The AM demographics poll

[Pierre]

ERRATUM:

Between Northern America and Eastern Asia, read "Central Asia" instead of "Central Africa". I implore our friends from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to forgive my incompetence.

This poll is a sequel to this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2843

and more specifically this message:

I'm not western.

At any rate, I think a lot of people from India and other such developing countries may also be likely to be a part of this forum. Maybe we should hold a poll or something to find out.

So welcome to the AM demographics poll! The purpose of this poll is, of course, to make a census of the current population of the forum, to know to which extent our little community is globalized. I'll be using the United Nations statistical divisions for the poll options according to Wikipedia, because it's more exhaustive than a simple division through the seven continents, and also because there are miraculously twenty of them. To know where you are, please follow this link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Na ... _divisions

Of course, you're completely free to disagree with this division and vote for the place that you think suits your feelings best. I don't want this poll to be binding in any form; to take a French example, if you're in one of the overseas territories but consider you are from Western Europe, feel free to vote so.

If you're from Antarctica or aboard the International Space Station, if you're a time-traveller, a slider, a mermaid, an IA, or an alien or extra-dimensional entity, I'm truly sorry that I cannot give you a suitable option - please feel free to introduce yourself and your origin point in a reply to this topic. I don't want you to feel stigmatized.

Anyway, as you certainly know already, I'm from Western Europe in the context of this poll, more precisely from France, more precisely from Normandy. As a result, I've probably a Celt, Roman, Frank, Norse and maybe Spanish ancestry. That's a land of milk but not that much honey, with rain, cows, horses, sheeps, more rain, farmers, fishermen, oyster and mussel farmers, drunkards, even more rain, the Mont Saint-Michel, the Calvados, butter and cheese, nuclear plants, nuclear submarines, a nuclear reprocessing plant, and people born or raised in Normandy include the Dogs, Françoiz Breut, Orelsan, Guy de Maupassant, Gustave Flaubert, Alexis de Tocqueville, Corneille and Claude Monet.

Now, it's your turn, fellow AMers. Surprise me.

[DocBrown]

from France, more precisely from Normandy.

My Dad visited Normandy once. Wasn't impressed. Said it was noisy and crowded, and people kept shooting at him.

[Pierre]

from France, more precisely from Normandy.

My Dad visited Normandy once. Wasn't impressed. Said it was noisy and crowded, and people kept shooting at him.

Yeah, it was a popular destination in the mid-40s, and apparently this was a thing between the visiting people. They left the place in shambles, took a while to fix things. It's much more calm today.

[Romain]

The thing who amazed me in this site, it's the lack of English people.

Guys, you made the best music in the world... where are you?

(if you can change, I think it's Central America more than Central Africa).

[TimmyWing]

The thing who amazed me in this site, it's the lack of English people.

Guys, you made the best music in the world... where are you?

Hello!

I was born and raised in Aylesbury, England; my Mum's from Slovakia and my Dad grew up in Yorkshire. I've also got Irish blood on my Dad's side, and who knows what else if you go back further.

My hometown, ehhh, doesn't have much to speak of. Our most successful musical exports are Marillion and John Otway (who's second by a looong way off). It's well-known around the town that there used to be a thriving music club in the '70s, which hosted everyone from Bowie, Genesis and King Crimson, to Stiff Little Fingers and The Specials, The Clash and Iggy Pop. Stopped in the '80s though, and while some of those names have come back to play, there hasn't been a place for contemporary British acts to come, really.

Studying in Scotland at the moment. Feels strange to call myself from "Northern Europe", but geographically speaking I guess that's correct.

[Pierre]

(if you can change, I think it's Central America more than Central Africa).

Shoot! It's not Central America either, it's Central Asia. Dang, and I re-read myself several times before posting

And to crown it all, I can't change it... Well, I'm not going to repost the whole thing, or else it will probably make the results false, as people won't necessary feel the need to re-vote... The only thing I can do is indicate the erratum. Talk about screwing up

[Romain]

Hello!

Studying in Scotland at the moment. Feels strange to call myself from "Northern Europe", but geographically speaking I guess that's correct.

