The irony for me is that many people who would refuse to listen to music from other countries because they “can’t understand the words” don’t even know or understand the words for songs they like in their own language.
Like all those dumbfucks that got upset when they discovered RATM is political.
My kid: I heard a song today, it was REALLY GOOD, add it to my playlist.
me: ohh great, what was it?
kid: i don’t know
me: know any words?
kid: no
me: next time point it out to an adult, we’ll find it
(2 weeks later)
kid: I heard it again in the car with mom
me: mom?
mom: uhh yeah, didn’t get a chance to look at the name until it was gone.
me: know any words?
mom: no
me: O.o
(1 week later)
mom: MoreArt
me: ohh that catchy AF russian song full of filth, got it.
French rap/hip-hop is surprisingly good.
The French music scene has some strong contenders. Daft Punk came our of there :)
MC Solaar
Can you recommend any?
Oxmo Puccino seems to be popular in the playlist I listen to.
Merci!
“Actually I was talking about Mongolian throat singing”.
I entirely unironically love mongolian throat singing.
… its fucking awesome.
Shoutout to The Hu
Love those guys
I’ve been enjoying Ummet Ozcan’s stuff for a month or so. EDM with throat singing, tickles something happy in my brain.
Techno, folk and metal, they all fckn slam
Jokes on you, it’s actually J-Metal
Babymetal is the only metal band I listen to haha
Fact: this is the best thing that either Japan or Germany has ever achieved.
Love that song haha the clip is awesome too
No one here has mentioned the band Boris? Japanese, they just took the name from a Melvins. I’ve heard they’re less popular in Japan because they’re less interested in costumes, theatrics, pandering to casual rock listeners, and they never settled on a single sound, doing everything from stoner rock and doom metal to shoegaze, even dream pop, and also collaborated a lot with noise artist Merzbow.
Ladybeard, thanks.
Densetsu no kuro-kami wo
Karei ni midashi
Kurui zaku kono hanawa
Hakanaku kieru
I’m quite partial to J-rock. I’m not really even a weeb.
Same, the youtube algorithm got me there now NEK! is my favourite band.
Who knew a Japanese girl group would perfecting american college rock 20 years after its prime?
NEK! is awesome and you have good taste.
絶対的三分間 by そこに鳴る is one of my most favorite tracks of all time.
I left the title and artist in copypastable Japanese for easy finding.
Oh. Oh my.
J Rock is such a great genre and seems heavily inspired by grunge but more fun
Yeah, I haven’t really delved into Japanese rock, but there’s plenty of banging tunes used as anime intros or outros. Dandadan, a bunch of the Naruto/Boruto ones, Hunter x Hunter, and Spy x Family to name a few.
Still a massive WANDS fan in my 40’s, idgaf
(X-japan goes without saying and yea i know, jmetal)
Used to live them, but switched up into hanabie and paledusk
Mozart did not write English music.
I love how comments are immediately flooded with recommendations.
(I cannot connect with kpop at all, even after spending several years carpooling to work with avid fans who would play all kinds every morning and evening.)
KPop Demon Hunters converted a lot of people, but I was listening to BTS and Blackpink before, and K/DA before them (an earlier cartoon K-pop group, associated with Riot Games, makers of League of Legends, though I’ve never played League, just enjoyed the music, and the anime series Arcane), and before that, Psy with Gangnam Style.
A lot of K-pop has English lyrics. Some more than others. It’s a joy to listen to regardless.
I listen to a bunch of Japanese rock and I love the sounds of the words. If you think about rap, the hardest thing is finding words to rhyme. But, Japanese is a syllable-based language and most of their syllables are “open” (end in a vowel), so this makes Japanese rap really interesting. At the forefront of it, IMO, is Creepy Nuts, whose DJ played the Olympics when they were in Tokyo, and their MC won a bunch of rap battles. (With AirPods and the Android equivalent talking about real-time translation, I’d love to see this guy battle Eminem.) The fun doesn’t stop there. Their song Yofukashino Uta inspired a manga, which got adapted into an anime, which featured a couple guys hitting on and being rejected by the main girl. These guys were based on, and in the Japanese dub, voiced by the Creepy Nuts guys. The song itself is absolutely wild, and if you look it up on YouTube and turn on the captions, you can see what they’re saying, as it has an official translation. Song title translates to “Stayin’ Up Lullaby” and the anime/manga is called “Call of the Night” internationally (both kinda mean the same thing).
