It’s a pretty common occurrence: You’ve heard a couple of songs by an artist and you stumble across an interview or a RapGenius video where said artist is breaking down their song lyrics and to your surprise, they have a British accent. You scroll down to the comments and find other fans who are just as surprised as you. Prior to this, you were quick to assume the singer was American. Or perhaps, you were already familiar with the artists’ native accent and still find the contrast to their ‘singing voice’ remarkable.  

And if you’re a singer yourself (a shower-one or otherwise), you may have even noticed this in your own singing practices. As soon as the shower water begins to run or you’ve cleared your throat, ready to belt out some notes, your native accent takes a backseat.

Why is this?

British linguist, David Crystal, notes that one of the reasons for this change in accent is phonetic: when we sing, the features that mark regional accents tend to disappear, an effect otherwise known as ‘accent-neutralising’.  These features include intonation; the variation present in spoken pitch that allows us to detect attitudes and emotions of the speaker. The intonation is lost because the melody of the song replaces it. Other features include speech rhythm, vowel length as well as vowel quality, which is the property that allows us to distinguish between vowel sounds, for example, ‘iː’ in ‘sheep’ and ɪ in ‘ship’. In reference to vowel quality, Crystal draws attention to classical singing, where vowels are enunciated with openness not characteristic of everyday speech.

All in all, singing requires the lengthening of syllables, the increase of air flow as well as articulation that is generally less precise. The result is a generic, neutralised accent that ‘sounds American’.

However, this loss of accent is not just specific to non-American artists ‘sounding American’. Take the General American accent for example which is a rhotic one, meaning the consonant ‘r’ is pronounced at the end of words such as ‘lover’. Matt Soniak of Mental Floss describes how a lot of songs require American singers to push the ‘r’ towards more of an ‘ah’ vowel sound similar to how it would be perceived in a British accent. This is evidenced in the song ‘My Lover’ by British artists Mabel and Not3s.

Another reason for the disappearance of regional accents is a social one. Artists may drop their regional accents in favour of what they consider to be more popular or mainstream. Early examples include the 1950s and 60s where British artists emulated artists such as Chuck Berry or Elvis Presley.  Here, as Linguistic lecturers Rob Drummond and Erin Carrie do, it is important to note that it may not necessarily be that singers are trying to sound ‘American’ but are simply adopting the default style for the genre(s) they are in. It could also be a matter of the influences some artists draw upon. For example, bands like the Rolling Stones were heavily influenced by African American blues musicians, who sounded more American. The same could be said for British artists like Ella Mai who cites 90s R&B artists such as Lauryn Hill, India Arie and more as her musical influences.

With all this being said, accent-neutralisation is not present in every artist’s music or even in all genres (country music for example). It is possible for an artist to maintain their accent when they sing if they wish to. Examples of artists who have done so and continue to do so include Lily Allen, rock band Arctic Monkeys and rapper Lady Leshurr. Whilst this is the case, it is rare that a consistent regional accent is used throughout a whole song, something that Crystal refers to as a ‘mixed accent’.