Britain and Prog

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Hmm, good question... it's all to do with demographics.

We're a relatively small country for starters, so a lot of the progressive artists of the late '60s and '70s toured with each other, so they'd have thrown ideas off each other, as well been influenced by each other.

It's also to do with culture and again, that is related to the size of our country.  Bands can cover a lot less distance over here and influence spreads.  I would say in America, smaller bands are probably likely to be popular within a certain state and unless they become popular, their music is likely to stay within that state (obviously some will overlap states).  In the modern age however, with the Internet revolution, bands can spread their music across the globe a lot easier.

And because American is such a big country, there are not enough records producers to go around, there are only a certain amount of major labels and they won't want to waste their money on too many bands/musicians, who invariably, could sound similar to each other.

The other major point, I believe, is related to education, not only of the listeners, but of the performers.  A lot of prog musicians have good qualifications from Universities and are also more likely to rebel and be free thinkers and try new things all the time.

As others have said, it's also a language thing, English/American English/Canadian English is always going to be more popular than German/French/Spanish/Italian, et al., bands.

I am sure there are other important factors I have missed and of course, people will disagree with the above, that's expected.

Oh and one more thing, drugs seem to have made an important contribution.  Yes, I know Americans took a lot of drugs in their day as well, but of course, it depended on the area they lived in, religious backgrounds, etc.

There a lot of things to consider.

Can somebody answer this:

If, we are indeed the leader of music in europe, are we so bad at the Eurovision Song Contest?

Not that I care, it's always a laugh and not serious.

I can answer that question partially: politics.

Note to Drakken Theaker: I think you'll find the turbojet engine was first made by the Germans, at least in production terms anyhow.

Edited by Geck0