Voice of London

As Britain is preoccupied with Brexit and world politics, something has turned into the UK charts.

Over time Europe and other countries including America have been very opened about different language music, coming from artist with a foreign background. However, the UK has always seemed to stick to the traditional English songs. 

Why has this changed? 

After the global hit of Despacito in 2017, it seems that people have become more open to different music. Since then more artist had collared with foreign artist for a twist in sound like, Little Mix, Cardi B and DJ Snake which have charted with song entirely in Spanish or with some mixture of language. Boyband BTS has also swept away awards and sold out London’s O2 last month. However, we can say that Spanish music has been overall popular. But how about Dua Lipa by nationality she is from Kosovo and has achieved to be an artist of high popularity. Now collaborating with South Korean supergroup Blackpink, it can be argued for more diversity of hit songs worldwide. James Masterton has said that over the history of music, we could see some foreign hits but they never really started a trend like Las Ketchup. 

One factor for the change could be Spotify and YouTube. Before music was mainly represented by music records and people bought what was sold in there local shops, controlled by the middle class and the record companies gatekeepers, before artist were restricted on releasing things to certain territories. Before the artist had to make sure their music will be liked by the company and the masses to archive success, because of the limitations on consumption. Today there is room for culture for diversity. Now everyone has access to all kinds of music through their smart devices, without any restriction on location. We have all kind of culture on our fingertips and no barrier to consumption.

By Martina Momtchilova