 until December 2010. The chart was based on national singles sales charts in 17 European countries:

Most number-one singles

Madonna (17)

ABBA (13)

Michael Jackson (10)

Eminem (8)

Britney Spears (6)

Boney M. (6)

Elton John (5)

Rihanna (5)

Whitney Houston (5)

Beyoncé (4)

Kylie Minogue (4)

Robbie Williams (4)

Shakira (4)

Adding all those up by country we get

USA (50)

Sweden (13)

UK (9)

Germany (6)

Barbados / USA (5)

Australia (4)

Colombia (4)

This is just the top acts, obviously, but the US is so incredibly dominant that I don't feel the need to do a deeper dive.

This is not a particularly good way to show European music charts on this particular topic, actually, since the question is whether people in whatever country listen more to American music or their own country's music, and these charts aggregate around the common denominator, which is American (and, historically at least, UK) music.

According to this article I managed to find, Finland's most streamed songs in 2022 were:

  1. BESS – Ram pam pam

  2. JVG – Amatimies

  3. Ramses II – Villieläin

  4. Gettomasa – Shamppanjadieetillä

  5. Olli Halonen – Pohjola

  6. Harry Styles – As It Was

  7. El Migu - Erilainen

  8. Isac Elliot – 20min

  9. T Swoop – Mon Ami

  10. Pihlaja & Etta – Bändäri

Harry Styles is the only non-Finnish artist, and at least if we go by titles most of these are in Finnish. Predictably markets for music in Finnish are pretty sparse outside of Finland.

Here's the most sold music artists of all time in Finland. As one can see, the top 10 is entirely Finnish (and, apart from Nightwish, sing in Finnish), and Finnish artists take up 41 spots from the top 50.

Then again, Finns might have expectionally domestic tastes, but assuredly almost all of that, apart from Nightwish and HIM which managed to break abroad, would be utterly unfamiliar to non-Finns, and similarly, say, Dutch or Portuguese domestically popular artists would be unfamiliar to pretty much anyone who didn't make a specific effort to get to know them.

Then again, Finns might have expectionally domestic tastes, but assuredly almost all of that, apart from Nightwish and HIM which managed to break abroad, would be utterly unfamiliar to non-Finns, and similarly, say, Dutch or Portuguese domestically popular artists would be unfamiliar to pretty much anyone who didn't make a specific effort to get to know them.

I don't think so. It's similar in Sweden with 8 of the top 10 singing in Swedish and 9 of the top ten being Swedish artists, Ed Sheeran being the only foreign artist making the top 10.

And this is Sweden, a famously xenophilic country.

Thank you for validating my choice to stick to listening purely to established 80s artists.

The only one of these songs I might have heard was Ramses II - Villieläin, since someone posted it on Facebook. Can't remember at all how it went, though.

Here’s a list of international George Floyd protests, including Europe. Can you provide a recent European event of similar scope that inspired similar levels of protest in the United States?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_George_Floyd_protests_outside_the_United_States

Do you think any of these protests was attended by more than a few hundred people ?

I’m not certain. But even if the numbers are low, I have never seen even a small wave of protests in the US over a police killing in another country. Nearly every country in the world imports US culture war to some extent or another.

Regular decent sized protests, especially on or near college campuses, happen in response to Israeli police or soldiers killing Palestinians. I cannot think of another example.

I considered this, but the scale of that conflict is on a completely different level and it’s also tightly connected to US foreign policy. But I agree, it’s the closest corollary.

There's not much more to say here than 'duh'.

Of course people, if we use the term very loosely, in provinces are going to ape trends from the imperial center. Fortunately it's limited to trendy & leftist university students.

Okay. So European culture is downstream from American culture. There was nothing to argue about because you agree and you’re just cranky and rude.

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