Also, I think Magma is the glaring exception to this rule.

Hahaha, this is the first time I've ever heard someone describe Dream Theater as esoteric. ;-) Non-English does not equal more challenging, that is a very silly comparison to make. The vast majority of my albums are English because even though I prefer insrumental music, if you're going to sing I'd like to know what you're talking about. It's not like foreign movies because the liner notes almost never provide translations. More importantly, the majority of the people on this website are in North America or the UK, which usually makes the foreign language albums expensive imports. I don't like paying more than $16 for an album, so I just put off buying them and eventually it's been too long and I've lost interest.

 

I don't agree with your analogy.  If a piece is an instrumental with influences from other parts of the world, that can be great.  If it is in a language that I don't understand, then I'm missing a large part of a song.  I've watched many a foreign film with subtitles but I wouldn't watch one in a language that I don't understand w/o subtitles.

However I remember that as a kid, one of my biggest motivations for learning english was being able to understand the lyrics of my favourite music, it's always nice to understand what the lyrics are about, but I have never had any problem listening to music sung in a language I do not understand because I grew up listening to english-sung music before I could understand english.

 

Fortunately besides spanish and english I also speak italian and some french so I can cover a reasonable share of prog (and dutch but there's so little prog sung in dutch that it doesn't matter for this purpose).

 

In any case I find that some languages are more kind to being sung than others, english is a good language for singing (I don't think it's just the habit) while some others can sound really harsh, although admittedly a non-english guy trying to sing in english with a very strong accent can be the worst of all.

 

As a catalan I am sensitive to language issues and I fully support people preserving their local languages, but I am also happy that the world is adopting a global language and I have no problem with it being english. It allows us to communicate worldwide and if it allows us also to understand what other people want to sing about, that's very fine with me.

 

 

Iván

Hasn't stopped me listening to Italian Prog though.

I'm one who likes to appreciate their efforts, and try to understand how the lyrics and the music blend together, so if it's in a language I don't know, it's quite difficult, although nowadays, when we can find software on-line that helps us translate practically anything, this is no longer an issue.

If you read the interview I did with Rainer Wahlmann formerly of Dies Irae and presently leader of German 

Underground prog band Green Wave I asked him that specific question : Why do you sing in English? He gives an explanation why he has always sung in English.

Great point. I might add that since the biggest market is the USA, it makes sense that most artists/bands want to sing in English, so they can have more acceptance by the record buying public. 

I would be missing out on hundreds and hundreds of amazing recordings if that hadn't have happened.And as others have said, it's always better when a band sings in their native language.

I think a lot of music fans come on this site wanting only lyrics in english because that's all they've ever known.

 

For an "English-hater" you write quite well, Caio; it means that you go far beyond the basic English taught in schools here in Brazil. You may tell me that it's required for the job market and etc and it was father and mother that forced you to learn such an important language in an extra course... but anyway isn't 'hate' too much?

 

For those having difficulties with songs in a language you don't understand, I have two suggestions:

1. Try to imagine or guess what the lyrics mean taking specifically the music as a foundation;

2. Google the song name and it'll appear in the original and at least in an fair English translation.

 

Is that interview somewhere to be found and read?  edit: I have found it, http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=69247 - http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=69247  nice interview

 

 

anyway. the bias does excist, and it's mostly due to part of listening vocals our minds desires to understand the words being used. I don't like Spanish or italian lyrics as I don't understand half of it. Only if the music is really good I manage to overcome this language barrier and just listen to the voice as if it is Kobaian or ignore the vocals and concentrate purely on the music.

 

However, the very catchy "Du Riechst So Gut" simply means "You Smell So Good." So yes, mystique works in their favor.

The very strange thing is that I didn't have any problem years before with Kobaian. 

Said so, lyrics may be very important, but not always. We can find rubbish lyrics everywhere, but giving a look to translations when possible, is always a good idea. We can enjoy music without paying attention to the lyrical contents, but if the wall was written in an unknown language, would it have been so appreciated ?

 

In my collection, I have Italian, French, and Portuguese prog and although I cannot understand a darn thing (just a tad, seeing as Italian and Portuguese are somewhat related to Spanish), I find the music and vocal melodies to be very moving.

Good point. "Final Cut" is very "lyrical" than "The Wall" but PF  have too many fans around the world and English is foreign language for many of PF fans.These fans love "The Wall" so much and they may undrestand 50% of "The Wall" lyrics. I see these kind of PF's fans everyday in Iran. They love "Final Cut" too without undrestanding 30% of  lyrics!!! Why? I know the answer. Atmospher of these albums impress to feelings. Lyrics is very important as you said but Music impress is very complex and unexplainable.

