Do you enjoy listening to music in languages you don’t speak or understand in any meaningful way?
I was having a discussion about music on the internet (on a different forum), and someone said that he just can’t really get into music in a foreign language, so I decided to take a poll. I don’t have any problem with it; in fact I have:
2 songs in French by Yelle and 1 by Freezepop (an American group)
4 songs in German by Blümchen
13 songs in Swedish by Caramell
1 song in Farsi by Aneela
1 song in Punjabi (I think, it might be Urdu) by Aneela
1 song in Japanese by Ayumi Hamasaki
1 song in Russian by t.A.T.u.
Which is about 1/10 of the songs on my iPod. (I’m American by the way.)
I almost prefer songs in languages I don’t speak. I only listen to lyrics on a select few songs/artists; I’d rather hear the different cadences of different languages and how that sounds with the music. The great thing is, I can still sing along the way I normally do, only phonetically. This also makes me pretty good at pretending I know a bunch of different languages.
I had a big “world music” kick a couple years ago where I listened to everything from Brazilian to African to Japanese music… but one artist in particular that really sticks out in my mind for making evocative, sometimes relaxing and entrancing, sometimes more upbeat, but always beautiful music is an African named Rokia Traoré
Yes, there are plenty of songs I own and enjoy that aren’t in English. It is a bit of a bummer to not know what they mean and to not be able to sing along, but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating them.
A significant amount of my music is in Japanese. I’ve got a good deal of German. One Romanian (IIRC - Dragostea din Tei). A couple in non-existent languages. Some Chinese. A few in French.
On my mp3 player, I’ve got stuff in German, Russian, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Arabic and one track that’s… I dunno, come to think about it. It’s called “Bhai Re” and it sounds like an African or Indian dialect, but I have no idea where it’s really from.
Oh, and there’s some Latin choirs, too.
Haha, you do that too ? I actually got stopped by a tourist once, who then proceeded to ask me a question…in hurried German. Hurray for belting out Rammstein in the street
HAHAHA. That came up on Pandora once for me, and I couldn’t get over it (having been exposed to the internet meme first).
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
ETA: I actually had the “Secret Nazi” song and the “Secret Communist” song on my iPod before I found out about the internet meme. They came up on Last.fm and Pandora, respectively.
I do. I consider the voice to be just another (incredibly important) instrument and as long as it harmonizes well with the song, that’s all that really matters for the most part.
Some non-English bands I enjoy are Garmarna (Swedish), Aural Vampire (Japanese), Chambao (Spanish), Caprice (“Fairie”), and All:My:Faults (German).
I enjoy a lot of what’s called “world music”. It’s often played on the public radio network up here. Anyway, if the music is catchy, has a good hook, I can enjoy songs without enjoying the words. If it’s slow and obviously the lyrics have imp. meaning in the original language, then not so much.
Lots and lots of Japanese. 1 Finnish (Leva’s Polka), 1 Romanian, a few in French (but those are kinda cheating, because they were sung by Shiina Ringo, a Japanese), aaannnd… I think that’s it.
The chorus part is pretty cool, but the guy moaning “Mitternacht” throughout the whole thing kind of kills it. The problem with Latin is that it instantly conveys “Medieval Church”, which is always used to make a song more ominous sounding, and dark songs are not my favorite. Still pretty neat.
I like a lot of music in other languages. I have music in Latin, Russian, Finnish, Hindi (or Punjabi or probably others, I wouldn’t know the difference), and Danish (which I actually do speak but not well enough to follow half the lyrics in songs). I’m always happy to listen to something I don’t understand.
