The UK’s Love For New York Bands

For younger generations in the UK, there has long been an enviable awe surrounding all things New York – the centre of style and the bastion of ‘cool’. Whether it’s for the latest fashion, TV shows or the newest musical trends, it seems the UK has always had an insatiable desire to latch on to the NYC ethos and take a bite of the Big Apple. And it would be fair to say that there are plenty of attractions in this imitable metropolis that can’t be found on the other side of the pond – the city’s music scene for one.

But why do so many UK music fans go wild for New York acts? Perhaps it is a case of the grass being greener on the other side; a longing for a different identity; or just simply a case of a higher level of creative output. One thing for certain is that the British have always admired a grit, authentic and experimental element to their music (the Sex Pistols, Beatles and Pink Floyd nicely exemplifying each element respectively), and it has become harder to find these necessary ingredients within the UK’s current commercial music scene.

Turn to New York, and you have a vast and varied roster of bands to fit the bill (instead of writing out a long list, Vampire Weekend, Sonic Youth, Animal Collective, the Strokes, the Bravery and Dirty Projectors should convince us of the point at hand). But as we all know, this is no recent phenomenon –New York City has not only given us some of greatest moments in music; its musicians and songwriters have dictated the alternative scene since day one.

Go back to the early days of John Cage and New York composers Steve Reich and La Monte Young and we can draw a direct line of influence to the sounds of today: Reich began to make a name for himself in the early 1960’s, testing the boundaries of twelve-tone composition, tape looping and counterpoint. These techniques would also be used by Cage and Young – both former collaborators of Velvet Underground’s John Cale (who, was born in Wales, incidentally). Cale blended these avant-garde techniques with Lou Reed’s city-slicked lyrical compositions, giving the band their unmistakable looped and drone-like sound (Venus in Furs an impeccable highlight).

One of the most influential of 21st Century rock bands, the Strokes, relied heavily on the Velvet’s sonic explorations for their breakthrough debut, Is This It (an album that had the group hailed by some to be the “savior’s of rock n’ roll”). This long-overdue garage rock revival tore through the manufactured pop that was consuming music in the late 90’s – something that had reached critical proportions in the UK. A new wave of hopeful young guitar bands formed overnight, each trying to recreate the incessant down-stroke strumming and counterpoint-influenced style of the latest New York idols.

This re-explosion in rock was no more evident than in the UK, where more and more bands started to break into the mainstream. New York once again provided the benchmark for fashion and art, as well as music, and the parallels between the London and NYC scenes began to fall into place. Williamsburg, Brooklyn – home of the 00’s trust-fund retro hipster – influenced much of the trends and emergence of London’s East End and music and image, as always, went hand in hand: the first in style was the Strokes, leather jackets and skinny denim, followed by the beard and lumberjack-shirt combo, as sported by the more recent NY scenesters.

But as much as London (and the rest of the UK) hit a rich vein of musical creativity, the unwavering spirit and experimentation of New York music has not been matched. Bands like Animal Collective (although technically from Maryland, but now residing in New York) have offered a consistent output of genre-skipping albums and, at the same time, have appealed to a wide audience. David Longstreth’s Dirty Projectors are another case at hand; if Taking Heads’ David Byrne sees you as a creative force worth collaborating with, you must be doing something right.

Of course, NYC music has taken far more commercial paths to reach its devoted UK audience. MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular has, to date, clocked well over 300,000 sales in the UK and finished ninth in the BBC’s top-10 ‘Sound of 2008’ poll. Although their first UK single, Time to Pretend, may not have had a significant impact on the charts – although fourth on NME’s Best Singles of 2008 – it was in the indie discos that the song became a national hit, and went on to become a permanent fixture on mainstream radio.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs are another band that have ridden the crest of the rock-revival wave, and with the charismatic Karen O, have helped maintain New York’s high regard among UK music followers. And now we have Vampire Weekend – the latest great New York export, who are enjoying unparalleled heights of transatlantic success. Their self-titled debut finished in a higher chart position in the UK (to date, selling close to a 900,000 copies), but so far the follow-up, Contra, has made much bigger strides in the US – toppling Ke$ha from the number 1 spot on the Billboard album charts.

However, looking at outfits such as Dirty Projectors, Animal Collective or Yeasayer, there is one common trait that each possess – a DIY ethic that has yet to become widespread within the UK music scene. It would be wrong to suggest that New York bands work harder than their UK counterparts, but the figures show that the sound of New York City has received more exposure through more initiative. This may well work back to the grass roots of the city’s music culture – still prevalent among the bands playing the dark and dingy clubs of Brooklyn and the Lower East Side, who are sure to have received some inspiration from the resilient and self-reliant approach of Sonic Youth and others from the city’s noise rock scene.

Taking all the statistics into consideration, it is plain to see that New York music is well able to combine both financial successes with musical entrepreneurship. But we could also put our calculators aside and see the real reason why the Brit’s love New York bands: it is just great music, after all.

Conor O’Brien