 

I will offer an analogy. Several years ago, while living in South Korea, I bought a copy of a Canadian movie of which I am fond. The movie is called Blackrobe, and a large proportion of the dialogue is in the Huron language, i.e. inaccessible to most Canadians. Thus, in its domestic release, the Huron bits have subtitles. In the Korean release, of course the subtitles are in Korean, which even then I could not read quickly enough to follow. The result was that about a third of the dialogue in this movie--dialogue I had once been able to follow via subtitles--I could no longer understand. I could still appreciate the cinematography and other elements of the movie, and even the non-linguistic elements of the acting, but I was accutely aware of how much I was missing, having once had it and then lost it. That said, I believe that the choice of presenting that dialogue in the Huron language was ideal, and added a legitimacy to the film that it would otherwise have lacked.

 

All of this is to say that engaging in music in languages other than one's own is certainly a good idea, as is a band performing in its native tongue. But to claim full appreciation of an art form presented even partially in a language that one does not understand is, I think, self-deceiving.

 

Of course there is a language bias. Paraphrasing some statements from earlier in this thread: non-English bands have to sing in English if they want to break into the US market (and that can be extrapolated to other English speaking countries; or it's difficult and/or expensive to buy non-English music. Those are huge, practical biases that will affect what language bands decide to sing in. I mean, even Xena Warrior Princess had to drop her New Zealand accent to make it on American TV. Is it fair? No way, but because the English-speaking world is essentially insulated from all other languages, most English-speaking people will just act according to least effort. It takes a certain kind of, education perhaps, to break past the English-only world that is so easy to live one's entire life in.

 

Regarding the ability to understand lyrics: in a lot of cases the lyrics aren't so interesting anyway, and you're better off not understanding them and just digging the sounds and art that is language. I discovered this by attending operas: once I saw the English subtitles and realized how shallow and silly the lyrics were, I was glad I could close my eyes and revel in the fact that I couldn't understand that nonesense. This is the power of Kobaian, you know you're not supposed to understand it, so you listen to the sounds instead of the words.

 

That said, do I get more out of Gong than someone who doesn't know English? I'd say so. Do I get less out of Omega because I don't know Hungarian? Sure, but I can use that as reason to learn more about the Hungarian language and culture. Diversity is what makes the world a fun place. What sometimes doesn't work out too well is when English lyrics are written by non-speakers and the idioms are messed up, or there are simply poor choices of words. As for the singers themselves, well, Suzuki-era Can wouldn't be as rich without a Japanese accent.

 

And for the English-hater above, there's no such thing as a natural language with a limited grammar. All languages spoken by human beings as a first language are equally able to express their experience in the world. No language is inherently "better" than any other. You don't have to like the sound of a given language, nor should anyone feel obligated to learn a language they don't want to. But to say a language is a crippling tool is plain wrong.

 

It has been an issue for a long time, and there used to be a solution for it ... make up your own translation, and I guarantee you that the music will sound even better.

 

The real issue is that the "english" speaking market commands the most sales all around since China is not up to today's standars yet ... if they were, everyone would be trying to go sell it all and sing in Chinese ... it's at least twice the potential sales of the English speaking people's! ... this ought to get some London'ers really upset!

 

SFranke wrote: ... To not investigate albums in a language other than your own is like a fan of film who refuses to watch foreign movies. ...

 

Goodness ... you haven't met me yet! I have spent 20 years telling people at the Portland International Film Festival that they should always catch the small films from nowhere land ... since the English and American films will all find their way to DVD ... the rest? Gone forever! And a lot of the same thing happens in music.

 

I accept it better now than I had before ... still having a hard time getting these metal'ists to get mental and serious about listening instead of just one kind of sound effect on the guitar ... and a screaming person over it saying something or other that supposedly is meaningful and relevant to our ...

One strong example ... ANGE is far better and creative and inventive than Genesis ever was ... and unlike Genesis, it did not give up or in to the commercial thing and maintained their inner strength and music. But cold day in hell that anyone here is going to appreciate Christian Decamps and his work!

 

I thought PFM was better in Italian than they were in English ... where the translations were lacking and many times off key ... "Is My Head On Straight" might be the only exception, but not sure that Americans know the difference or appreciate the Faust reference. After all, Faust is not a rapper, and neither was Goethe!

