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We’re Not Rocking all over the World

Stephen Walt takes a break from foreign policy matters to ask a good cultural question: has there ever been a great European rock-and-roll band? Well it’s Friday, so this is worth discussing. And perhaps @TAC readers can help with the answer. By Europe, Walt means continental Europe, of course. There have obviously been a fair […]

Stephen Walt takes a break from foreign policy matters to ask a good cultural question: has there ever been a great European rock-and-roll band?

Well it’s Friday, so this is worth discussing. And perhaps @TAC readers can help with the answer.

By Europe, Walt means continental Europe, of course. There have obviously been a fair few decent British acts (though probably not as many as Brits make out).

“But what about France, Germany, Spain, Holland, Denmark, Sweden?” Walt asks.

“These cultures have produced a number of important jazz musicians (Django Reinhardt, Niels-Henning Orsted-Pedersen) and world-class popular music artists (Edith Piaf) plus a few one-hit wonders (e.g. Golden Earring’s “Radar Love”) but continental Europe has never produced a rock and roll band of any global significance. And I hope nobody counters by mentioning Abba — whatever you might think of their music, it ain’t rock.

It is strange, isn’t it? Continentals just don’t seem to get le Rock, or das Rock, or whatever they call it.

The best example I can come up with is Noir Désir, the infamous French rock group. They are mostly famous because lead singer Bertrand Cantat drunkenly killed his beautiful girlfriend, actress Marie Trintignant.

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Putting this horrible affair aside, ND were a fantastic band who blended elements of the chanson with more American-style rock. It is worth noting, however, that their worst songs were also their most rocky.

As for other great European bands, I’m stuck. It’s a mystery. Walt’s explanation seems plausible, however:

My own theory, based on absolutely no research whatsoever, is that you can’t have rock music without a blues and R & B foundation. Blues and R & B and early American rock and roll spread to England in the 1950s and helped ignite the British rock scene. Result: the British invasion of the 1960s. But blues and R and B were never a large influence on the continent, and it has therefore remained focused on (or to be unkind, mired in) an irretrievably “pop” sensibility.

On a more serious note: does this phenomenon tell us something about the limits of globalization? We can send digital music anywhere now, but that doesn’t mean it sprouts and grows everywhere it lands, and national and regional cultures continue to retain a lot of individuality, even in the face of the Internet and the iPod.

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