I thought it might be fun to start a thread where people share some of their favourite artists and bands from their home country.
I’m Canadian, so I’ll start with some of my personal favourites. There are so many others but some that come to mind right away.
Bands:
Blue Rodeo
Barenaked Ladies
Our Lady Peace
Rush
And I could never forget “The Tragically Hip” if you are a fan of big rock bands
Singer/songwriter type artists: Neil Young, Joni Mitchell
Blues rock: Jeff Healy, David Wilcox
I’d love to hear which artists my fellow Canadians would add and which songs you’d recommend.
It would also be great to see people from other countries start their own posts or share their favourites here.
Since beginning my guitar journey I’ve discovered that quite a few artists I enjoy are from Ireland, so I’m especially hoping someone will introduce us to more Irish bands and artists!
I’ll go straight for a couple of my favourite contemporary indie/alt/art/ rock post punk bands here in the UK/British Isles. If you’ve heard of them
in Canada well done Man Woman Chainsaw - one of my favourites at the moment Mary in the Junkyard - love their music and gigs - best gig of 2026 so far, played squashed in to the corner of a tiny pub in North London The Sprints - great Irish post punk band awesome shows loads of energy Fontaine’s DC - great musicians and songsmiths. Getting pretty well known now. English Teacher - won the Mercury Prize here in UK a couple of years ago
Living near Bristol in the UK I’m luck to have quite a decent variety of small venues to see live bands at.
There’s lots of other bands that you’re all likely know and that I like but I thought I’d throw some square balls. Have a listen, maybe you’ll like them all or none or one, makes no difference to me, that’s the great thing about music
I’m also Canadian heres what we came up with in about 5 minutes beside the one’s you mentioned
We listen to a lot of different kinds od music
Robbie Robertson (The Band)
David Clayton-Thomas (Blood Sweat and Tears)
Steppen Wolf (about 1/2 the members were Canadian)
Guess Who
The Stampeders
Lighthouse
BTO(Bachman Turner Overdrive)
April Wine
Rush
Triuph
Chilliwack
Platinum Blonde
Crash Test Dummies
Matthew Good Band
Red Rider
I Mother Earth
54 40
Headpins
Nickelback
Simple Plan
Arcade Fire
Great Big Sea
Singer songwriters
Leonard Cohen
Gordon Lightfoot
Avril Lavigne
Alanis Morissette
Shinia Twain
Alen Doyle
My quick list, if I think more, it would get pretty long -
Beach Boys, of course, I grew up near them and went to the same beach as a kid.
Jim Croce
Nirvana
Frank Zappa
Santana (Mexico/US)
Lynyrd Skynyrd
SRV (of course)
The Eagles
CCR
George Strait
Glenn Campbell
Fleetwood Mac (US/UK)
The Carpenters (don’t judge me)
Just a couple, depending on which genre (some of them will be known by some of you, others certainly not):
rock: dEUS
rap: Yong Yello
hiphop: Tourist leMC
chançon (literally translates to “song”): Jacques Brel
kleinkunst (literally translates to"little art"): Willem Vermandere
blues: Toots Thielemans
and on a bit of a tangent: Adolphe Sax
As an Aussie, we’ve always punched well above
our weight on the music scene.
AC/DC
Cold Chisel
Midnight Oil
INXS
Men at Work
The Seekers
The Easybeats
Australian Crawl
The Radiators
Rose Tattoo
Daddy Cool
The Black Sorrows
Skyhooks
Mental As Anything
Air Supply
Little River Band
The Divinyls
The Easy Beats
The Angels
Hoodoo Gurus
Crowded House
Hunters & Collectors
Silverchair
Powderfinger
Way too many to list and I am sure this has come up before if only on the old forum.
I’ll let folk work it out but I am 70 and started really listening to British bands around 1963, mainly blues, blues rock, rock, hard rock and metal as it was called then. Most of those favourites will have been pre 1980. It was the music I grew up with but also included Soul and Reggae. Eclectic taste ? For sure, sue me.
If I pick just one would be Piet Botha, both solo albums and with his band Jackhammer.
Loved the artists who played on the Voelvry Toer in 1989, when Afrikaans music became protest music: Johannes Kerkorrel, Koos Kombuis and Bernoldus Niemand
Niemand was a persona of James Phillips. His serious band was the Cherry Faced Lurchers.
Saw all those live many times.
Prior to that, as a high-schooler The Asylum Kids.
Great list, Shane. Have to call out The Seekers. Loved their music as child, shared by my parents, before I’d heard of people like Dylan and Mamas and Poppas I loved Blowing in the Wind and California Dreaming thanks to the Seekers
Shane got so excited he put the Easybeats in twice. Fair call.
Crowded house were probably more Australian than Kiwi, on balance.
Many Australian bands have had non-Aussie members anyway, so there’s no easy definition.
I would add:
Icehouse
Kids in the Kitchen
Lucas Sisters (I had a crush on one of them)
Do Re Mi
Models
The Church
The Triffids
Goanna
The Masters Apprentices
The Loved Ones
…and so on
