If you love music then the UK is probably one of the best places to be in the whole world. Ever since the 1960s when the Beatles and the Rolling Stones battled it out in the pop charts (known then as the Top 40) the UK has been at the centre of just about every musical trend there is.

Apart from the biggest bands of the 1960s, the UK was responsible for ska, prog, punk, heavy-metal, acid-house, techno, indie, goth, the list just goes on and on.

Today there are still loads of different genres of music competing with each other for the attention of the country’s next generation. And every summer 100s of different music festivals play host to the 1000s of fans who flock to watch some of the biggest (and smallest) bands on the planet.

Musical Styles

Whether you like hard-rock, hip-hop, r’n’b, breakbeat, and dressing up or dressing down, you will find an outlet for your own individuality and creativity here in the UK that very few other countries can match with quite the same level of style and enthusiasm.

Because the UK is so fiercely proud of its musical heritage, there is a huge wealth of TV, radio, magazine and online content out there devoted to music. In fact music is the single most popular thing searched for on the internet in the UK. The upsurge in internet use, fuelled by new broadband technology, has created a world that is alien to most parents, and the dialogue that used to take place in the press between artists and music fans now happens in the many social-networking websites that millions of young people visit each day.

But walk into any newsagents and you will still see loads of different music magazines catering for just about every single musical taste imaginable, and the many televised musical awards ceremonies all attract huge public attention, and not just amongst the young.

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In fact one of the more curious things about the UK music scene is that it has been around for so long now that it is quite common to go to a gig and see both father and son jumping up and down to the same band. Whether you think that is a good thing or not depends on your own point of view.

The Big Bands

Something else that you might find interesting to pick up on while you are here is the musical divide between the north and south. There is a definite pride in the north that it has produced a lot of the UK’s best bands. Manchester alone has been responsible for some very special ones over the years such as Joy Division, the Smiths, Happy Mondays, Stone Roses and Oasis. But people in the south will disagree and point to a host of bands from the Rolling Stones to Radiohead who more than match up to their northern counterparts. Meanwhile urban r’n’b and hip-hop continues to be best represented in the south, particularly in London.

It isn’t taken very seriously by many people, but it gives you a good idea of just how much music has come to represent peoples’ identity in the UK ever since the Beatles first sang ‘Love love me do’ on the UK’s solitary TV station all those many years ago.  

USEFUL WORDS

CD

concert

microphone

(lead) singer = the principal singer in a group

audience = a group of people who have gathered to watch or listen to a performance

auditorium = the part of a concert hall in which the audience sits

encore = an extra short performance given at the end of a concert because the audience have asked for more

opera

musical = a play or film in which some or all of the story is told using songs and often dancing

musician

orchestra = a large group of people who play various musical instruments together

volume

pop

GRAMMAR SPOT

Hedging

Use a range of expressions to distance yourself from facts and opinions when you do not want to state a fact as you cannot prove that it is true.  This is called ‘hedging’.

It seems that / seems

It appears that / appears

It seems that the orchestra are playing slightly out of key today

The singer appears to be drunk

To add further distance, add the modal verb would:

It would appear that the audience does not like this style of music very much

It would seem that tickets have sold out for the event

Hedging with Noun Phrases

There is little doubt that this new CD is better than his last one

There is little evidence of a change in the group’s musical style

Hedging with the Passive Voice

It is widely recognised that pop concerts sell more tickets than classical ones

There is not believed to be an older auditorium than this one

It is not known whether the lead singer has left the band or not