I found that foreign bands weren’t getting as famous as British bands. But it’s not the youths of today being over patriotic. In my research I found that many young people listen to foreign music.
I asked some young British people what they thought about foreign music. Mojda, 19, said: "I think music is a universal language, the beats and the vocals are still the same. I think that everybody can understand it. I just think foreign music hasn’t been out that much. Sometimes German or Spanish bands get really big, and you hear it a lot, and people really like it. There were some that went on MTV and got into the top 10. If they make it big, then everyone likes them."
Momina, 22, backs up Mojda’s point of music being a universal language: "What about DJ’s and that? They don’t necessarily have to have lyrics, it is about the way they actually scratch."
Now it’s time for the other side of the story. I met up with a popular Parisian band, Fancy, in the stylish Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchens. They were fashionably late of course. With David Bowie playing in the background, the band seemed very relaxed, and started chatting comfortably about how they met. Bass-player Ramon says "we met at collage when we were 18." Lead singer Jessie interrupts: "and now we’re 19, so it was a long time ago".
The group talk about the difficulties that they’ve faced being a French band in the UK. "It’s weird because the UK is a great country for music but at the same time most of the people in the industry are very established. Because we have make up on stage and sometimes we move our butts like this (Jessie wiggles his bum in his seat) and are clapping hands. Sometimes it’s too weird for them or too camp but it’s just the music."
They tell us about the difference between the London audience and the Parisians. In Britain "the audience is good, in Paris we don’t have the best audience in the world, they are very shy." Ramon continues: "[They’re] more aloof, but I think it’s the same in London and Paris, everywhere in the world, in capitals people are more aloof, they prefer not to be so, 'Wow! This is a great band'. But I think both audiences are good."
However, when I attended their concert, later that evening, I found the audience were not aloof, but dancing and generally enjoying themselves like there was no tomorrow! The band played a cover of the Pointer Sister’s I’m So Excited and the crowd went wild. The crowd were dancing so hard that a woman in the front row fell over repeatedly!
During my research into the band I was listening to their music and it reminded me a lot of the Klaxons or the Scissor Sisters. When I put this to them they replied: “No, not at all. A lot of people say our music and performance is like the Scissor Sisters but we don’t have nothing to do with this band. We are us, we are Fancy, we have our own identity and it’s kind of like a 'short-cut' to say that we are like the Scissor Sisters and the Klaxons. I don’t feel the link. We are more like Kate Bush, Metallica, even the Carpenters. Maybe the only thing we could have to do with the Scissor Sisters is the influence of the past, the Seventies, the Eighties, nothing else, that’s all."
They did tell me that their influences include The Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
But what bad habits do the band have? "We don’t have any". I find this rather hard to believe, "It’s a secret" said Jessie, to which they burst out laughing.
Hopefully British youth will change their minds about foreign music once they have heard this entertaining band. They will hit our gig venues head-crackingly hard, and get you dancing harder than you have ever before! Time to get the glitter out?
About this article
This article was wriiten by Samantha Chanudet-Denny, aged 15.