Bring back your fellow compatriots !


And for me, England is clearly Western Europe, no !?

[Jeff]

I love UN Subregions! Well, maybe not love so much as find useful now and then. I do not think I have ever mentioned much about myself before, so here goes: I'm from Northern America (the United States). Born on the West Coast (California), attended college in the South (Louisiana), and grad school on the East Coast (New York). Currently, I am back on the West Coast, but am contemplating moving back east (D.C.) in a few months for a career change (the weather is hard to give up though. . .). Unfortunately, I have no connection to the Midwest, other than my love of Chicago House and Detroit Techno.

[hectorthebat]

The thing who amazed me in this site, it's the lack of English people.

Guys, you made the best music in the world... where are you?

Hi! I'm from Liverpool, which I think of as the world capital of music, and not just because of The Beatles. If you're ever in town, let me know, and I'll show you around!

[luney6]

So far, not many surprises, but this could be interesting.

Also, India falls in Southern Asia, right?

[Pierre]

Also, India falls in Southern Asia, right?

So says the UN:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Na ... s_for_Asia

[Nick]

I'm not from South America, but I don't think there's an option in this poll for people who are.

Also it seems pretty weird that the entirety of Canada, the US, and Mexico are all one region, but Europe gets to be split into 4 distinct regions. But hey, I don't work for the UN.

[Pierre]

And for me, England is clearly Western Europe, no !?

Not for the UN:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Na ... for_Europe

But as I said, people are free to vote for the region where they feel they belong. I'm not conducting a survey for the UN here, just trying to have an idea of the composition of the AM community.

I'm not from South America, but I don't think there's an option in this poll for people who are.

Also it seems pretty weird that the entirety of Canada, the US, and Mexico are all one region, but Europe gets to be split into 4 distinct regions. But hey, I don't work for the UN.

South America is regrouped in "Latin America and the Caribbean". They are grouped together for the UN, although they offer further subdivisions, but you can only add 20 answers max on the polls on this forum. I had to choose between these and grouping all of Oceania together, but I didn't see any reason to go either way aside from the assumption that there are more members from Latin America than from Oceania (a fact disproven so far), so I chose to stick with the main UN divisions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Na ... e_Americas

And actually, for the UN, North America is Canada, the US and Greenland + a few islands, as you can see in the link above. Mexico is grouped in Central America, one of the subdivisions of "Latin America and the Caribbean". Like for the UK being classed in "Northern Europe", I agree that it's debatable.

[Gillingham]

I confess I deviated from the question. I was born in South America, but I've been raised in Western Europe and have a Dutch passport.

[Gillingham]

While I definitely understand why a division like this one was chosen, one could argue (numberwise) for something rather imperfect like this:

Canada
Western U.S. (including Alaska and Hawaii)
Midwestern U.S.
Southern U.S.
Northeast U.S.
Latin America
U.K. and Ireland
Scandinavia (including Finland and the Baltics)
Western contentinental Europe
Southern Europe
Eastern Europe
Africa
Oceania
Asia

It would subdivise the large portions from North America and Western Europe a bit and leave out the -nesias. But that would be too biased I guess.

[Toni]

Didn't know this UN subdivision system. Interesting way of grouping the countries not only by geographical criteria but, mainly, based on historical and cultural issues. You say, although US and Canada occupies such a large territory, probably there's much more in common between both countries than between those of Southern and Western Europe.
Have never been to England, but I've liked that UN have put them along with the Nordic countries. For me, it seems that these countries have historically developed a bit apart from the rest of Western Europe, leading to some unique cultural characteristics.
About me, I've been born in Brazil and have never lived in another country. Greetings from "Latin America & the Caribean"!

[Pierre]

So far, there are 21 members from America (including two from Latin America), 15 from Europe (of note, nobody from Eastern Europe. I thought we did have one or two members from there?), 2 from Oceania, 1 from Asia and 0 from Africa (Dan, are you still around?).

