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

I have developed an unhealthy habit of listening to Russian rap lately. My Russian is pretty shit, but there are some artists out there whose lyrics are a step above the usual guns, bitches and bling crap. If anyone's a VK user (Russian version of facefuck), the community 'rhymes & punchy' chucks up some interesting music at times.

I'm just a little worried that if this carries on much longer I'll wake up one morning wanting to wear a 'Thrasher' t-shirt, and stand in the snow holding a bottle of Blazer with my arms out like Jesus.
 
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I'm gonna be a filthy cheater and post songs on my native language. For most of you it still counts as music in a language you don't speak, so I guess me posting them here is kinda-sorta justified, right?


Found a pretty good translation for this first song:
http://lyricstranslate.com/en/nagy-utazas-great-journey.html

The second song is mainly about the woes of 20th century urban lifestyle (isolation, pollution, monotonity, collectivism, the works). Some of you might find these topics overdone, but I still like this song a lot musically:
 
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My first cd ever was Selena's crossover album which was mixed with Spanish and English songs. I learned some Spanish from her music. I ended buying many of of Spanish albums over time. Rip Selena Quintanilla Perez. She was fantastic.
 
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I regard vocals, in my language or otherwise, just like any other instrument: as long as they sound good in the song they're in, it's fine. In fact, I rarely care about what's being said or the message of the song overall as long as it sounds good to me.

I only care about lyrics when they're meaningful to the song itself, like, for example, when a super cheerful song is actually talking about really depressing stuff (so that I get to enjoy the intended mood whiplash), like this one:

 
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Ever since leaving her band Madredeus, singer Teresa Salgueiro has been experimenting different styles. Although I'm still looking forward to a true synthesis, all her projects have been immensely enjoyable. In the album Você E Tu, she teams up with the Brazillian João Cristal Septet for a sojourn in Bossa Nova. Salgueiro largely eschews her famously sonorous long-breathed declamations and opts for a lilting, limpid vocal style. This is an album that would bring a smile to anyone's face.

 
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Mysterious Capitalist said:
I only care about lyrics when they're meaningful to the song itself, like, for example, when a super cheerful song is actually talking about really depressing stuff (so that I get to enjoy the intended mood whiplash)
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If you know French you'll feel the mood whiplash in this song:


Laidback lounge music with elegant piano lines. The lyrics is about the tragedy of the Gulf War, a dispossessed old Iranian man whose village has been utterly destroyed, and American soldiers who "treat women like dogs".
 
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This fantastic vocal folk group from Quebec came up in my research recently:
 
I actually do speak French, as it happens. I also like bawdy songs (Shove it Home, The Horse Song, Ball at Kirriemuir, et al) so here's a bawdy French song. I've attempted to translate it below. No idea what the tune is though.

[Refrain]
C'est une pompeuse médicale
Ah mon Dieu! quel joli métier,
Elle a mis sa technique buccale
Au service des inséminés.
Quand elle a bien pompé, pompé,
On met le foutre à surgeler.
C'est une pompeuse médicale,
Qui suce pour l'humanité.


A l'hôpital du matin jusqu'au soir,
Elle branle tous les donneurs bénévoles,
Qui font la queue pour s'faire gigler le braquemart.
Sans risque au moins d'attraper la vérole.
Elle pompe et pipe les pafs habilement,
Puis elle remplit ses fioles goutte à goutte,
Ca servira pour faire des enfants,
Quand les femmes ne voudront plus d'nos biroutes.

Refrain

Pour faire bander ceux qui sont peine à jouir,
Il faut la voir appliquer ses méthodes,
Un doigt dans l'cul et la langue en délire,
Ca leur fout la prostate sur électrode.
Mais quand elle tombe sur un sénégalais,
Pour le labo c'est vraiment une affaire,
Elle bosse tout en s'régalant le palais,
Et fait gratis des heures supplémentaires.

