United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a sovereign state in the European Union. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, it includes the island of "Great Britain" (a term also applied loosely to refer to the whole country), the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands.Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to its east, the English Channel to its south and the Celtic Sea to its south-southwest. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. With an area of 93,800 square miles (243,000 km²), the UK is the 80th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also is the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 64.5 million inhabitants.

The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. Its capital city is London, an important global city and financial centre with an urban population of 10,310,000, the fourth-largest in Europe and second-largest in the European Union. The current monarch—since 6 February 1952—is Queen Elizabeth II. The UK consists of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The latter three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast, respectively. The nearby Isle of Man, Bailiwick of Guernsey and Bailiwick of Jersey are not part of the United Kingdom, being Crown dependencies with the British Government responsible for defence and international representation.

United Kingdom (album)

United Kingdom is the fourth album by American Music Club. It was recorded primarily for the UK, where the band had a larger following than in their native USA, and consists of a mixture of studio and live tracks. The LP was produced by Tom Mallon who also produced the band's previous three LPs, The Restless Stranger, Engine and California. United Kingdom contained the song "Kathleen", the most obvious of many that Mark Eitzel has composed about his long-term muse, Kathleen Burns.

Track listing

All songs written by Mark Eitzel.

Personnel

United Kingdom (disambiguation)

The United Kingdom is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe.

United Kingdom may also refer to:

Music of the United Kingdom

The music of the United Kingdom refers to all forms of music associated with the United Kingdom since its creation.

Through its history, the United Kingdom has been a major exporter and source of musical innovation in the modern and contemporary eras, drawing its cultural basis from the history of the United Kingdom, from church music, from Western culture and from the ancient and traditional folk music and instrumentation of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. In the 20th century, influences from the music of the United States became most dominant in popular music. This led to the explosion of the British Invasion, while subsequent notable movements in British music include the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and Britpop. The United Kingdom has one of the world's largest music industries today, with many British musicians having had an impact on modern music.

Background

Early music

Music in the British Isles, from the earliest recorded times until the Baroque and the rise of recognisably modern classical music, was a diverse and rich culture, including sacred and secular music and ranging from the popular to the elite. Each of the major nations of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales retained unique forms of music and of instrumentation, but British music was highly influenced by continental developments, while British composers made an important contribution to many of the major movements in early music in Europe, including the polyphony of the Ars Nova and laid some of the foundations of later national and international classical music. Musicians from the British Isles also developed some distinctive forms of music, including Celtic chant, the Contenance Angloise, the rota, polyphonic votive antiphons and the carol in the medieval era.

Music of the United Kingdom (1970s)

Popular music of the United Kingdom in the 1970s built upon the new forms developed of music developed from blues rock towards the end of the 1960s, including folk rock and psychedelic rock. Several important and influential subgenres were created in Britain in this period, by pursuing the limitations of rock music, including electric folk and glam rock, a process that reached its apogee in the development of progressive rock and one of the most enduring subgenres in heavy metal music. Britain also began to be increasingly influenced by aspects of World music, including Jamaican and Indian music, resulting in new music scenes and subgenres. In the middle years of the decade the influence of the pub rock and American punk rock movements led to the British intensification of punk, which swept away much of the existing landscape of popular music, replacing it with much more diverse new wave and post punk bands who mixed different forms of music and influences to dominate rock and pop music into the 1980s.

Music of the United Kingdom (1950s)

Music of the United Kingdom began to develop in the 1950s; from largely insular and derivative forms to become one of the leading centres of popular music in the modern world. By 1950 indigenous forms of British popular music, including folk music, brass and silver bands, music hall and dance bands, were already giving way to the influence of American forms of music including jazz, swing and traditional pop, mediated through film and records.

The significant change of the mid-1950s was the impact of American rock and roll, which provided a new model for performance and recording, based on a youth market. Initially this was dominated by American acts, or re-creations of American forms of music, but soon distinctly British forms began to appear, first in the uniquely British take on American folk music in the skiffle craze of the 1950s with artists such as Lonnie Donegan, then in the beginnings of a folk revival that came to place an emphasis on national traditions and then in early attempts to produce British rock and roll such as Cliff Richard & the Shadows' Move It, often cited at the first British rock and roll record.

Culture of the United Kingdom

The culture of the United Kingdom is the pattern of human activity and symbolism associated with the United Kingdom and its people. It is influenced by the UK's history as a developed island country, a liberal democracy and a major power, its predominantly Christian religious life, and its composition of four countries—England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales—each of which has distinct customs, cultures and symbolism. The wider culture of Europe has also influenced British culture, and Humanism, Protestantism and representative democracy developed from broader Western culture.

British literature, music, cinema, art, theatre, comedy, media, television, philosophy, architecture and education are influential and respected across the world. The United Kingdom is also prominent in science and technology, producing world-leading scientists (e.g. Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin) and inventions. Sport is an important part of British culture; numerous sports originated in the country, including football. The UK has been described as a "cultural superpower", and London has been described as a world cultural capital.