I would say these results are confirming my original assumption, that AM.net is first and foremost a Western website. I was asking for surprises, and you disappointed me people

[Dan]

Well, how disappointing that the only person from Africa on here is a white guy with British citizenship and European ancestors. I’ve spent 25 years of my life in South Africa and 10 years in the UK. As for the European ancestors, one of my uncles has researched the family tree on my dad’s side of the family and discovered that my great great great great etc. grandmother was likely a teenage German orphan (!) who was shipped to South Africa (along with many other German orphan girls) to make white babies with Dutch men (mostly criminals) that had occupied the region around Cape Town at the time. So there you have it… my European origin goes back to something as glamorous as a German orphan and a Dutch criminal.

I can’t speak for the rest of Africa, but I’m not really surprised that there aren’t more regulars from South Africa on the forum. First of all, the cost of downloading or streaming music is extortionate compared with most other countries. In the UK I spent £12 a month on superfast broadband, while here in South Africa I spend over £150 a month on a much slower internet connection. Also, I don’t think that many South Africans would care about what western music critics think are the best music in the world. South Africa has 11 official languages, and whilst English is the common language that most people can speak at least a little bit of, the vast majority of South Africans don’t listen to music sung in English. The amount of people that would be interested in a website or forum like Acclaimed Music is significantly less than in western countries. Even so, I hope there are a few more Africans lurking in the background that will start participating sometime in the future.

[Henrik]

This is a great initiative, Pierre! But - given the pattern - I think some divisions could be grouped together, while it would be interesting to see the biggest and/or most AM-influential countries separated. A suggestion (an expansion of Gillingham's):

Canada
Western U.S. (including Alaska and Hawaii)
Midwestern U.S.
Southern U.S.
Northeast U.S.
Latin America
U.K. and Ireland
Nordic countries (Scandinavia, Finland and Iceland)
Benelux (Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg)
Germany, Switzerland and Austria
France
Spain and Portugal
Italy and Greece
Eastern Europe
Africa
Middle East
Russia
China, Japan and Korea
India and Southeast Asia
Australia + New Zealand

[Pierre]

This is a great initiative, Pierre! But - given the pattern - I think some divisions could be grouped together, while it would be interesting to see the biggest and/or most AM-influential countries separated. A suggestion (an expansion of Gillingham's):

Canada
Western U.S. (including Alaska and Hawaii)
Midwestern U.S.
Southern U.S.
Northeast U.S.
Latin America
U.K. and Ireland
Nordic countries (Scandinavia, Finland and Iceland)
Benelux (Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg)
Germany, Switzerland and Austria
France
Spain and Portugal
Italy and Greece
Eastern Europe
Africa
Middle East
Russia
China, Japan and Korea
India and Southeast Asia
Australia + New Zealand

Yes, I understand this approach as well. My main objective was to be "naive" to the mostly Western composition of the forum's community, that's why I chose a neutral system of divisions for the world. Maybe some surprises would have appeared; in the end, they did not. Another demographics poll can be started at a later date with this division system as well, of course, but I think it's wiser to let some time pass before.

[Henrik]

I agree with all you said, Pierre.

[Toni]

Also, I don’t think that many South Africans would care about what western music critics think are the best music in the world. South Africa has 11 official languages, and whilst English is the common language that most people can speak at least a little bit of, the vast majority of South Africans don’t listen to music sung in English.

And what do you think about the music people listen to on South Africa, Dan? I know it could be subject for another topic, but what's the best music you've heard over there?

[Dan]

Thanks for asking, Toni. For each of the official South African languages there are many traditional and neo-traditional performers, and there are loads of those performers whose music I still need to check out. But the most popular style at the moment is kwaito. Kwaito is a genre that originated in Soweto in the 1980s and is a combination of traditional South African dance beats, house music and elements of hip hop (I say elements of hip hop because kwaito often shares similarities with hip hop but it’s not hip hop). Kwaito has been popular for many years in South Africa, but it keeps evolving. The most popular local song at the moment seems to be Shumaya by Dbn Nyts feat. Zinhle Ngidi & Trademark. Another very popular recent song is Caracara by K.O feat. KiD X. So far, the South African song released in 2015 that I've enjoyed listening to the most is Sweetie by Heavy-K feat. Nokwazi.

