Do you like listening to music that's in a language you don't speak?

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Soulgrind, "Pakana."

Entirely in Finnish. Google Translate tells me what the lyrics are but I think it loses something in translation. The first line of the chorus, "Suvi illan vieno tuuli huokaa vuorten alta," comes out as, "The sneaky wind of the evening sighs beneath the mountains." I don't speak Finnish but I don't think that's quite right.


Good band, Soulgrind. First heard them when some woman from their label thrust a sampler with it on into my hands while I was drunk at a fest in France. Listened to it when I got back home and thought it was rather nice.
 
In her album Mirror of My Soul, Palestinian singer Rim Banna worked with Norwegian jazz musicians. Her voice has an "R&B-ish" quality that I'm not a fan of, and her penchant for politicizing is another minus. This said, the musicians were obviously having fun in that session.

 
I don't listen to K-pop anymore but I will always love Epik High. Their music is rap and since Tablo is Canadian they sometimes do lyrics in English or provide subtitles.
 
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In terms of Hip-Hop, I usually don't listen to non-English rap.

For this, I will happily make an exception:
 
Alla Bua is a folk band from Selento, southern Italy. They imbue traditional tarantella music with the zest of modern rock.


The energetic fiddling and accordion makes me think of Celtic music; the call-and-response vocals especially bring to mind the Brittany folk-rock band Tri Yann:

 
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Positron said:
Alla Bua is a folk band from Selento, southern Italy. They imbue traditional tarantella music with the zest of modern rock.


The energetic fiddling and accordion makes me think of Celtic music; the call-and-response vocals especially bring to mind the Brittany folk-rock band Tri Yann:

Click to expand...
By any chance are you familiar with Alan Stivell? This might be your thing. First song's in Breton:
 
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Urna Chahar-Tugchi (or simply Urna), a vocalist from inner Mongolia now based in Germany.
"My strong young brown stallion, dashing over grasslands and steppes. He never loses his way."

For something more masculine, there is the band Yat-Kha:
 
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Obligatory reference, since FLCL is starting up again.

 
I'm really into The Hardkiss from Ukraine. Most of their songs I've heard are in English, but they have some in their mother tongue too:



I also like this South Korean ska band called Witches. Like most people outside Korea, I had first come across them thanks to this flash animation:

 
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I just like good tunes my dude. I don't care if it's in japanese, korean, german, french, or swahilli. If it sounds and feels good to me, i'll love it.

I have a huge soft spot for Tatsuro Yamashita because his music got me through some rough times, even though I couldn't understand his more popular songs — for example, Ride On Time.


However, not all of his songs are in his native language; he's actually done a lot of songs in english too, the best example being ... well, the entirety of the album Big Wave.

 
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I'm not fluent in Spanish, but I am able to have a very basic conversation in Spanish and I know most of the bad words and "code words" for illicit activity. Which is why I fucking love narcocorredo music, despite being a gringo. Here are some of my favorites:




If you were in the right part of Texas they would play this stuff on the radio late at night. Back then the only people who understood what they were talking about were Mexicans because a lot of the slang was lost on people who spoke Spanish as a second language and what they were singing about wasn't always explicit. It's kinda funny because it sounds like what you would hear in your basic family-style TexMex restaurant, but they're singing about drugs and guns.
 
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Here's a Nazi-era popular song. I also like Lale Andersen and Marlene Dietrich. German pop is fun.
 
I prefer Kraftwerk in German despite the fact that I can understand English. Is that weird?
Some finnish pop is really fantastic
And of course Japanese music, because let's be honest, the lyrics in metal barely matter lol
 
Does ebonics count? Asking for a friend.
 
I don't have the translation of this song, but it is a good showcase of the vocal strength of Portuguese singer Mísia.

 
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