LOVE the Sleaford Mods’ music but hate the shouty Nottingham accent all over it? Can’t relax while aurally assaulted by provincial tones? You’ll hate these:
Billy Bragg
Even if you passionately believe in the messages of Bragg’s lumpen lefty anthems, they can’t be fully enjoyed because they’re all bellowed in his ear-batteringly awfil Essex accent. Does it emphasise his working class roots and proudly socialist beliefs? Definitely. Does it sound pleasant coming from the speakers in your living room when you’re trying to enjoy a full-bodied Rioja? Absolutely not.
Kate Nash
You could be forgiven for thinking that Kate Nash and Foundations was a one hit wonder and is over now, and yet 18 years later she’s still touring and releasing new music. Unfortunately, she hasn’t got rid of the Cockney – or uncharitably, Mockney – accent that made her biggest single such a f**king ordeal to hear. Never have the words ‘fitter’ and ‘bitter’ been more painfully rhymed.
Tricky
When you hear the cool, minimalist beats of a trip-hop song starting up, what’s the very last thing you want to start rapping over it? A broad Bristolian accent. While the south west city was the cradle of some of the best music of the 90s, at least Massive Attack and Portishead had the courtesy not to mumble across their records like a depressed Wurzel. Tricky should have just let Martina Topley-Bird do it all, she sounded great.
Sleaford Mods
Sleaford Mods’ angry explorations of working class life provide important social commentary on austerity-era Britain. But unfortunately all those blisteringly incisive lyrics are bellowed in a thick East Midlands accent making them horribly abrasive to listen to. They’re important, if you like that sort of thing, but if you wanted to be berated by a furious man from Nottingham you’d go there and start a fight in a pub.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor
The notion of a murder on a dance floor sounds pretty exciting, right? Blood splattered on the disco ball, lights flashing on the bodies. Just like a Tarantino film. However, when the song is sung in Sophie Ellis-Bextors RP boarding school accent, it loses any cool it possessed and sounds like somebody’s being told off for not doing their homework. You better not kill the groove or you’ll be given a hundred lines.
Damon Albarn
Is he a genuine Cockney or is Damon Albarn’s cheek-chappy Laaandan accent fake? Given his parents were incredibly middle-class and he spent most of his formative years in an Essex village, it probably is. But real or not, it’s f**king annoying and still continues to be, despite the fact he’s had a 35-year long career in which to gradually round off the edges and start singing normally.