 

SFranke wrote: I think this bias, which may be quite subtle, perpetuates itself in many ways. It is undeniably more difficult to find non-English progressive music than albums by bands who release theirs in English, many of whom speak a primary language other than English. These albums won't be discussed as much, and so people won't know to seek them out. Fewer albms of this are pressed, and so on.

 

It's one of the big raps about a lot of eastern European music ... and it was way more important and bigger before the WALL came down ... an event that was HUGE for music and a lot of the arts, but that is something that a board like this, which is mostly "fan driven" is not capable of enjoying a discussion on ... too many folks will simply maul it down with trolling comments to show their lack of appreciation or desire to see that discussed and not their favorite beat or music! It's almost the same when someone calls something "prog" and the discussion starts up, and the only difference is a sound effect on the guitar ... unplug it, and you have ...

SFranke wrote: ... And before you point out the absurdity of prog artists factoring in commercial interests to their creative process, check out your collection for total albums in English and those in English by bands who do not use English as their primary language.

 

There are many bands that use the English very well and know how to accentuate when they need to. Amon Duul 2 was magnificent on that for a very long time ... and the difference was that they were not exactly singing a hit song ... they were doing something else ... for which lyrics might or might not be important ... or relevant ... but they challenged you nonetheless ... and there are not many bands that can do that at all. A lot of the krautrock bands did the german thing and it did not help get them to America at all ... since the language was an issue ... heck, you know what the issue is? ... my roomate is playing Golden Earring ... we're talking the week Moontan came out, not 6 months later when the album made it big and huge, btw ... and the other turkey announcer butted in and said "it's not rock'n'roll" ... and Guy immediately interrupted "Are You Receiving Me" ... and said ... "who cares about rock'n'roll. It's great music!" ... and to this day, there are many people -- every where -- that are not listening to the "music" ... they are listening to a hit, to this and that ... and have no idea what the "music" really stands for in the first place.

 

And until the day and time and place when people learn that there is a world out there, and that they speak differently  and that they know different things, and play different musics ... more than once in a blue moon ... I'm just not sure that you can have a nice and wide open discussion that is not xenophobic ... heck, these folks still go around saying God is American! The Brazilians, of course, say Deus e Carioca, and the Argentinians used to say Deus e Maradona, and others are ready for a Jihad!  ... but so many people here couldn't careless ... and Brazil and Argentina have no experimental or progressive music ... a lot more than we will ever give them credit for!

 

It's never been about the music ... but I am glad of one thing ... I know in my heart that I have been a big part in helping it be seen and heard and understood! For 40 years!

But that's cheating ... you and I can see a movie from these countries and within 15 minutes we can sync in to the subtitles and boom ... we know what they are saying.  And the music does not appear so foreign to me due to my classical music upbringing ... there is a difference between German Music and italian Music ... and you can start with some opera as the greatest examples of it all.

 

The same can not be said for English ... whose music can not be said to be totally original ... well to be fair, they killed the originals a long time ago, like it happened in America ... and you have a "misplaced european" in search for a soul and ignoring their very ancestors and the ghosts of the past ... and I doubt that America will have a better sense of "self" and "person" until they better focus and nurture and involve the cultural elements of those ... they helped get rid of. In a way, sub-consciously, these people are trying to find an identity ... but I'm not sure you can as long as you deny the existance of the past, and your own "sins" and "crimes" ... Europe by comparison has gone quite far beyond that and the cross culturization of Europe is very good, specially in the arts ... but in America? ... it's an idea ... there is no culturization of anything when you compare the West Coast to the East Coast to the South Coast to the Northern Coast ... it's a different country! And mind you ... they don't speak English around here ... some speak Ebonics, some speak Texan, some speak Jive ... you can imagine what happens to the music after all that! ... yeah ... only top ten in every "style" ... is possible in America, since no one can imagine a group in NY being better than the group in LA ... so the difference becomes who sells the most! And Billboard will tell you about it ... how do you think that Country Music got there? ... it was not even considered a valid music for the longest time!

 

To most people, the most beautiful language is their own. Fair enough: our native tongues are what we are most used to, and what we measure other languages against. Other languages will often seem dissonant or even ugly by comparison. There are many sounds in English that seem ugly to speakers of other languages: the consonants can sound harsh to some, while to others, the large number of unvoiced TH's and terminal S's make it sound as though English speakers spend all their time hissing at each other. But to actually criticize one language because it doesn't meet the standards of beauty arising from another language, as seems to be going on in this post above ("sounds like dogs barking jajajaja") is bigotted in the extreme, and illustrates nothing more than the narrowness of one's own standards.

