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Rock in other languages than English

#2
A) English is my native language (American)

B) I love when bands sing in their native language! I like it when they sing in English, too, but it's nice to hear rock/metal/western-style music that'd you'd normally hear sung in English sung in a different language. It's a nice change.

C) Yes, I buy it when I can.

D) I listen to a lot of J-Pop/J-rock, but also a lot of European metal as well. Favorite non-English bands include:
Finntroll, The Pillows, Judy & Mary, WIZO, Siam Shade, Angela, TsuShiMaMiRe, Animetal, JAM Project, Anthem.
 
#3
foq1978 said:
Please answer:

A) Is English your native language?
B) What do you think of recordings in other languages?
C) do you buy / have you tried this kind of music?
C) any favourite band and artists?

Thank you so much.
Click to expand...

A) Yes
B) I think it's great - there's often something stilted about a non-English speaker using English lyrics. More expression in their native language.
C) Yes.
D) I lived in Germany for a year and got into a number of German bands - Wir Sind Helden, Juli, Sportfreunde Stiller, Silbermond, Die Fantastischen Vier. Also discovered Tinariwen recently. Unfortunately non-English-language bands don't get promoted in the US so it's harder to find them here.
 
#4
A) No, it's Finnish
B) Absolutely, good music is good, no matter the language. And yes, it's true that using native language adds a lot more expression to the lyrics.
C) Of course
D) Lots

By the way, I think this thread needs links. I'll just be a good patriot and post a few Finnish ones, enjoy:
Sara:
 
#6
A) No, Polish, though I lived in Texas for 17 years so my English is pretty good.
B) I like quite a bit of music in languages I don't speak, or mixtures of English and other languages, or recordings in Caribbean patois which is technically English but nearly incomprehensible. I guess understanding the lyrics is not really that big a deal to me.
C) Sure.
D) As far as rock goes, I'd say the first two Shakira albums count as rock, and I've also listened to some Japanese psychedelic rock and oshare kei, Scandinavian black metal, and Secos e Molhados from Brazil.

Outside of rock, I listen to a lot of reggaeton (Daddy Yankee, Ivy Queen, Don Omar and Franco el Gorila), sertanejo (Michel Teló and Gusttavo Lima had some big hits in this part of Europe), African pop/hip-hop/dancehall (though a lot of it has lyrics partly in English, there's some with lyrics in Portuguese: Dama do Bling, Sara Tavares, Lizha James), various Latin pop (Kat DeLuna, Buraka Som Sistema) and even some Mongolian stuff (Uka, Sonor). I cover many of those as well.
 
#7
A) Is English your native language? Spanish
B) What do you think of recordings in other languages? Love them
C) do you buy / have you tried this kind of music? yes, a lot
C) any favourite band and artists? See the liks below for the best of Argentina!

Leon gieco, the mighty Jimmy Johson on the bass! (too bad it's low quality audio, you should listen to the real thing)

Those are my guys, to give some examples! Post yours!

I liten to all kinds of music, love Bjork, Alva Noto, Air, a lot of brazil's stuff.
 
#9
If it's what the OP is getting at, though, I will generalize that MOST native English speakers - or Americans, anyway - show very little interest in music that's not in English (other than opera buffs). Occasionally something gets through, but usually it gets treated as a one-hit-wonder novelty act over here even when the act is huge in its native country (Nena, Rammstein, to name a couple of German examples).
 
#10
I think this thread is good for sharing, and listening to new cool stuff. I know most american people are very much about themselves and their british cousins, but in this forum you'll find people from all around the world. English is the most spoken second language.
It's not like everything we post here is intended for americans. I would like to hear some french, finnish, german, spanish, indian, chinese, whatever band sounds good and I don't get on my country's media, unfortunately I don't speak all those languages to research in every local forum. :bassist:
 
#11
hrodbert696 said:
Occasionally something gets through, but usually it gets treated as a one-hit-wonder novelty act over here even when the act is huge in its native country (Nena, Rammstein, to name a couple of German examples).
Click to expand...

Or, more recently, Psy.

Polish audiences are pretty good at dealing with songs in foreign languages, though. I've covered songs in Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Jamaican patois, and even partly in Luganda all to good crowd response.
nanymoa said:
I would like to hear some french, finnish, german, spanish, indian, chinese, whatever band sounds good and I don't get on my country's media, unfortunately I don't speak all those languages to research in every local forum. :bassist:
Click to expand...
Well, here's a song by Yuri da Cunha from Angola with a nice bass groove: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA23GnvAXWQ
 
#12
A) Is English your native language? No, Spanish is my native language.
B) What do you think of recordings in other languages?
I usually do not care about the lyrics so language is not a stopper for me.
C) do you buy / have you tried this kind of music?
Yes, in my iphone I have music in Spanish, English, French, Italian, Russian and African dialects.

C) any favourite band and artists?

In French I really like Mylene Farmer:
 
#13
Cool Thread by my fellow brazilian, the carioca foq1978 (aquele abraço!!!).
As most people that follow brazilian music already know, there's a cool tradition of rock in portuguese beginning in the 60's. I will probably post many times here, but let's begin with some jimi-inspired psycodelic hard rock from de Tropicalia moviment of the late 60's early 70's:
 
#14
A) Is English your native language? Yes
B) What do you think of recordings in other languages? Fine, as long as it's done well
C) do you buy / have you tried this kind of music? Typically no because, living in Greece, I hear a lot of Greek rock that I consider very predictable and a cheap imitation. I haven't yet heard anything I consider original and good. (I'm sure there's a lot I haven't heard yet).
C) any favourite band and artists? Nope
 
#15
Wow, thank you so much for answering. atheos, nanymoa, pklima, pedroims and Javaral (fala!!), thank you so much for posting so many good bands.

Some of my favourites non-anglophone recordings (there are much more, but I'll try to be broad in selection and short in number):

brazilian portuguese:
Lobão - El Desdichado II -
Los Hermanos - Além do que se vê:
 
#16
A) Yes
B) A song can be good no matter what language it's in!
C) Yes
D) I like some of the artists out of Ghana and Africa (like Ghanamotion.com stuff) and I also like some of the Indian pop / Bollywood - and I sing along, even though I have NO idea what they are saying!
 
#17
(Hello TalkBass, this is my first post, although I've been reading for a long time.)

A) No, my native language is Hungarian
B) Is the music good? It's the only things that matters.
C) Yes.
C) That must be X Japan. Me and my brother were searching for some asian metal, we thought it must be hilarious. We found X Japan, and baaaaam, it was pretty good. Now, my brother even has an X Japan tattoo. We love this band.
 
#19
foq1978 said:
Please answer:

A) Is English your native language?
B) What do you think of recordings in other languages?
C) do you buy / have you tried this kind of music?
C) any favourite band and artists?

Thank you so much.
Click to expand...

A) Yup

B) I listen to them all the time, I don't care for lyric even in english, I like melody.

C)Yup, one of my favourite bands is X Japan, I am also a big power metal fan, so lots of foreign bands in that genre.

D) X Japan, and Galneryus are two of my favs, although the latter did their first couple records in english. I also enjoy some old Rammstein but they aren't one of my favourite bands. I like a lot of latin jazz but you wanted rock.
 
#20
A) Is English your native language? Yep
B) What do you think of recordings in other languages? I mostly listen to the bass so.......
C) do you buy / have you tried this kind of music? Oh yeah!
C) any favourite band and artists?
 

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