Refrain

Elle n'a pas l'droit d'avaler la fumée,
La banque du sperme a interdit la chose,
Il manqu'rai plus qu'elle bouffe les nouveaux nés,
Avant même qu'ils viennent fleurir les roses.
Sa libido n'est jamais contentée,
Car elle n'peut pas se décrasser la glotte,
Alors quand elle rentre dans son meublé,
Bien tristement elle se frotte la motte.


[Chorus]
She's a medical pump operator
Ah, what a wonderful occupation
She's refined at being a fellator
In the service of insemination!
When she has pumped and pumped
She puts the cum on ice quickly
She's a medical pump operator
Who sucks for humanity.

At the hospital from morning till night
She wanks all the benevolent donors.
Who queue* up to be fapped, what a sight!
At no risk of getting infected boners.
Like clockwork she blows and spits
Fills the vials drop by drop
It's good enough to get you a kid
When your wife makes you go flop.

[Chorus]

To arouse those who can't do it
She knows how to apply her methods.
Takes their arse and puts her finger into it
Or even gets out electrodes
Sometimes she finds a Senegalese
Which suits the lab boys just fine
She heroically works with ease
And freely does overtime!

[Chorus]

She's not allowed to swallow the gravy
The sperm bank's forbidden all that
They'd object if she gobbled their babies
Before they'd even emerged from a twat
Her libido is never contented
Because she can never meet her match
So she returns to the flat that she's rented
And joylessly frigs at her snatch.



* = "queue" is French both for a queue of people and for a dick. The more you know!
 
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Fougaro said:
Think of the kebabs what you want but fuck me do they make catchy propaganda songs.
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Nah, too Bollywood and hard to be taken seriously.

Speaking of middle East, I just got a lovely CD-book of a Egyptian composer called Sayyed Darwish. Darwish is said to have revolutionized the urban music of Cairo. He was equally influenced by the tradition he was born in, and by the newly fashionable Italian operas of Verdi and Puccini. Unfortunately, his death at the age of 31, under suspicious circumstances, put an end to his ambition to study music in Italy. One can only imagine how the course of Egyptian music would change had he lived longer.


I can't really say how "revolutionary" his music is; I know practically nothing about pre-Darwish Egyptian music. This music sounds pretty like mainstream Egyptian music today.
 
For ethno-cultural reasons I'm also a big Greekaboo. Lately I've been enjoying 90s Greek pop with glorious shitty VHS quality.

 
Bought tickets to see these two artists, Youssou N'Dour for a second time:


 
I love Japanese rock, Finnish metal, Latin/Gregorian chant...there are very few foreign languages I don't like listening to, to be honest. German anything is the exception. To paraphrase something I once read, German sounds like old clergymen puking.
 
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Yeah, I'm surprised that there's some pretty good stuff in French out there, and I own the first Songhoy Blues album (their covers of Kashmir and Should I Stay Or Should I Go are pretty cool too)
 
Magic Sun Daddy said:
Even Rammstein?
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How about Die Apokalyptischen Reiter?


Last time I saw them their keyboardist was dressed in a pair of latex underpants and a BDSM mask and during the non-keyboardy bits he would run round the stage whirling a cat o' nine tales, a man in a teddy bear costume stagedived repeatedly, and during "Seemann" they had a girl from the audience crowdsurf in a pink rubber dinghy. It was awesome. Oh, and the frontman was dressed as a pirate.
 
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Ginger Piglet said:
How about Die Apokalyptischen Reiter?


Last time I saw them their keyboardist was dressed in a pair of latex underpants and a BDSM mask and during the non-keyboardy bits he would run round the stage whirling a cat o' nine tales, a man in a teddy bear costume stagedived repeatedly, and during "Seemann" they had a girl from the audience crowdsurf in a pink rubber dinghy. It was awesome. Oh, and the frontman was dressed as a pirate.
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The German language was made for metal, I swear.
 
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It depends really, if the instruments sound good, and it's at least a little catchy, then I can fuck with songs in different languages.
 
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