I’m starting this post out with a mention of Morgan Wallen but if you don’t like him or don’t know who he is, hang tight, I’m just using him as an example of a more general idea about music. Earlier this month, Morgan set the record for the biggest country music concert in the UK with a crowd of 50,000. Granted, he’s just as popular in the U.S. even if he’s throwing chairs or using taboo words. People like his music and I’m guessing they don’t hate his bad-boy persona either. But that’s not the point. The headline about his record-setting concert in London reminded me of another artist I was researching last week. There’s a song called “Austin” (not the one by Blake Shelton) and a few months ago it blew up worldwide, mostly thanks to TikTok, I guess. It’s from country newbie Dasha. She’s had quite a few singles before “Austin” but none that charted. Then boom, she goes #1 in two countries and top 10 in a dozen or more. Who knows if her latest single “Didn’t I” will catch on the same way, although I haven’t heard that lightning striking twice is very common.
Musical artists becoming popular around the world isn’t a new thing but I remember when I first learned about such a phenomenon. I was a naive 20-something-year-old wandering the streets of Vietnam. During this trip I heard all kinds of music and some of it was from artists back in the U.S. There were songs I’d never heard before and one that I had (why were Vietnamese so obsessed with “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic, I’ll never know!). This was my introduction to the band called Boney M. They were a German group who had many hits worldwide but barely had a blip in the United States. I guess this was when it dawned on me that there, in fact, is music outside the U.S…. So naive was I. We were riding in a Vietnamese taxi and the driver was playing a CD (it was 2006, y’all, CDs were still a thing!). I loved the song I was hearing so I asked if I could see the disc to find out the name of the band. The song was “Rasputin” and thus began my appreciation for Boney M.
But getting back to the point of this post… it fascinates me that an artist who may or may not be popular in the U.S. can be huge in other countries. I mean, the Germans love David Hasselhoff, right? American’s remember him as a lifeguard or the driver of K.I.T.T. but he’s a singer, too. I recently learned more about another legendary artist who was big in other countries. Roy Orbison. Of course, the Big O is very well known even in 2024 in the United States, but with such a long career there were ebs and flows in his popularity and relevancy. The book I was reading went through lots of details of his musical journey and pointed out that a particular song not super well-received in the U.S. might be a #1 hit in another country. This actually happened quite a bit for Roy and it was the reason he toured overseas a lot. So how can the same song float around the middle or bottom of U.S. charts but then blow up in somewhere like Ireland? It’s fascinating.
Of course, there are artists who transcend time and geography… Elvis, Michael Jackson, the Beatles, Taylor Swift, Celine Dion, Madonna, and the list goes on. Artists like these have #1 hits in many countries. That doesn’t fascinate me, though, as much as an artist from the States who has a small tour here but has international fame overseas. It’s a cool thing.
During my trip to Vietnam, I also realized how small my mind was. It never once dawned on me that other countries have popular artists in their own right. Up to that point, I just thought whoever was popular in the U.S. was who people in other countries liked, too. What a goofball. I love that this trip opened up my mind to other countries and cultures… even if it meant I had to eat weird things, too.
-Out of the Wilderness
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