When I worked on AFN Nuremberg in 1991, I remember the music charts for America being very different than the music charts everywhere else in the world. Back then, maybe half of the songs on the British charts were completely unknown to anyone in America.
Back in the 1970s, the charts were even more divergent. Two things started bringing the world's music tastes together. ABBA was so good that it forced open the American market. Their popularity began an international search for the next ABBA, bringing more foreign acts to the attention of the USA.
But it was MTV that really started the change. Music videos were relatively new for us, but the rest of the world was leaps and bounds ahead of the US when it came to music videos. A lot of early music videos from American bands were just concert footage or singing on a soundstage. Meanwhile, a band like Men at Work became a must-watch because of their three-minute movies to go along with their songs. The need for MTV to fill up their schedule allowed a lot of foreign bands with good videos to get a foothold in America.
Today, the consolidation of the music industry and the rise of music clips in social media posts mean music acts are designed and promoted to be international hits. This, in turn, limits the exposure to a limited number of chosen bands and makes the world's music much more vanilla, with the hits in the USA matching many of the hits in other countries.
As the world's music tastes have consolidated, the YouTube page Bandsplaining asks a great question: What is the most American song of all time, a song which was a huge hit here but never really made it in other countries?
This is a little dry, and they sure did get thorough with their research, but I think their end results make a lot of sense and are a fun watch.
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