i rememeber a few years back i too stubbornly held the concept that all things american suck, and that in all cases, america has this latrine-midas touch where everything it touches turns to shite, if it isn't shite already.

with media (both in the states AND in europe along with next to every other press agency in the world) glorifiying shitty acts left and right, who can blame anyone for holding that idea? i think it's fine to have held that notion once in your life. but after a while, individuals will need to realize that you can't place blame solely on the entity known as 'america'.

and why is that? for several reasons:

1. not everything american sucks: sure, america has pioneered a number of musical-disasters with bands grown on domestic soil - such as the boy-band thing, the whole butt-rock thing in the 1980s and the shit acts on kroq. fair enough. but what about the stuff that isn't being played? like the magnetic fields, apples in stereo, the dead kennedys, ramones, deke dickerson, sleepy labeef, beulah, miles davis, john coltrane - exceptional bands with the side-note that they're american.

then there are the bands and individuals that have changed music trends and concepts to great proportion, such as brian wilson, phil spector, elvis, CSNY: highly influential acts who on the sidenote (except for elvis perhaps, being the big 'war-poster-boy' he was) were also american.

as to the value of these acts, the last three mentioned acts (elvis, CSNY and phil spector) have been cited by johnny marr at one point or another as an influence to his music. and seeing how we at morrissey-solo think highly of bands influenced by the smiths/morrissey, it should be noted that johnny, along with morrissey, boz and alain were influenced by something at one point in their lives, and that some of these influences came from the united states.

2. the world sucks just fine on its own: the UK as with the rest of the world pumps out enough shit to keep it company for a good while. and this is usually without the aid of american media. just think of crap like the spice girls, simply red, tom jones - shit imported from the UK after showing praise and success in their homeland.

or if you want an example that hits close to home to a lot of morrissey-solo viewers... oasis... from manchester of all places...and they still suck.

3. sometimes, american is simply better: take for example jazz, blues, hip-hop and R&B. focusing on the latter sure, the 'have-more-faith-in-the-unamerican' can say "hey, but those kids in 'the commitments' sounded real good."
true, but not as good as the original motown and soul sounds from the united states in the sixties. and hip-hop... sure, americans have shitty acts too, but take the best of our underground and mainstream and the best of the rest of the world's underground and mainstream - no question on the dominance of american acts.

4. some of the concepts themselves are from america: rock came from the states initially, as did jazz, hip-hop and R&B.

in short... not everything from america or influenced by american acts sucks.