English as a first language?, the fact that English and Irish folk music and ballads are, more or less, responsible for country music, which is one of the main building blocks of pop music in the first place?

between the quality of our musical output and the economic cycle. 60's post-war Britain produced, out of adversity, The Beatles, Stones et al. The early 70's, when we were still struggling, saw Bowie, Roxy, Queen etc emerge. Then punk. Then things got better in the 80's and 90's but the music scene was not (IMHO) as vibrant. Now we're struggling again... Or - to summarise - since we've had more bust than boom, we've produced more music.

post-war culture I'd say.
Britain shared a pop cultural connection with the USA as a result of WW2 - the teenagers of the 50s & 60s shared a lot of common ground on either side of the Atlantic.
In terms of pop music Britain has looked resolutely West, rather than towards Europe for a very long time. I guess there is also an obvious cultural connection between the US and Ireland too - hence U2's period where they were in thrall to American roots music.
The powerful influence of American rock n roll on British teenagers in the 50s is well known. Also a certain North Western beat group's success with the genre probably fuelled British confidence...

It has to be a combination of factors. It has been said often that the dole queue has been a fertile ground for bands so that helps. Is the US and UK college system different to to others? It certainly appears to be a more relaxed environment than some European countries. The language does make a huge difference, has there ever been a good French language rock song?
The only factor I can think of is quite simply tradition.

and having dark nights and more words than french and shorter words than the germans oh and a habit for pop songs.

and all of the above

but does the weather have something to do with it too? I imagine the young Lennon and McCartney sitting indoors learning to play their instruments or composing on cold, rainy winter afternoons. If we had weather like California would they have been more likely to be at the pool? And our contrasting seasons are very good inducing alternating moods of melancholia and euphoria.

That rock and pop are the kinds of music we default to producing, whereas other countries have their own forms? I would imagine that the British aren't so hot at Balkan brass as the Serbians, or produce as much decent fado as the Portuguese... and when the Italians do do pop, I'm sure that Eros Ramazzotti sounds as natural to their ears as Girls Aloud do to ours.

emmigration to the Americas, forced or otherwise must be a factor. Celtic folk tradition meets African rhythms. Jazz, country, R'n'B, bluegrass etc. - all this music and more grew up in the US but existed largely below the radar of the general populace until the post-war economic recovery, and the invention of the teenager, TV and the generation gap.

Originating in the USA, the rhythms fit the language and the subject matter fit the culture; also at the time the biggest, richest free market in the world. Britain's shared language, economic dependence and fascination with American culture after the war simply speeded up the adoption over here of this new fangled rock'n'roll.

By the time the first wave over there had either run out of steam or been assimilated into the mainstream, Britain's early copycats had been replaced by the HJH and their contemporaries which in turn coincided with the invention of sex and global TV.

The rest of the world looked on and marvelled.

Now of course everything here and in the US is mainstream and rubbish, and all the interesting stuff is 'world'.

Thank you, and goodnight.

and ask why Britain generally? Why did it have such a big Empire? Why has it produced more than its fair share of scientists, engineers and artists? Why do we continue to punch above our weight internationally?

trying to put your own spin on things, to be a bit individual and different. Noticeable in pop and rock but also TV, movies, and media in general. Sure, there are lots of me-toos there as well, that's not the point.

Germany, where I live, produces masses upon masses of its own brand of identikit pop and TV. Unlistenable and unwatchable trash. Anything successful gets copied a thousandfold, to the brink of human endurance. This vital spark, call it pop sensibility, is just not something they can do. Kraftwerk et al are once-in-a-decade abberations. Other European countries appear to be not much different: Abba being the great exception.

Music on TV is almost always mimed, recently caught a very grizzled John Miles miming to his 1973ish hit. If a concert is successful, you'll get it next year again, and the year after, and the year after..Nothing is challenging, safety is always first. Some things they do do well, no doubt: cars, midfield generals, liberal lifestyle. So Stingono, you're dead right mate on Britain and Ireland.

Germany sounds just like Italy. Can get a bit depressing sometimes. Thank Gawd for internet, Amazon, cable TV, multi-lingual DVDs etc, eh?

that Britain/Ireland leads.

If it came to a straight fight. If i was forced to keep either music of British Isles origin or that from America. And discard forever the other - it would be tough to decide. Near impossible.

But - if forced - in some sort of X Factor shoot-out to do so. The acts I'm sending home tonight are ...

the British Isles

I thank you, next question?

Classical music as we know it mostly had its feet under the continental table. The UK only really found its niche with the rise of the music-halls which created the first Popular Music and the rise of tin-pan alley and the sale of sheet music. It was this which created the copyright and intellectual property laws relating to written and recorded music which persist to this day. Whether this was instrumental in Britains pre-eminence in matters popular I can only guess. I suspect that the shared language thing helps. Rock 'n' roll and the rise of the teenager happened in the US and it wasa culture which we could adopt freely. If you were French, you had to put up with Johnny Hallyday. Bloody hell.. if you're French, you still do..

but what part of Italy do you live in? I'm just interested...

Certainly in the rock/pop era, the fact that we're a small-ish island with a centralised media helped us become pre-eminent far above our size/population. Any band who had a mate with a van could tour the length & breadth of the whole place endlessly, and with the same TV, radio & newspapers being consumed everywhere, news of the next big thing spread fast.

This couldn't have happened without also English being our mother tongue (helping us better copy the stuff coming over from the USA) and many other historical points made above, but I think it's a big factor, and I don't think it's a coincidence that our dominance vanished almost entirely with the rise of the internet, putting everyone on a more equal footing (corollary: the rise of Scandinavia as a force in pop over the same timescale...)

Here in the North-West, the weather is one of the key factors. In other parts of Britain, people don't realise just how bad it is - in summer, you can generally count the number of sunny days on the fingers of a clenched fist. And that's the thing - the weather is consistent: a grey, slightly mournful shade that never seems to leave.

Smiths, Bunnymen, Joy Division, Oasis, La's, those Beatle fellas...there's just something about endlessly grey weather that seems to spark creativity.

It's where you're from that counts - The Beatles certainly didn't go to school/have their first pint/first shag in Surrey! Well, perhaps Ringo on that last one.

shocker!