 

Please, folks: Let's keep it respectful.

 

We just gotta get "smarter" ... it really is how Guy Guden used to talk about it, when people hit the language thing ... create your own translation and world with it ... this way the art itself can shine better! 

 

It really does!

 

If you have travelled and seen and heard many other languages, doing this is not an issue ... but if one lives on a steady diet of American TV, I seriously doubt that those folks are capable of listening and appreciating other languages and arts without some serious educational effort which we know the Bush's never paid for and no one else will in the future either!

 

The internet, is almost all about this cross culturization ... unlike the majority of the media in this country. It's rather simple.

 

But it's sad, that we're afraid to listen to someone sing in a different language ... we're denying them the right to live their love and their art ... and that is plain wrong! 

Nicely said.

We might have to be careful with this and how it is said, I think ...

 

Both America and England are also perceived as imperialists in many ways, and England had a massive history of it many hundred years. Thus, the concept and idea that the English language is the most practical and versatile ... is not necessarily true ... I do believe that it is so, because these two countries pretty much got themselves involved in radio and television and the media right away ... and never looked back ... there are countries that don't even allow you a camera ... or a picture ... and still suppresses film and music like you wouldn't believe!  ... that means that your view and idea is much more visible to others than otherwise.

 

I find the Latin languages much more expressive than English ... why? The number of verb tenses alone makes for a more detailed speak and set of expressions that in English do not exist. However, just like the romance languages (as the Latin languages are called), English has its own beauty ... but we don't know the Cervantes, the Camoes, and Dante ... as well as Shakespeare ... see the difference all of a sudden? ... it would be difficult to proove that English has the better expression ...!

 

Poetry, at least on my own father's examples, in Portuguese (Jorge de Sena) ... is very difficult for me to even translate to English because ... the expressions go through 24 tenses and add details to your mind and possibilities, that I can not use in English ... and here is an example ... and it happens here ... I will be discussing and make a comment that has a verbe tense in a what if? scenario, which is highly used in the Latin languages, and a lot of folks here, as well, do not like it and think that I have set out to insult them and their intelligence ... in other words, I can not even ask how/what they are thinking and how they see it ... and all I can think of is ... I don't think they know ... you just about have to be involved in 2 or 3 languages to acquire that sensibility ... it doesn't make them wrong ... it just makes it more difficult to communicate with as it appears, all of a sudden, that everything is wrong ... and of course ... nothing is wrong except that the filters are all messed up between the two cultures!

 

As for language choice ... in Portugal and Brazil in the 50's and 60's the secondary language was French ... I believe it still is, and would need someone here to correct me if they are there. English, more than likely is now a much more appealing option, however, for many artistic reasons ... and the two major ones ... we're talking about one of them. The other? ... easy ... movies!

 

And yes ... BLACK ROBE is an excellent film ... sad one too ... because you know it's a dead end and there is no chance ... and sometimes I cry ... and hope that progressive music does not befall into a similar fate ... over run by commercial interests and imperialistic ideas. The true art and "spirit" must survive ... your own culture will suffer when you kill a portion of it!

 

Was this written shortly after a lecture from some Universtity Professor railing against the evil Capitalist system controlled by white ENGLISH SPEAKING males?

 

Personality, I look at the vocal tone of the singer and if the lyrics compliment the music and visa versa. The language is secondary.

 

Reality,  English is the international language of entertainment, business and technology, so English will be the 2nd language of those who speak more than one language.

 

Common-sense dictates if you want to sell your recordings in global market, it is preferable to sing in a language most understand, and is stated before, English is the international langauge of entertainment.

What really bugs me is when the instruments are not played in English! Talk about confusing.

 

And I would second that with Amon Duul 2 ... some stuff is in English, but if the translation is literal or not, creates an issue for the explanation of the songs and the meanings, which add to their psychedelic tone in their early years. They started this with "Dance of the Lemmings" ... and continued it all the way to "Hijack", after which a lot of their ability kinda went down hill. The (later) Greenbubble Raincoated story in the song might just as easily be about their neighborly old man that goes out for a walk every morning come rain or shine! ... but as is stated, it comes off very different.

The Portuguese Cervantes or Shakespeare from the same time.