Why scandinavians?

[Bifrost]

I was afraid to post a thread like this for a long time, thought there would be problems about this topic, well, perhaps there will be some.

Well, let's start.
I've always paid much attention to the world show business and modern culture. I always try to be informed about what bands are the most popular, and certainly, I pay much attention to the countries these bands are from. This year I relized that the traditional leadeship of USA and Britain+Ireland has weakened due to the successful development of show business in Scandinavian countries. I still can't explain why there are no significant bands from Greece, or Italy, or Spain, but there are great bands from Norway, Sweden and Finland (you all know them quite well), besides they represent different styles of music - it comes clear if you compare "trucks" with "A-Ha" or "Suburbian tribe" with "Stakka Bo", this fact shows the variety of tastes scandinavian bands may satisfy. But why scandinavians? Why? Why ? Why? Why not germans? 'Rammstein' and 'tick tac toe' (those three agressive girls that scream out something odd in German ) - this is all I know about modern german music. Why scandinavians? Perhaps learning English is easier for them? mmm.... Strange.
Then I discovered CFC. I looked at the countries that most active posters represent and realized that number of Scandinavians is the highest among non-native English speakers. Why are there so many Scandinavians? What's up with Italians, or Turkey citizens or Indians, or Mexico, or.. or.. or.......

Have any Ideas?

 

[Toasty]

Scandinavian nations all have high living standards, so a higher percentage of them have the internet, I would presume.

 

[Dynamic Cow]

maybe its just a trend... i dont know, but it would be interesting to find out.

 

[anarchywrksbest]

There is F**K all to do in Scandanavia, its cold all the time so they stay indoors....with the internet. In Spain and stuff they have sunshine

 

[Bifrost]

I think it depends on the living standards too, but is it that simple?

 

[Greadius]

Maybe because its so freaking cold, they can't leave the house so have nothing better to do but sit around at home and poster on the internet or play around with music?

But, really, its probably just a casual observation based on your musical preferences than anything else.

 

[Bifrost]

But, really, its probably just a casual observation based on your musical preferences than anything else.

Well, perhaps, but the number of scandinavian forumers here has nothing in common with my preferences.
Maybe I'm sick? What if I have some phobia/mania of scandinavians therefore i try to find them anywhere

 

[insurgent]

Finland is not in Scandinavia, Denmark is. Bands such as Acqua, Safri Duo, and a couple of others are/were Danish.

Learning English is much easier for a Scandinavian than it is for some non-Germanic nation (Latin and Slavic nations for instance), as we have a lot in common with them.
Furthermore, the governments of Scandinavia have counted a lot on the cultural industry. A lot is being done to stimulate the businesses that export culture in Scandinavia, and our cultural export is indeed rising.

But I can't entirely tell you why we have many popular bands at this point - it could be a fad.

 

[Hitro]

Originally posted by Bifrost
I think it depends on the living standards too, but is it that simple?

I won't say so, the standard is not significantly lower in Western and Central Europe (France, Germany, Benelux, Austria, Switzerland).
I can only speak for Germany in this sense, and it's of course a bit speculation, but there are some quite possible reasons (and no, they don't include Jewish conspiriacies ).
Without bad jokes like the above the bad image of Germany after WW2 may have played a little role in the development of the entertainment industry.
Don't forget that especially Sweden with ABBA for example has had international pop-stars for decades. And in fields like Metal they were also quite active as far as I know.
The music industry seems to be quite one-dimensional, they usually just reproduce what was successful. And that doesn't include German music.
But for Germany the reason probably lies inside the country itself. German music (also in English, but by Germans) has since the war (and for some even before, look at Swing in the 30s) had a bad image in the German youth. That doesn't have to make any sense, like all of fashion, but that's how it was. To be acceptable the music had to come from abroad, particularly from the UK or the US.
The music made by German artists was usually directed at older people and even more usually sung in German, which stayed that way with the exception of the early 80s. So exporting it was quite unthinkable from the industry's point of view.
But since the unification it seems that music. made by Germans becomes more popular here, so it will probably become that internationally eventually.

Now for the Scandinavians question I'm not really sure. That's probably related to your taste in music. For example Italian musicians are quite popular here as well (though not for me usually).
But maybe the industry still follows their internal ABBA hype, you never know...

With the forum I can say that there is at least one good forum for Civ in German, so that explains the absence of more Germans here. Probably that's the same in other bigger countries, no idea about Scandinavia.

 

[insurgent]

There are no good Scandinavian Civ forums, so you're probably right, Hitro!

When you think about it, it makes sense that there are so many Scandinavians, Israelis, Dutch, and people from other small countries.

 

[Hitro]

Originally posted by insurgent
When you think about it, it makes sense that there are so many Scandinavians, Israelis, Dutch, and people from other small countries.

