Who is your favourite artist / band from the European continent?

A lot of attention (rightfully) goes to the English-speaking world, with the vast majority of classic rock acts hailing from the UK or the USA. Threads have been dedicated to Australia, Canada and Scotland as well.

So what about the rest of Europe? Surely it's not a wasteland of bad accents and inept guitar slinging?

I'll help you on the way with some of my favourites:

- Golden Earring (The Netherlands): a true classic rock band, up there with the best of them, with an enviable discography spanning five decades by now. They've had the same lineup since the late '60's - surely some kind of record - and are wrongly classified as one hit wonders ("Radar love") outside of Europe.

- The Soundtrack Of Our Lives (Sweden)

- Téléphone (France): these guys' 1978-1984 run saw them combining Stones swagger with punk attitude. Cool riffs, good songwriting, classic rock production (courtesy of the likes of Glyn Johns or Martin Rushent) and great lyrics (if you understand French). Try the "Dure limite" album from 1982, produced by Bob Ezrin.

- dEUS (Belgium): not the best country to hail from if you're a proper classic rock band, but if you don't mind a little weirdness... Try dEUS.

- Europe (Sweden): a guilty pleasure of mine, they've reinvented themselves from cheesy-but-awesome 80's pop metal band to an altogether heavier but still tuneful (albeit still cheesy as well) classic rock band in the 00's.



Here's a few more to refresh your memory: Scorpions / Michael Schenker (Germany), Abba (Sweden, not really classic rock), Roxette (ditto and ditto), Focus (The Netherlands), Krokus (Switzerland), ...

Green Day

ledzep16 said:

Green Day

Click to expand...

huh?

My favourite European bands are Golden Earring and Can

They are Irish, right? They are definitely my favorite European band.

Listen to " Boulevard of Broken Dreams".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Soa3gO7tL-c

Michael Schenkar

Green Day are from California, but even if they were Irish: that's another English-language country and not on the "European continent".

You mentioning "Boulevard of broken dreams" reminds me that I've overlooked Hanoi Rocks, another influential Scandinavian rock band who have a song by that name.

PFM is an obvious one that comes to mind, along with Iceberg(Spain), Kraan, Passport, Eloy(Germany), Nova, Osanna, Le Orme(Italy), Secret Oyster(Denmark), Jean Luc Ponty, Gong(France), Sebastian Hardie, Ayers Rock, Windchase(Australia)

I really like this band from Poland...
their name is Breakout... and the lead singer is sometimes Tadeusz Nalepa (the father of polish rock) or Mira Kubasinska (his wife)... I prefer the songs in which Mira sings.

Na dnie moich oczu - Mira Kubasinska & Breakout



Wielki Ogien - Mira Kubasinska & Breakout

Not American and not English? Oh, so many bands... Just a few, for example:

Scorpions
Europe
Ayreon
Bonfire
Kingdom Come
Roxette
Royal Hunt
ABBA
Axel Rudi Pell
Candlemass
Gamma Ray
Hammerfall
Kreator
Krokus
Gotthard
Pink Cream 69
Primal Fear
Running Wild
Yngwie Malmsteen
Sodom
Sonata Arctica
Stratovarius
Tankard
Therion
Týr
Pain Of Salvation
Evergrey

also Nightwish