Identity in Music
 

Hey everyone!
I'm in my final (scary) year of university and as part of my course I have to complete a dissertation. For this, I've chosen to look into how modern musicians (1960-2010) have used accent and pronunciation within their songs to help get a point across and establish their own identity. To answer this question, I'd like to analyse five songs from ANY genre spanning each of the 5 decades. I would really appreciate it if anyone would like to reply, naming 5 tracks that you consider to contain a particular accent/way of speaking, and maybe a short comment as to why you believe the tracks have a strong identity. The artists/songs can originate from any country, but as its an English dissertation I have to concentrate on English lyrics.

Cheers for your help!

"Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" - Herman's Hermits
"Witchy Woman" - Eagles
"You May Be Right" - Billy Joel
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" - Nirvana
"Hey There Delilah" - Plain White T's

Try those.

Accents are going to be vernacular -- somebody from my area may not recognize an accent that you are hearing and vise-versa,so all of these results will vary depending on the geography of all the case studies involved.....

60s) New York Mining Disaster 1941 - The Bee Gees
70s) Bodies - Sex Pistols
80s) All Of My Heart - ABC
90s) Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm - Crash Test Dummies
00s) Somebody Told Me - The Killers (this band will be a very interesting facet to the subject of your paper if you research them and discover the reason why )
10s) Worldwide Choppers - Tech N9ne

Mark E. Smith of The Fall has a pretty distinctive accent. Same with Joey Ramone's style of singing.

"A Quick One While He's Away" The Who

Depends a little on what version you hear but it has several voices singing several characters who in many ways express the singular experience of Pete Townshend so I think that could be interesting to look at.

"A Wolf at the Door" Radiohead

Uses a speak-sing style that contrasts with most Thom Yorke vocals (including in this very song). That style is influenced by ragga freestyling, according to the Hail to the Thief wiki, so yeah.

"The Losing End (When You're On)"/"Roll Another Number"/"Speakin Out" - Neil Young

The first two songs are very country influenced, the last is bluesier; they all have blatant vocal tracks that highlight a voice that sounds shaky but distinct.

"Shaky Dog" - Ghostface Killah

Another song with multiple voices, all by one man, though these are (presumably) actually distinct characters and not manifestations. He also has a distinct NY accent.

"Southern Belle" - Elliott Smith

He sings like he's clenching his teeth here, and his voice quavers. Although the song is about the south I don't find that he employs such an accent here, but I myself am southern so I may not notice.