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Which city has the best music scene in the UK?

Poll

Best musical city in the Uk?

I'll put a poll up too, but which city has the best music scene-past and present, in the UK?

Even though I'm a Mancunian I can't look past Manchester. If you look at the list of bands and artists from the Manchester area, plus look at the musical venues it has and it's large underground scene then it's got to be at least up there...

The thing is it's reputation is so good that a new band's reputation from the city automatically precedes itself. Take the Courteeners as a classic example, being touted as the new Oasis, simply because they were from Manchester. And that's not because Oasis were consequently a massive band who happened to be from the Manchester area, it's because they were a massive band full stop regardless of where they hailed from. Ok the Courteeners are good, but they are over-hyped in a way because everything that comes out of the Manchester music scene is hailed in the music press as good, based on the size of the Manchester music scene reputation-if that makes sense. It's the diversity I think that makes it so good.


London actually has a disappointing music scene for a city of it's size. It might have the venues, but that's understandable given it's status as the capital. But as far as great bands that come from the London area there's not "that" many.

Bristol has an undeniably large underground scene, and ofc bands like Massive Attack and umm...Portishead. But still band for band, I can't see it really being on par with Manchester.

Liverpool's scene relies too much on one band's reputation (the Beatles). It's not produced a world class band in 25 years.. no doubt though Echo and the Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes etc were decent. Just not a strong enough case for it to be the best music scene in the country.

The big Scottish cities, Glasgow and Edinburgh aren't serious contenders-they've got some decent bands but again.. there's various Welsh bands that are decent like Stereo[honics but again they're not mega-huge, plus the "scenes", strong as they no doubt are, in the likes of Cardiff, still can't contend with the bigger music scenes.

Leeds/Sheffield.. Some good bands from these two, decent music venues and a healthy underground scene, but again not on a bigger scale than say London/Manchester.

Birmingham has a terrible music scene for a city of it's size and supposed "cultral significance" in the UK.

EDIT: I have missed Bristol off the poll by accident and can't edit the poll. :angry:
(edited 12 years ago)

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Reply 1
Not Cambridge, according to a massive thread on here
Reply 2
Aberdeen, it's going down tonight.
Reply 3
where are bristol and brighton?
Reply 4
Liverpool.
I also mistakenly left Bristol off the poll :colondollar:
Reply 6
Original post by jaydoh



London actually has a disappointing music scene for a city of it's size. It might have the venues, but that's understandable given it's status as the capital. But as far as great bands that come from the London area there's not "that" many.



not only 'bands' have to come from the city though to be to do with the music scene.

london was on the forefront of drum and bass, grime and dubstep...
as well as all the hip hop artists to come from there as well
Reply 7
Elvis Costello comes from Liverpool and I see him as one of the best British singer song writers of his time.. Liverpool doesn't completely depend on the mersy beat of the 60s. At the moment i'd say London has the best music scene, especially the south (where I live). If you're into the 'new folk' scene like mumford and sons, laura marling, noah and the whale, johnny flynn, they are almost all from the same area of london. But I suppose they aren't that many 'classic' bands if that's what you mean. Scotland has a few good bands, such as Aztec Camera and Belle and Sebastion. But yeah I guess Manchester (annoyingly) has the whole indie / post punk scene of the 70s and 80s..
PiLondon or Bristol but saying Birmingham is **** is just straight up loltimes, Birmingham had the best British reggae scene and invented bhangra and metal.
(edited 12 years ago)
heavy metal or die
I don't know, I don't really see clear music scenes in British cities. I mean obviously they exist, but on much smaller scales. Compared to the USA where there are/have been very obvious music scenes (Seattle, Palm Desert, Austin for example) I don't really see it in the UK. But maybe that's just me being musically uneducated.
Original post by tabby_95
Elvis Costello comes from Liverpool and I see him as one of the best British singer song writers of his time.. Liverpool doesn't completely depend on the mersy beat of the 60s. At the moment i'd say London has the best music scene, especially the south (where I live). If you're into the 'new folk' scene like mumford and sons, laura marling, noah and the whale, johnny flynn, they are almost all from the same area of london. But I suppose they aren't that many 'classic' bands if that's what you mean. Scotland has a few good bands, such as Aztec Camera and Belle and Sebastion. But yeah I guess Manchester (annoyingly) has the whole indie / post punk scene of the 70s and 80s..