Creepy Nuts is awesome. Perfect music for driving around in the summer time with the windows down
Creepy nuts had such an insane 2025, curious to see what happens with them this year
Kpop however I find the opposite and is largely inauthentic soulless imitation of better music from black America
A lot of K-pop has English lyrics. Some more than others.
Not just K-pop. Take a look at the songs at Eurovision for example, it’s mostly English lyrics. Having English lyrics is very popular with a lot of european musicians to the point that you can’t even find certain genres in other languages. Someone recommend me some French or Korean shoegaze please.
Korean shoegaze? Parannoul. They also sing a lot in English, mind you.
Oh wow, thanks, will check them out.
I commend people who can genuinely like music they don’t understand the words to. Lyrics are such an important part of my enjoying of music because it evokes much more emotion than just the melody. So as someone who grew up speaking Japanese and English, US, UK, CA, JA songs are my favourites. I can’t enjoy French or German songs because I only understand at a surface level. I do enjoy orchestral music if it’s attached to some experience I’ve had like movies, anime, or videogame (I listen to the PSO: BB OST all the time because I spent thousands of hours playing that game in high school).
The takeaways here are:
- Listen to music from any/every country. If you’ve only listened to music from your own country (or only commercial broadcast radio), oboy… have I got world to show you.
- You don’t need to understand the lyrics. Good music is good music. It’s not “Satanic” or whatever your bogeyman is, trust me. (Unless it is, in which case… 🤷♂️)
Denying yourself the breadth of world music is like believing your country is and has the best of everything while never having travelled abroad once. Objectively laughable.
OK but K-pop is trash
You just crossed the line
Well yeah it’s just black American music repackaged and made generic. Listen to the originals not the copies.
yeah just look at the early kpop from the 90s and 2000s they stole the whole aesthetic
not saying it sucks tho
I’m saying it sucks. There is very little about it that is artistic. It’s mostly just corporate product (PSY is an obvious exception). The “bands” are overworked dancers who live in corporate-owned dormitories. They get mixed and matched endlessly until their controlling conglomerate decides that a combination is marketable. Then they “debut”, which just means they put out a track and appear on soju and chicken advertisements.
I don’t understand why it’s caught on with a certain segment of US people.
I understand the draw of the spectacle, but if everything is spectacle then nothing is, right?
This is probably why I can’t like K-Pop. I really think a lot of them are great singers and dancers but it’s such a creepy, hyper-capitalist, lookism-riddled medium. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about the intricacy or the artistry in the messaging of their songs or music (do any of them even play instruments? not that that’s a requirement). They only ever mention general things like they sing well, they dance well, they speak so many languages, etc.
I didn’t understand much of the bad bunny show, but whole Lee shit was it entertaining AF! I only heard his music for the first time day before cause a kid showed me, and I didn’t like it all that much. But the spectacle was out of this world!
They need to listen to some Korpiklaani
This is the perfect time to introduce my friends The Eurovision Song Contest !eurovision@lemmy.world and the Lemmy version !Lemmyvision@feddit.org !
Every year I hear a bunch of songs from other countries than my own, many in different languages. It’s pretty awesome.
I’m boycotting the finals of the ESC this year for political reasons, but that’s my decision. There are 60+ years of entries to watch or listen to!
Lemmy know if you want recommendations.
This is the perfect time to introduce my friends The Eurovision Song Contest
Actually it’s one of the worst times ever, what with them refusing to ban the fascist apartheid regime and several countries boycotting it in response.
Even IF you don’t care enough to boycott it yourself, you’re bound to get a diminished show with 5 countries missing and the rest walking on egg shells not to get thrown out for angering the apartheid delegation.
