British Music & GDP

[rzthrun]

I recently heard a news story about the government of UK giving grants to Heavy Metal bands (i am a huge supporter of this :rock. It got me thinkin'

here are my thoughts:

Why is british music so popular world wide:
- my answer:
1) it's the queens english, so all other English speakers are attracted to the phonetics.
2) the cultural legacy of the empire
3) the Beatles being the first band that was fully exploited in [at the time new] mass media, assisting in the creation of a 'sovereign' or 'national' brand, so to speak.
4) the existence of the high-value economy itself promotes iteration and persistence

What is value of music from the UK:
well, it's estimated by this website (http://www.ukmusic.org/research/economic-research/) as 3.5 Billion USD. Which makes UK music a larger economy then the following countries, GDP listed in Millions of USD (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal))

Cayman Islands 3,393
Andorra 3,222
Eritrea 3,108
Guyana 2,851
Maldives 2,606
Aruba 2,544
Lesotho 2,443
Greenland 2,343
Burundi 2,257
Central African Republic 2,184
Cape Verde 1,903
Bhutan 1,861
San Marino 1,853
Belize 1,554
Liberia 1,491
Djibouti 1,361
Saint Lucia 1,318
Somalia 1,306
Antigua and Barbuda 1,176
Seychelles 1,031
Solomon Islands 1,010
Gambia, The 917
British Virgin Islands 909
Guinea-Bissau 849
Grenada 783
Saint Kitts and Nevis 765
Zanzibar 755
Vanuatu 752
Turks and Caicos Islands 728
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 694
Samoa 681
Comoros 616
Dominica 499
Tonga 465
Micronesia, Federated States of 327
Anguilla 288
Cook Islands 283
São Tomé and Príncipe 261
Palau 213
Marshall Islands 198
Kiribati 176
Nauru 121
Montserrat 64
Tuvalu 40

found that intersting

 

[BigBlue1]

The Beatles took American rock music, repackaged it and sold it back to the US as something new.

 

[rzthrun]

sure, but over here we do call it "the British invasion."

"The British Invasion had a profound impact on the shape of popular music. It helped internationalize the production of rock and roll, establishing the British popular music industry as a viable centre of musical creativity and opening the door for subsequent British performers to achieve international success"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Invasion

Edit: I'm reminded of current comments made about the Korean music industry.
basically, that Korean artists and labels can't make a profit if they only sell in Korea, so it is an inherently export facing business.

 

[BigBlue1]

Not just the British performers were able to walk through the door that was opened by the Beatles, there were a lot of American bands that were able to produce music that before the Beatles fame and popularity would have never been given a contract.

It is their 50th this year and they are still influencing music today.

 

[rzthrun]

I agree with that, But, I'm not sure if the British changed the American music scene as much as introduced a new scene. DoWop and Motown went on, though displaced from their premier place, but were a near totally separate culture and industry from 'rock.' That separation lasted at least through the parallel emergence of grunge and gangster rap, both american music genre, with a market split largely along cultural and demographic lines. Personally, I prefer motown, which was laying down the rock and roll sound that the Beatles appropriated and sold back to us.

 

[Wraith]

A lot of brit music was born after WWII, it exploded, but was all born of American influence. As for the Beatles they suck, 3 chord wonders and they couldn't sing, simply awful. Something I learned about this week is Northern Soul and how massive it became while being pushed into the UK underground club scene.

Another side to the brit revolution in music was the Mods & Rockers, UK music history is eye opening but it all comes back to US music.

 

[BigBlue1]

A lot of brit music was born after WWII, it exploded, but was all born of American influence. As for the Beatles they suck, 3 chord wonders and they couldn't sing, simply awful. Something I learned about this week is Northern Soul and how massive it became while being pushed into the UK underground club scene.

Another side to the brit revolution in music was the Mods & Rockers, UK music history is eye opening but it all comes back to US music.

It's not a matter of being good, although Lennon was a very talented writer and artist, it's about being influential in the music world, I don't think anyone will say the Beatles were not influential. They opened a lot of doors for other musicians to step through.

 

[rzthrun]

As for the Beatles they suck, 3 chord wonders and they couldn't sing, simply awful. .

I'm not a fan either. But I have to agree with BigBlue, partially.

It's not a matter of being good, although Lennon was a very talented writer and artist, it's about being influential in the music world, I don't think anyone will say the Beatles were not influential. They opened a lot of doors for other musicians to step through.

When looking at music history, it is near impossible to ignore the Beatles. If 'good' or 'sucking' is to be defined in terms of economic impact (a more objective measure then taste), the Beatles are really good, and Joy Division sucks by comparison. (My taste however leads me to a very different conclusion).

I've had a little trouble finding stats on American Music as % of GPD, this is the best I can do. this article (https://www.bea.gov/papers/pdf/Music as a Capital Asset.pdf)
lists a "nominal value of $7.8 billion producing recorded music" in the US roughly 0.056% of GDP in 2007

The site I referenced earlier lists recorded music from Britain as contributing £634m to UK GPD, or 1.033 Billion USD (Xchange rate = *1.63).

Wolfram Alpha list UK population as 63.6 million people and US population as 322 million people to date.

So, my back of the napkin calculation on the per capita value of recorded music in US and UK is....
$1033/63.6pp = $16.25 for every person in the UK.
$7800/233pp = $33.5 for every person in the US.

The US music industry is roughly double the UK industry in recorded music value based upon this undoubtedly flawed methodology.

But I'm curious to see how the UK stacks up against other countries. I bet it's a well placed second. Which is quite significant.

How Korea is doing would also be interesting, since it's cultural rise can be [i believe] traced to the IMF intervention at the turn of the century and is a far different paradigm then either the US or UK.

 

[rzthrun]

A lot of brit music was born after WWII, it exploded, but was all born of American influence.

yea, the history backs this assertion up - The US gave tons of reconstruction funding after the end of the war, the cultural ramifications of which can be inferred.

Edit: the post war observation is interesting. The Beatles appeared, what?, like 20 years after the end of WWII. The US populace was probably ripe from something exotic, foreign and different - but friendly and familiar - after two decades of western bloc cultural hegemony. The US had a shit ton of buying power then too. I think it's fair to say that if the Beatles hadn't done so well on the US market they wouldn't be 'The Beatles.'

 

[Zoot]

I recently heard a news story about the government of UK giving grants to Heavy Metal bands (i am a huge supporter of this :rock. It got me thinkin'

Careful about what you wish for with government grants/subsidies for everything, just remember it's your taxes that are going to pay for it.

 

[rzthrun]

Careful about what you wish for with government grants/subsidies for everything, just remember it's your taxes that are going to pay for it.

I was being somewhat facetious, but it might be worth it. The story i heard said the UK govt gave the metal musician $10,000 or £10,000 pounds, I can't remember.