Music Blogs

While the staff here at British rock mag MOJO are of course delighted at the adoption of our magazine by our cousins across the pond, it has come to our attention that some of our limey rock-hack lingo is causing confusion. It's an oft-coined saw that the British and Americans are two peoples separated by a common language, and this applies in spades to the world of rock, where our linguistic habits and expressions could hardly be more different.

So, as a handy service to our former-colonial readers, we humbly present a breakdown of some of the less familiar terms (with what we hope to be their American equivalents) that you might find in the UK music rags. So without ado, let's rock! Or as you guys might have it, rawk!

"The Difficult Third Album": The point at which the wheels come off a band's career and their previously serene progress is derailed by the simple obstacle of having to write some new songs. You chaps have the roughly analogous "Sophomore Jinx," which begs the question, Why does it happen an album early over there?

"Radiohead Are An Awfully Good Group": Compare with the American "Fall Out Boy is a killer band." In British rock lingo, band names take the third person plural, denoting their status as a collection of individuals, or something. Grammatically, yours is the more correct, but we like to think ours is the more elegant.

"Americana": To Brazilians: a suburb of São Paolo. To Americans: apple pie, coonskin caps, the Monroe Doctrine, etc. To Brits, a revivalist brand of vaguely rootsy American college rock that we used to call alt.country, until we got bored of it. NB. No one in Britain wears plaid unless they herd cattle in the Highlands of Scotland.

"Blow": To you, cocaine. To us, for some reason, cannabis resin. Imagine the confusion!

"Smoking a fag": British bands are always reported to be "smoking a fag," but relax. This almost never means they are involved in the shooting of a gay person.

"Gaffer Tape": The roadies' friend, wherever he may be. Duct tape (or the proprietary "Duck Tape") to you.

"British band break(s) America": UK bands "breaking America" is an invention of the marketing departments at UK record labels that pretty much means "these guys appeared on Conan once." As any fule kno, no British band has ever "broken America." In fact, the last two British acts said to have done so were Lady Sovereign and Bloc Party. Exactly.

"Damon Albarn": Über-parochial Britpop star, sometime of Blur (they "broke America" in 1997). Sings in a semi-affected Dick Van Dyke cockney twang. Culturally incomprehensible on the opposite side of the pond. Ergo: the English Jimmy Buffett.

Other instances of UK-US rock lingo-clash gladly received. For daily MOJOness, go to http://www.mojo4music.com