Music of Belgium - Pop and Rock

Pop and Rock

In 1959 the Belgian singer of Italian descent Rocco Granata scored a big European hit with "Marina". The singing nun Soeur Sourire had an international number one hit in 1963 with Dominique. When folk and hippie culture finally hit a chord around the world the groups The Pebbles ("Seven Horses in the Sky", "I Get Around") and The Wallace Collection ("Daydream") had considerable success in other countries. Irish Coffee, a hard rock band from Aalst also achieved considerable local success in the same era. Due to a lack of real professional management these few pop groups failed to build out a durable international career, a trend which continued during the 1970s when the most successful artists sang in their native tongue. The only real new international successful artist was Plastic Bertrand. (See "Punk" below).

Real international success for Belgian acts began in 1980 with the rock group TC Matic They were quite popular in the rest of Europe with numbers like "Oh la la la" and "Putain Putain". Lead singer Arno later started his own successful solo career. Many groups and artists had considerable success in other countries, but they usually didn't reach out much further than West Europe. Notable exceptions were Maurane, Jo Lemaire, Soulsister ("The Way To Your Heart", 1987) and Vaya Con Dios ("Puerto Rico", 1988).