Which of these islands has the best music?

Isle of Man - Bee Gees.

I did not know that! I'm not entirely persuaded that their albums outweigh the entire output of Jamaica and Japan, but good to know

For musical output by island area, I'd say Jamaica has produced one great song for each of its 11,190 sq km, a ratio no other island can match.

Jamaica is the one to beat IMO. But it pains me to admit that Great Britain is pretty hard to ignore here

OTM. Per head of population, Jamaica wins in a veritable canter but overall it is Great Britain.

What artists does Singapore have?

For how advanced they look economically I have the suspicion the arts are not encouraged there at all.

Rerun this without the big names imo

xp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-66S9JsZro

xp
Bear in mind if you vote for Great Britain you are also voting for Eric Clapton

Rerun this without the big names imo

― imago, Tuesday, January 25, 2022 1:57 PM (one minute ago)

this crossed my mind but I assumed then few would vote/post

may vote "Other (Staten Island)"

Off-ballot I’d go with Manhattan.

Cuba has to be a strong contender. More diversity than in comparable islands.

t/s Neil Finn vs. Bjork

Btw this was inspired by my relatively recent enjoyment of the following comps:

Cape Verde: https://analogafrica.bandcamp.com/album/space-echo-the-mystery-behind-the-cosmic-sound-of-cabo-verde-finally-revealed
Comoros: https://comorian.bandcamp.com/album/we-are-an-island-but-we-re-not-alone
Madagascar: https://strutindianocean.bandcamp.com/album/alefa-madagascar
Réunion: https://strutindianocean.bandcamp.com/album/ote-maloya
Mauritius: https://strutindianocean.bandcamp.com/album/soul-sok-s-ga
Jamaican doo-wop: https://deathisnot.bandcamp.com/album/if-i-had-a-pair-of-wings-jamaican-doo-wop-vol-i-iii

Cuba's global influence is immense too, possibly comparable to Jamaica's

With apologies to Manhattan, Montreal, and Lagos, I disqualified city islands (that aren't independent states) as it becomes too annoying to figure out when something genuinely originates there

Just the amount of great singers Jamaica has produced from a population of under 3 million people is staggering. Then you factor in that it basically was the cradle for the current dominant music genre on the planet and there's no question it's the correct answer.

hey that Xia Ling Ling song is dope, not at all what I was expecting based on the cover image

Per capita I’d say Cuba then Jamaica for me, but yeah having UK in there feels like it unbalances the experiment.

I’m ignoring UK and going Cuba.

Xia Ling Ling song is great thanks for that one!

His apology was dumb, fwiw. It should have looked like this:

“I totally agree with you. i had a conversation about songwriting and sadly it was reduced to clickbait. I apologise unreservedly and unconditionally. The last thing I would want to do is discredit your songwriting. I hope you understand.”

Thanks for the reminder morrisp: a vote for GB is a vote for Damon Albarn

But a vote for GB is a vote for Pink Floyd and Pink Floyd Rules

Haha, whoops

Other (Isle of Lucy)

Several of these are archipelagos. (I mean, hello, Japan?)

Imma hold out for a Taking Sides on whether the best music comes from a peninsula vs. an isthmus.

wait you're telling me the Balearic Islands are more than one island?

pfft, rob, just admit that you're prejudiced against atolls.

an atoll killed my uncle!

atLOL

JA!

For amount of music produced per head of population Iceland is surely next (not that i love very much Icelandic music)

NZ South Island wins out over North Island but that's just splitting hairs, as is comparing the musical output of Honshu to the rest of Japan.
Out of interest, has there ever been any rock music originating from Jamaica?

That's an interesting question! I can't think of anything off the top of my head that would unambiguously be called rock, but I'd be surprised if the answer really was no.

When I was in Trinidad I hung out with some rad locals who were in a punk band

well...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgucqyr-H7M

If you leave out Great Britain, this is a surprisingly difficult question.

Shout out to Ireland.

not rock per se but the 12" version of this (not on Youtube) SHREDS. This version rocks out quite a bit too but is a lot tamer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbMWMeRj6Fg

X post

its been a few years but ive had friends in a few different punk bands each tell me how much they love playing Puerto Rico, even if they dont have a following they get a big appreciative crowds going nuts bc its so rare for a punk band to come through

jamaica vs japan for me

voted jamaica

Australia!

I let the pedants have that one (continent not island), but I mean...really? Australia?

"Which of these islands has the best literature" is surely Ireland right

Also I don't know why anyone would vote UK I mean I love Purcell and Tallis as much as anybody but

I voted Cuba

Out of interest, has there ever been any rock music originating from Jamaica?

― hey mac, see you down the dulce domum (Matt #2)

Don’t know how much it qualifies but Junior Marvin started as a blues/rock guitar player, even had a rock band called Hanson that was signed to ELP’s label - not that Hanson - and was a guitar session player and appears on albums by Traffic, Fairport Convention and Steve Winwood among others… before joining Bob Marley & the Wailers in 1977

Not to be confused with Junior Murvin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H4QfpbjTM8

Here’s Hanson

wait ... do people not consider Australia an island?

if by people you mean geographers, no

looks like an island to me! water all the way around that mfer.

and The Beths are from there, so i'm writing in "Australia"

I reckon it can be both a continent and an island.

