Is eccenticity purely English?
Looking through the thread to do with English music, I was struck by a couple of points.
Firstly, there were a couple of names that kept popping up; XTC, The Kinks, Ian Dury and Billy Bragg. Very good, but I did wonder where Madness were in all of that.
Beyond that, I realised that pretty much all of the nominated acts had something in common (and one or two had a surfeit of). Eccentricity. When this hit me, I felt - oddly enough - pleased.
It took me a while to work out why, but I finally dug deep enough to find that eccentricity is the most notable, and possibly most redeeming national feature of the English.
Not extreme enough to be bonkers (although The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band come pretty close), but leftfield enough to be amusingly different. If you can also be sharp enough to be slyly witty and satiric, then so much the better.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I can't think of any act from anywhere else around the world that can honestly claim to be eccentric.
Any ideas?
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Interesting
There's definitely something in what you say though I'd have to say that Split Enz for example were pretty out there as well.
New Zealand
Isn't that almost Britain anyway?
The Residents.
Now thats what I call eccentric.
From the U.S.A.
Which certainly isn't Britain. Or England. Just like New Zealand.
p.s.Did Split Enz not just have "funny" hair,make-up & clothes?
Off the top of my head...
Bjork
Gogol Bordello
George Clinton
Captain Beefheart
Lee Perry
Sinead O'Connor
Some of these may have chemically induced eccentricities.
Some may be cultural.
Some may be just completely hatstand.
Or perhaps one person's eccentricity is another person's normality?
Heavy stuff man.
um...
are you really saying you wouldn't class Bjork, George Clinton and Lee Perry as bonkers?
On the other hand, I'll have to grant you Gogol Bordello. Brilliant stuff.
Fair point...
George and Lee are both probably more bonkers than Fred McBonker from Bonkersville.
Bjork, however, I would maintain is just eccentric.
Fair play.
I think Lee Perry is great, but burning down your studio on a whim goes beyond eccentricity... At least Bjork only dressed up as a swan.
'Eccenticity'?
An eccentic bit of English in itself Mr Spikeyboy.
yeah, yeah...
.. it was a typo... lol
Interesting the spell check didn't pick it up though...
They Might Be Giants
are pretty damned eccentric. And I wonder if the Bonzos could have existed were it not for the prior example set by Spike Jones and his City Slickers - another solidly US-American band. Isn't this just another variation on the old saw about Americans not having any sense of irony? (They do, apart from the ones who don't, who are remarkably similar to the legions of Brits who don't, either).
Joseph Spence
From the Bahamas. He lived in a musical world of his own peculiar devising.
Lord Buckley
100% American, 100% eccentric.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Buckley
Eden Ahbez
Nature Boy Composer, and definitely not English...
Also the Japanese do eccentricity excellently!
Even within the British Isles we don't have a monopoly on eccentricity; after all, our neighbours to the north gave us Ivor Cutler and Momus
and as for Wales, well I don't even know if eccentricity counts as eccentricity there as it seems to be practically the norm...
Hmmm. New question needed...
Just what IS the difference between eccentric and outright bonkers?
I mean, if Bjork is normal for one country, slightly odd for another and stark raving mad for a third, where can we place the line?
Ah, yes - right about the point that says 'you're English, you idiot - try there...'