Anyway, here are some of my favourite South African songs, in chronological order (the huh? words in brackets after the release dates are the music genres):

Solomon Linda's Original Evening Birds | Mbube | 1939 (Mbube)
Spokes Mashiyane | Chobolo | 195? (Kwela)
Miriam Makeba and the Skylarks | Inkomo Zodwa | 1959 (Marabi, Kwela)
Miriam Makeba | The Click Song (Quongqothwane) | 1961 (Marabi)
Miriam Makeba | Pata Pata | 1967 (Marabi)
Letta Mbulu | Mahlalela | 1970 (Afro-fusion, Jazz)
Ladysmith Black Mambazo | Nomathemba | 1973 (Isicathamiya)
Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya | The Mountain | 1985 (Jazz)
Yvonne Chaka Chaka | Umqombothi | 1986 (Pop, Afro-fusion)
Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens | Kazet | 1989 (Mbaqanga)
Koos Kombuis | Onder in my whiskeyglas | 1990 (Afrikaans Folk)
Soweto Gospel Choir | Shosholoza | 2007 (Ndebele Folk)
DJ Mujava | Township Funk | 2008 (Kwaito)
BLK JKS | Lakeside | 2009 (Experimental Rock, Afro-fusion)
Freshlyground | Fire Is Low | 2010 (Afro-fusion, Pop)

[luney6]

Last.fm just got updated, and now it has a feature that allows you to see the most popular tracks for different countries, and the amount of the times those tracks were scrobbled. Apparently, the most scrobbled song in China is Help, by the Beatles, with over 5000 scrobbles.

[Maschine_Man]

^^^ Thanks for the heads up! I can scrobble from iTunes again! Huzzah! It's been broken for months (or did they fix it an I just didn't notice?). I'm almost about to hit my 100,000th scrobble


Who are the others from Australia/New Zealand? I thought there was one or two, but three! Well, that's one more than I though possible! I'm from Cairns which is hot and humid almost all year round. We have that thing called the Great Barrier Reef and what is the worlds second-fifth largest (I can't figure out what the consensus is on size) rain forrest, the Daintree. I moved from the country to my state capital, Brisbane. It's where Tony Abbott embarrassed the entire nation at the G20 last year. I'm now in London and looking for work in my field. I'm guessing the next big move will be to Mars?

Edit: I love telling people exactly how big Australia is, my move from Cairns to Brisbane was around 1600km, enough to get from London to Lithuania or New York to Florida. I hadn't even left the state.

[DaveC]

Edit: I love telling people exactly how big Australia is, my move from Cairns to Brisbane was around 1600km, enough to get from London to Lithuania or New York to Florida. I hadn't even left the state.

I have a picture of New Zealand to scale imposed across Europe for people to see the sins of the Mercator projection. New Zealand is genuinely small compared with Australia. My son lives in Perth and the flight from here takes roughly the same time as the flight from London to Kabul, most of it over the landmass of Australia.

Had an enjoyable holiday in Cairns a few years ago, and have twice stayed in Port Douglas.

[Maschine_Man]

Had an enjoyable holiday in Cairns a few years ago, and have twice stayed in Port Douglas.

Cairns is pretty boring, but everywhere around it is stunning. The drive to Port Douglas is fantastic, gotta watch out for crocs on the beach though! I haven't even been to Perth, or for that fact 4/8 of our states/territories. #EastCoast4Life.

New Zealand is 100% beautiful. I have been twice, the first time was a north to south trip and then the second was a ski trip with school. Queenstown, Auckland and Christchurch were wonderful, but I loved Kaikoura the most- I had a whale of a time.

[Craig]

Another Aussie here
Newcastle (just north of Sydney) is my home. Industrial town, 20 years behind the rest of the world and obsessed with pub rock. Musically known for silverchair and The Screaming Jets (if you don't know who they are, don't waste your time). Actually it's got great beaches and good place to grow up.
I found Australia too big to travel around so I decided to see the rest of the world instead. No problems going all over the States and Europe but ask me to drive from one state to another in Australia and I can't be bothered! I need to change that attitude cause I know we have a beautiful country.

