Comic Strips

LOL!

My short story about foeeign music

Wife and 6-year-old get back from dance class:

6yo: I want to add that song we heard in the car to my playlist

Wife: oh what was that song again

Me: do you remember any words, we can search for it

6yo: no Wife: no

Me: what station was it on?

Wife: satellite, TikTok radio

Me: ohh ok, I guess we just need to wait or maybe if you find it on TikTok...

Days go by

Wife: It came on in the car but the title of the song was all weird characters

Me: was it like little stick figures or big slashes or just weird drawn characters?

Wife: just wierd

Me: Google: Russian songs on tik Tok

Moreart

Ohh!

I listen to it. It absolutely slaps

Google then mentions controversy

Then I translate the song's name.

LMAO. 'I will fuck"

Then I go to look for lyric translations

It's so fucking cringe and not in a naughty or dirty way, it's just lame cringe.

The beat of the music still slap though.

TBF English is an extremely common second language, so listening to English-language music as a German or French person doesn't have quite the same impact as an American listening to German- or French-language music.

This is an excellent time to mention my best friend The Eurovision Song Contest! It's the longest running international music contest show and it gets hundreds of millions of views.

Here's last year's crop of music videos. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmWYEDTNOGULUJYEhh-EUa32rEcHuNXO7

Croatia's Rim Tim Tagi Dim is a real banger. It's about the stress of moving to a richer country or city for work and losing your culture.

Italy's La Noia is amazing. Angelina Mango's live performances are stellar, and if she's not huge internationally in a few years I'll be super disappointed. Her new song (not part of the contest) Melodrama is exceptional too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqF0MSpPcj8

Switzerland sent Nemo, who became the first non-binary person to win the contest. It was said that if he could nail the vocals from the video in the live performance, there would be no stopping them. And they did! Amazing work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO8cQpGNplc

I have so many recommendations, if anyone wants more!

I've got a pet peeve of spotting French ads using English language songs that they would never think of using if most people listened to and/or understood the lyrics.

Some examples :

A car manufacturer using the same song for decades, Johnny and Mary. Hard to tell who the song is really about, but it's clearly about a broken, quite unhappy and mentally unstable couple.

A big mart chain using Prayer in C in its happy, "let's be optimistic" clips.

And see the children are starving / And their houses were destroyed / Don't think they could forgive you

Hey, when seas will cover lands / And when men will be no more / Don't think you can forgive you

A perfume ad with Sia's Chandelier blaring out. Yeah, suicide by booze, definitely what I want to feel classy.

I love some random foreign artists that I don't speak the language of and can't understand at all - Saian Supa Cru, Dengue Fever, Kent, Sigur Ros, Vicentico.

On a side note, I saw BTS on UK TV once and thought it was some kind of comedy pastiche act. What I heard and saw was really terrible, yet the panel on the show were lauding them when it was over, and I just didn't understand. K-pop is likely not for me, I figure.

French hip-hop and Norwegian doom metal are pretty good though.

Babymetal and The Hu are fantastic gateway artists.

I dunno, I'm not a fan of this sentiment. Music tastes are personal, it's okay to think, "nah, music of this country isn't really for me," because music of a given country will often have certain elements that won't appeal to everyone. It's not like you're uncultured or being unfair for it. And you don't necessarily have to give it a good try first because you're probably exposed to it anyways. Any stranger on the street can probably think of an example (though not necessarily a whole song) if you bring up Spanish music, Indian music, K-pop, etc..

The language bit I get, but some people prefer songs where they can understand the lyrics, and that's also okay. I'm sort of one of those people, though in my case it's more "I want to have a general idea what's being said because if it's a good song I'll want to sing along and I don't want to unknowingly say something obscene," so it doesn't stop me from listening to foreign songs as long as I can screen the lyrics.

I was tricked into liking K-Pop. AMA.

There is some really, really cool non-English music out there.

Jaan Pehchan Ho - I imagine this is what it was like for non-English speakers discovering Elvis for the first time.

https://youtu.be/XnBbjc5hmho

Prisencolinensinainciusol - Artist wanted to make a song that sounds like English to people who don't speak English. It doesn't make sense in any language but still sounds amazing.

https://youtu.be/RpFhFV58FEs

Ievan Polkka - Finnish song from 1928. Used in the gag site "leekspin".

https://youtu.be/hqthspSKZV8

The lyrics are unintentionally hilarious.

https://genius.com/Eino-kettunen-ievan-polkka-english-translation-lyrics

I prefer J-pop but K-pop isn't all that bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a65A626Ed20

Can somebody hook me up with some good Japanese alternative music?

If you are in the US, the National Arab Orchestra is technically domestic. Maybe this will trick someone into listening to this Arabic song

French hip hop fucking slaps. Do people still say that? I don't know. Anyway, here's Keny Arkana.

listens to intl radio (radio.garden is amazing)

most songs are american/english