Hey, why do you sing with an English accent?
When you sing along to songs, do you copy the artist’s accent? Do you hear a difference in the way Matty Healy of The 1975 sounds when he sings versus Harry Styles? Have you ever listened to an artist thinking they sounded British, but turned out to be American?
Accents in songs are curious things. Sometimes they can sound overdone. Other times just a few words sound a little enunciated. But a lot of the time, singers seem to mellow out to an American sounding accent when they sing. But why is this?
According to Peter Trudgill in his piece exploring the sociolinguistics of British-pop pronunciation, this occurs because of the dominance of American music within the industry. He cites that this phenomenon has been around since the 1920s, and spans across many genres, such as jazz, and rock and roll.
Some canonical British sounds that singers tend to change are a strict ‘t’ for more of a ‘d’ pronunciation, the long ‘a’ as in dance for a shorter one as in cat, and a light sounding ‘r’ for a more gritty, American one.
This loss of this integral piece of one’s identity can be heard across many famous Brit’s music. Artists like One Direction, Dua Lipa, Adele, and Elton John seem to completely lack the accent that they speak in during interviews. In Elton John’s Your Song, he sings “How wonderful life is while you’re in the world,” and holds out an Americanized ‘r’ in world, emphasizing this effect.
But this occurrence is not present across all British singers. Bands like The 1975 and Arctic Monkeys, and singers like Lily Allen and Sophie Ellis-Bextor opt to keep their strong accents. Arctic Monkeys have spoken about their choice to sing in their native accent, claiming they do so as a sign of pride and authenticity.
As an American, I have never understood what is being said in Chocolate by The 1975 and struggle to decode Fluorescent Adolescent by Arctic Monkeys. I’ve never thought this to diminish the listening value of a song, it just makes it harder for me to sing along.
On the flip side, sometimes American singers have a tendency to sound a bit British in their style. This is rarer, but can be heard in some indie and punk artists.
The lead singer of The Killers, Brandon Flowers, sings with a deceptively British accent in their hit Mr. Brightside. Nearly every ‘r’ in the chorus follows the non-rhotic, English pronunciation. Flowers is from Las Vegas.
Similarly, Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong has been nagged on for singing in a British accent. This is more evident in their earlier releases, such as on Basket Case. Armstrong’s punk-pronunciation has the tendency to lean cockney, despite his California upbringing.
American indie artists have a habit of rounding out their words as well. In 2016, young singer Grace VanderWaal went viral for her America’s Got Talent audition. Here, she sang beautifully but with an unusual accent for a 12 year old Kansan.
This has been unofficially dubbed ‘indie-voice.’ It is characterized by airy singing and odd vowel shapes. Artists like Billie Eillish, Halsey, and Shawn Mendes (who is Canadian, to be fair) lean into this style. It was more prevalent in indie music from the early to mid 2010s, likely until artists began getting made fun of for it. Indie singer Phoebe Bridgers pokes fun at this phenomenon in her song Motion Sickness, writing “Hey, why do you sing with an English accent? I guess it’s too late to change that now.”
Unless a singer’s accent sounds particularly strong to the listener, it tends to go unnoticed. The linguistic pattern of singers settling on an American accent does not have a definite origin. Neither does the development of the ‘indie-voice.’ Any accent can be attributed to the artist’s personal style, making this paradox difficult to explain.
Whether British singers embrace their roots or venture into new vocal territories, their music remains globally influential. So influential even, that some American singers have taken inspiration from British dialect in their own songs. Regardless of your personal opinion of accents in music, we can all agree on one thing: Arctic Monkeys simply wouldn’t sound right without their Yorkshire flair.