Not a good showing per square mile

Says here the Beths are from New Zealand.

GB is pretty undeniable, then something like Jamaica, Japan, Cuba, Indonesia, Iceland but it’s pretty hard to have in-depth knowledge on all those musical histories…

xxp that mf'er sits on its own technotronic plate and shit

It blew my mind when I realized how far New Zealand really is from Australia. It's roughly the same distance as England is from Greece.

goddammit. The Beths are from New Zealand. i'm an idiot.

anyway, i'm just goofin'. Australia would have no shot in this regardless, and i know that smarter people than me think you can't be both an island and a continent.

Midnight Oil notwithstanding.

Some outliers:
Cyprus - birthplace of Mick Karn, that's about it?
Malta - birthplace of Krokus singer Marc Storace, surely that's it
Taiwan gave us Joanna Wang but nothing else worthwhile I know of (and her best records seem to be made in the US anyway)
Bahrain produced mediocre 80s prog band Osiris, I know of nothing else

Almost certainly some worthwhile folk/trad music releases on Ocora from every island everywhere though!

Zanzibar - birthplace of Freddie Mercury, surely that's it

for population to quality music ratio, i went with new zealand

oh wait, jamaica has 2.9, NZ has 5.0M. i just assumed NZ was like wyoming or something. welp

you're thinking of tasmania

but also for like, population to quality ratio the answer is surely iceland?

Wait, why can't a continent also be an island?

Apparently Australia is a continent, not an island, because a) it has its own tectonic plate, and b) its flora and fauna are indigenous and unique, as are the Aborigines.

It wouldn't have got my vote in any case, with apologies to Bon Scott-era AC/DC.

One of my favorite box sets, and exhibit A for Jamaica:

https://www.discogs.com/master/161595-Various-The-Story-Of-Jamaican-Music-Tougher-Than-Tough

One of my favorite box sets, and exhibit A for Jamaica:

https://www.discogs.com/master/161595-Various-The-Story-Of-Jamaican-Music-Tougher-Than-Tough🕸

Some arguments for Cuba:

https://www.discogs.com/master/193197-Various-Son-Cubano-NYC-Cuban-Roots-New-York-Spices-1972-82

https://www.discogs.com/master/261850-Orlando-Cacha%C3%ADto-López-Cachaito

https://www.discogs.com/master/346152-Rubén-González-Introducing

https://www.discogs.com/master/196099-Bebo-Cigala-Lágrimas-Negras

And Buena Vista Social Club is of course an essential…

And Peruchin and Celia Cruz and Silvio Rodriguez and Orishas and Ibeyi and La Lupe and Mongo Santamaria and Los Zafiros and Grupo Irakere and the Fania label…

There is def more to Zanzibar than being Freddy's birthplace. Not sure if that was in jest or not.
https://www.discogs.com/label/565953-Zanzibara

It was, sorry, I’m sure Zanzibar’s an interesting place musically

It wouldn't have got my vote in any case, with apologies to Bon Scott-era AC/DC.

Just vote GB, most of them were born there.

Trinidad and Tobago without any doubt (although I haven't heard music from every island of course)

any excuse to post this, one of the hardest battles ever recorded:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD_l2OVVQsc

that's a banger

this Comorian track goes hard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy0pefqQaKM

Jamaica may be the only one of these (that I know of) where if I put the island's entire musical output on shuffle I'd be tempted to hit "skip" the least. Though New Zealand has produced a huge number of my favorite albums and artists.

I bet most of these islands have made a ton of great music. For example, I know nothing about Cyprus, but a quick google gave me this and it rules:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AWEdNArLnw

Puerto Rico otoh might not hold my interest very long.

that does rule, thanks for posting it

might check this out late

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCv9Oue6cbE

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Antarctica robbed

Correct winner

Atlas Shrugged

Antarctica robbed
― Bill Kristol Meth (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, February 4, 2022 1:39 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'll have you know that Antarctica is a continent. Know your plates :D

Btw this was inspired by my relatively recent enjoyment of the following comps:

Cape Verde: https://analogafrica.bandcamp.com/album/space-echo-the-mystery-behind-the-cosmic-sound-of-cabo-verde-finally-revealed
Comoros: https://comorian.bandcamp.com/album/we-are-an-island-but-we-re-not-alone
Madagascar: https://strutindianocean.bandcamp.com/album/alefa-madagascar
Réunion: https://strutindianocean.bandcamp.com/album/ote-maloya
Mauritius: https://strutindianocean.bandcamp.com/album/soul-sok-s-ga
Jamaican doo-wop: https://deathisnot.bandcamp.com/album/if-i-had-a-pair-of-wings-jamaican-doo-wop-vol-i-iii

― rob, Tuesday, January 25, 2022 7:05 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thanks for flagging these up, have been enjoying Ote Maloya!

My pleasure, and yes that one is particularly good! Réunion looks like a super interesting place too.

I'd also highlight the Madagascar one for fans of less common time signatures in pop music (a lot of 6/8 and 12/8).