Yes, that's how I explained the user distribution to myself. Although it's of course possible that the game is not that popular in other bigger countries, like Spain or Italy.
But in Germany it is, the German forum is most likely the reason why there are not so many regularly posting here or at Poly or Gamecatcher.

 

[newfangle]

Why Scandinavians? Because they are socialist heathens that talk funny and are pinko commies and they think they are so great and smart and commie and then they learn a bunch of languages and then they sound funny and then they post and play games and beat us all north americans and then spread commie propaganda, or something

 

[stalin006]

waht are u talking about ! there are some nice mexican bands, but are mostly famous in latin america

 

[allan2]

Latino bands are probably more well-known and popular in the US than elsewhere (besides, of course, Latin America itself). I could personally name more bands from Mexico and the rest of Latin America than I could from Scandinavia, however for the typical European the reverse is probably true.

Also, it seems that there are periodic regional "booms" in popular music--witness Seattle in the early 90s, Georgia in the late 80s, and the Twin Cities even had a little boomlet in the 80s. I don't know if this kind of thing has anything to do with what you're talking about though. Bear in mind also that I don't follow new music like I used to--my musical tastes are starting to fossilize as I enter the "older" generation.

 

[animepornstar]

the most important thing is that we don't have strong national cultures and are therefore more open for foreign influences. in sweden we also have a relative strong culture encouragement, probably created by the social democratic politics and spirit and the fact that we stayed out of the both world wars.

 

[sysyphus]

Note that in terms of population, there are also a disproportionate number of Canadians here to.

Therefore the explanation is: it's too bloody cold to go out and do anything, so those of us in northern countries just stay in and on our computers.

And animepronstar, you think your country has a weak culture? Ha! Try being us! Our culture revolved around hockey until the Swedes took even that away from us!

Long live Borje Salming!

 

[gerryandersson]

It is not THAT cold here. Right now we do have -10 celcius, but last summer we hade +30-40 celcius fore a werry long time.

 

[Panda]

There is F**K all to do in Scandanavia, its cold all the time so they stay indoors

Living in constant cold makes you adapt to it and more resilient to it, so while -20 Celsius may not be nice, it doesn't stop people from going out. Ever heard of winter sports like cross-country skiing?

Anyways, it's only dark and cold for six months of the year.

Finland is not in Scandinavia, Denmark is.

The last time I checked Scandinavia is just Sweden and Norway. But it's convinient to staple the whole bunch together, as few people outside these countries know the term 'The Nordic Countries'.

I'll be speaking for Finland, as I don't know what the situation is in Sweden, Norway or Denmark:

Finns speak at least one foreign language (usually English) because nobody expects foreigners to learn Finnish. First, because there's only 5 million Finns, and second because it's a hideously difficuilt language to learn. Hence, if you want to speak with foreigners, you learn another language.

TV is also a big reason. All foreign programms have subtitles, so you are bound to pick up expressions, words etc while watching TV.

Finally, quite a few foreigners actually bother to (or are not able) learn enough Finnish to use it in everyday life, resorting usually to English. There are not that many foreigners here, so it makes only a small difference.

Scandinavian nations all have high living standards, so a higher percentage of them have the internet, I would presume.

That is correct. The last study I saw credited Finland with the world highest Internet connection ratio in the world. [dance]

Another study released shortly afterwards suggested that there would also be a high amount of people connected to the Internet without a clue what to do.

Why scandinavians?

Why not?

I don't have the slightest doubt there are talented people who make great music in Serbia, Russia, or Turkey. But it's very hard to get a chance in the music industry, never mind becoming internationally succesful. It's even harder when you come from some obscure country nobody knows anything of, or, even worse, which brings up negative sentiments.

Once a music act has succeeded in establishing international success, it's easier for other to follow. Twenty years ago, nobody had heard of Finnish bands except Hanoi Rocks and few knew they were Finnish. Now that Nightwish and HIM have been quite succesful the public is more interested in Finnish metal.

 

[insurgent]

I can't help it...

from encyclopedia.com

Scandinavia

(skandina´vee) , region of N Europe. It consists of the kingdoms of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; Finland and Iceland are usually considered part of Scandinavia. Physiographically, Denmark belongs to the North European Plain rather than to the geologically distinct Scandinavian peninsula (which is part of the ancient Baltic Shield), occupied by Norway and Sweden. Sometimes the word “Norden” is applied to the five countries because it avoids the physiographic and cultural limitations of the word Scandinavia.


About the disproportionate amount of Canadians in here, I don't get that either. Because they surely hae many sites to use, and if you include the American sites...
Any good explanation for that?

 

[sysyphus]

Don't quite get what you mean.