Hmm I notice a lot of folk sort of music around Manchester... and then the likes of Badly Drawn Boy who lives where I grew up.

The Smiths you couldn't really categorise as indie. Or the Stone Roses or Joy Division for that matter. I think Manchester even has it's own niche for that sort of "melodramatic 80s music.

@the person who said about the dubstep/hip hop scenes

The grime scene in Manchester is pretty good, from what I gather-some talented artists/producers/MCs

Does the Uk really have a hip hop scene? I don't even think it does.

And dubstep yeah, can't deny that London's the forefront for it but then you've got the whole pirate radio scene and whatnot, some good dubstep DJs and producers coming out of Manchester also.
Reply 12
Original post by lukas1051
I don't know, I don't really see clear music scenes in British cities. I mean obviously they exist, but on much smaller scales. Compared to the USA where there are/have been very obvious music scenes (Seattle, Palm Desert, Austin for example) I don't really see it in the UK. But maybe that's just me being musically uneducated.


I think you're right to a degree - because the UK is quite small, there is less of a distinction between different areas.
Original post by T-ros
Liverpool.


The full-stop isn't helping your argument
Original post by jaydoh

Does the Uk really have a hip hop scene? I don't even think it does.


Lol
Original post by JCC-MGS
PiLondon or Bristol but saying Birmingham is **** is just straight up loltimes, Birmingham had the best British reggae scene and invented bhangra and metal.


Yeah, but bhangra is a new genre, you can't honestly say that bhangra has a bigger cultural and historical impact than other music genres, even "underground" genres if you want to categorise bhangra as that (well it's audience is almost exclusively Asian so therefore it could be construed as a niche genre, and off the top of my head I can't think of any decent reggae producers from the Birmingham area, ska maybe, reggae no) And even then I'm only really thinking UB40. The Specials were from Coventry iirc.
Reply 16
London hands down, although Glasgow has also produced a ton of great bands - Mogwai, Belle & Sebastian, Camera Obscura, Arab Strap, Teenage Fanclub etc.

On the other hand I think Manchester has one of the worst music scenes. The quantity of bands it has produced is impressive but I'm just not into the kind of laddish britpop sound. Oasis make me want to vomit.
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 17
London is just the home of western pop culture
Original post by JCC-MGS
Lol


You're going to need to help me out here by naming some decent UK hip hop artists then instead of just saying lol. I've heard the term UK hip hop, but no one really springs to mind as being significantly well known from the scene. And my music knowledge is pretty good so if they were around I know about them.

The rap scene on the otherhand with artists like Devlin, Giggs, etc is alright but that's not Birmingham and nor is it hip hop- more grime-orientated.
Original post by jaydoh
Yeah, but bhangra is a new genre, you can't honestly say that bhangra has a bigger cultural and historical impact than other music genres, even "underground" genres if you want to categorise bhangra as that (well it's audience is almost exclusively Asian so therefore it could be construed as a niche genre, and off the top of my head I can't think of any decent reggae producers from the Birmingham area, ska maybe, reggae no) And even then I'm only really thinking UB40. The Specials were from Coventry iirc.


Steel Pulse. The Specials aren't even reggae. As for bhangra being a new genre, not really, we're talking early 80s. No newer than hip hop and certainly older than DnB, grime, dubstep etc. I don't see what's wrong with music being for a certain audience either. Laura Marling doesn't make tunes to be played pon road in Bow, why aren't you calling her niche for making music primarily for white middle class people with aviators and Ugg boots?

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