[Pierre]

I went to Australia for two weeks once, only visited the South-East coast. There were beautiful landscapes, although I wish I had time to see more.

Thanks for asking, Toni. For each of the official South African languages there are many traditional and neo-traditional performers, and there are loads of those performers whose music I still need to check out. But the most popular style at the moment is kwaito. Kwaito is a genre that originated in Soweto in the 1980s and is a combination of traditional South African dance beats, house music and elements of hip hop (I say elements of hip hop because kwaito often shares similarities with hip hop but it’s not hip hop). Kwaito has been popular for many years in South Africa, but it keeps evolving. The most popular local song at the moment seems to be Shumaya by Dbn Nyts feat. Zinhle Ngidi & Trademark. Another very popular recent song is Caracara by K.O feat. KiD X. So far, the South African song released in 2015 that I've enjoyed listening to the most is Sweetie by Heavy-K feat. Nokwazi.

Anyway, here are some of my favourite South African songs, in chronological order (the huh? words in brackets after the release dates are the music genres):

Solomon Linda's Original Evening Birds | Mbube | 1939 (Mbube)
Spokes Mashiyane | Chobolo | 195? (Kwela)
Miriam Makeba and the Skylarks | Inkomo Zodwa | 1959 (Marabi, Kwela)
Miriam Makeba | The Click Song (Quongqothwane) | 1961 (Marabi)
Miriam Makeba | Pata Pata | 1967 (Marabi)
Letta Mbulu | Mahlalela | 1970 (Afro-fusion, Jazz)
Ladysmith Black Mambazo | Nomathemba | 1973 (Isicathamiya)
Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya | The Mountain | 1985 (Jazz)
Yvonne Chaka Chaka | Umqombothi | 1986 (Pop, Afro-fusion)
Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens | Kazet | 1989 (Mbaqanga)
Koos Kombuis | Onder in my whiskeyglas | 1990 (Afrikaans Folk)
Soweto Gospel Choir | Shosholoza | 2007 (Ndebele Folk)
DJ Mujava | Township Funk | 2008 (Kwaito)
BLK JKS | Lakeside | 2009 (Experimental Rock, Afro-fusion)
Freshlyground | Fire Is Low | 2010 (Afro-fusion, Pop)

Thanks a lot for sharing this Dan! I've liked nearly all of these songs, so great discoveries (I already heard "Mbube", "The Click Song (Quongqothwane)" and "Pata Pata" before, but the rest I didn't know). These African sounds are great, AM.net really could use more of those. South African critics never make lists?

I would be interested to see more of these kinds of posts from our non-American and non-British members, it's always nice to discover new sounds.

So, according to the current results of the poll, the members of our community are 42% from North America, and 42% from Europe, with the 16 remaining % shared between the rest of the world.

Funny discovery, that's not what Alexa claims:

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/acclaimedmusic.net

Apparently 62% of us are from... Philippines? Is Alexa broken or something?

[Dan]

Glad you liked those South African songs, Pierre. Such is the breadth of knowledge of AM'ers that three of the songs I recommended are songs I discovered through lists posted by other forum members who live very far away from South Africa: I listened to Letta Mbulu's "Mahlalela" after noticing it on lists by Charlie Driggs and DaveC, "The Mountain" by Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya was a discovery I made through Nicolas, and it was Michel who introduced me to Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens' "Kazet". Thanks for that, guys!

[Pierre]

This will be my last bump of this topic before letting this sink, because I don't expect any major change in the results from now on. I guess the next demographics poll could be done one year from now, so next August, if I'm still around.

What surprises me the most is the lack of member from Eastern Europe. I was quite sure the forum had some before...

[DocBrown]

This will be my last bump of this topic before letting this sink, because I don't expect any major change in the results from now on. I guess the next demographics poll could be done one year from now, so next August, if I'm still around.

What surprises me the most is the lack of member from Eastern Europe. I was quite sure the forum had some before...

You're not mistaken. Chambord is from Romania.