Ahhh… Someone answered this one! I always wondered if it had the flow.
How was their accent?
High Priestess I agree and feel your pain. Don’t even ask about Puffy’s (no not puff daddy’s) U.S. release. Kuraki Mai also did an english relase album to little fanfare, and in fact for some reason the sound quality not of her voice per se, but of the music was totally subpar to her Japanese release.
Toshinobu Kutoba is a mixed bag. I know he speaks Enlish fluently, but when he sings in English, he still has this horrible lisp sounding accent with his words. He’s done three english release ablums, and his last one wasin’t bad, but I would have much preferred the JPN version. His Sunsine Moonlight one sucked though,except for his Just the Two of Us Rendetion.
I suggest you listen to “Helden” (“Heroes”) by David Bowie. I heard it on a friends collection set (4 CD’s back in the late 80’s, spaced the name). I really liked it.
RTOP: I’d also say that I only like a few artists who do this, but I’m not against it completely. I’ve just recently heard those Russian girls “Tatu” sing “All the things she said.” (Which, btw way is a great video) and would have to say that they pull it off.
But some of the local Czech bands I hear fail miserably…
-Tcat
I agree with moodtobestewed - 99 Luftballoons sounds better in German, even though I can brely understand it.
Crappers! I meant if they had stuck to Swedish (preview is your friend). ABBA has done covers of their own songs in Swedish, also Spanish, and some German and Waterloo in French.
Edith Piaf singing in English sounds forced and somewhat mangled, but I still like it. I prefer hearing Brazilian singers sing in Portuguese, but it doesn’t hurt the music too much when it’s sung in English.
I cannot ABIDE English translations of Italian opera. It sounds wrong and stupid.
I’m reminded of the very distracting English version of Ave Maria that closes the original 1940 film Fantasia.
One thing I noticed on the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon soundtrack is that the ending song, the one that plays over the credits, sounds much better in Chinese* than in English. I’m not sure why.
[sub]*Disclaimer: I only call it Chinese because I’m not sure whether it was in Mandarin or Cantonese or what. [/sub]
Good GOD people.
The disparaging of Till Lindemann in this thread simply will not stand.
Don’t you know the man can hear you?
I found Engel to be better in German than in English, though the English one wasn’t too bad. It just seems to work better in German.
I second that. I’ve heard Engel done in English, and it was nowhere near as good as the original. I think it’s because their accent suits that type of music a lot more than English. Till Lindemann’s voice is amazing, but in the English versions it just sounds…silly.
With a very few notable exceptions (e.g. certain versions of The Port of Amsterdam and If you go away), anything ever translated from the work of Jacques Brel.
Most people don’t realize that the really cheesy song “Seasons in the Sun” (Oh you know, the one that starts: “Goodbye to you my trusted friend” and has the chorus “We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun.”) is actually a Jaques Brel song from 1961 called “Le Moribond”. And of course this gives me an opportunity to use my signature.
Sie liebt dich ja ja ja
Sie liebt dich ja ja ja
Sie liebt dich ja ja ja jaaaaaaaaaaa
Just doesn’t sound right!
Allegedly, Fraser always sang in English, at least some of the time–it was just impossible to understand her. Her singing only became more intelligible after she apparently took speaking lessons, some time before Heaven or Las Vegas.
That’s the story I read in NME, anyway…probably not the most authoritative of sources.
Re the OP…
I love the song Dindi, in fact it was the first dance song at my wedding (it has the added bonus of only being about two minutes long, I’m no public dancer).
However, the only version I’m familiar with is done by Astrud Gilberto and is in English. I think it’s a beautiful song.
So I guess different strokes for different folks.
Of course, I would love to hear the Portuguese version as well, and I will look for it.
That’s actually the one I had in mind when I wrote my post.
Lux Interior, your Beatles translation is not a million miles from:
Ich lieb dich nicht du liebst mich nicht
Ich lieb dich nicht du liebst mich nicht
Da da da…
Utada Hikaru was partially raised in the U.S. and and released a stateside album of songs that she wrote and sung in English before she ever recorded in Japan.
And ditto for Bjork and the Sugarcubes. They should have stuck to singing in Icelandic. Those sellout hacks!
I dunno, I love the German version of “Get Back” by The Beatles. It’s just so bizarre, it’s perfect in its own way. It’s sort of surreal, especially because the pronunciation is so awful, it sounds like cartoon Germnan.
LC