Why don British singers sing with a British accent?”
English vowels are the same, no matter where you’re from. Speaking employs gliding vowels…transitions from one to the next. Singing is phrased such that vowels are held longer (to the note), which more or less erases regional accents. In singing, vowels tend to sound more like their true sounds (monophthongs), rather than diphthongs. Imagine the difference between accent disappearance in, say, an Andrew Lloyd Weber song, vs. a Cake song, if sung by the same person. The Weber track (Memory, to take an annoying example) would almost entirely mask any accent because vowels are held for a relatively long time. In Comfort Eagle, on the other hand, the words are barely sung…almost spoken over the music. Any regional accent would come through quite strongly. And of course, it’s possible to maintain or manufacture an accent when you sing (anyone who’s ever heard Charlie Daniels or Randy Travis knows that). But it may take some effort. The Proclaimers are a particularly egregious example po