The national finals and national selections will still be good fun, and if you vote in those, your money only goes to that national broadcaster and not to the corrupt EBU. I did recommend the many decades of previous contests, and I’m not going to tell other people to boycott the big show with me. It’s up to them.
I don’t know that there will be more eggshell walking than usual. The rules against politics have always been up for interpretation. There are always artists and delegations getting in trouble for flying e.g. Palestinian flags or anti-russian statements (at least until Russia was excluded from the contest). If we cancelled every international event in which a shitty country participates, we couldn’t have any at all.
I made my choice for this year, but I still enjoy the music.
The most interesting thing is who different countries vote for. There are whole university departments dedicated to studying this. The music itself is very meh. It’s specific type of music that doesn’t really reflect any differences between the countries. Interesting entries happen but most of it just sounds the same.
I disagree entirely my friend, though there are trends just like in popular music in general.
You might enjoy skipping the ballads and the “pop girlies”, and focus on the Ethobops. They have more obvious roots in the country’s musical traditions, and they’re all interesting, and often quite good.
Here’s the Eurovangelists’ (Eurovision podcast) ethnobops playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2XgmR5xfepPxChKq6H5xYL
From that playlist, I recommend in particular:
-
Spain - Blanca Paloma - EAEA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGnEoSypBhE
-
Moldova - Zdob si Zdob - Treneltul https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9RJQPZsj8E
-
Ukraine - Kalush Orchestra - Stefania https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiEGVYOruLk
Zdob și Zdub*
Thank you. I couldn’t immediately figure out how to get the special(to me) character so I gave up.
I still disagree. If you skip pop girlies you’re skipping most of it. Yes, the rest can sometimes be interesting but it’s still bland version of what each country has to offer. Blanca Paloma is ok but check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayrDdxs48wQ&list=PL0VTLQWtqr3_4bYYgDK7cii6ixuzJVGNy&index=1 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtFRcJpzEwA&list=RDOtFRcJpzEwA&start_radio=1
From Ukraine for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsNKSbTNd5I&list=RDhsNKSbTNd5I&start_radio=1 is so much more interesting. I think it was different 20-30 years ago but countries no longer send their best to Eurovision.
Rozalén sounds cool, thanks for the tip. She has apparently indicated she’d be interested in participating in Eurovision, RTVE, the national broadcaster, usually does an internal selection (as opposed to a public competition), so there aren’t many Spanish artists who have had the opportunity to go to ESC if they wanted to.
As far as I know Spain now selects artist from one of TV talent shows like Idol or The Voice. They used to let people vote but this happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfeCIvOxXBo After that the artist is selected by some jury. Established artists like Rosalen don’t go to Eurovision since many years.
Their history with selection processes is fun reading for an ESC head.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest#Selection_process
Baila el Chiki Chiki got 16th out of 25, which isn’t terrible. It’s a joke song, and there’s a long history of them at Eurovision. They occasionally do well, though not usually.
2022 - Norway - Subwolfer - Give that Wolf a Banana https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_AvUlCQ_Cc comes to mind.
Did last year’s swedish song count as a joke song? It’s not very serious but it came in 4th. Third was very much a joke song, by an apparently well known Estonian artist Tommy Cash.
2025 - Sweden - KAJ - Bada Bada Bastu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK3HOMhAeQY
2025 - Estonia - Tommy Cash - Espresso Macchiato https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MS_Fczs_98
I dunno if we can make too many definitive statements. There are some biggish artists, some new ones without a single released song. Some dumb songs do well, some great songs do poorly.
I watched the entire final once and most of it was very forgettable. I like Iceland’s entry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSMhu-PrLME but I don’t remember anything else.
Oh, I just remembered two of my favorite Spanish music videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n76yRU9y32I&list=RDn76yRU9y32I&start_radio=1 - this is from a TV show where they travel around Spain, visit different cities and record songs with local artists. Everything about it great, the artists, the places, the versions of the songs…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW6L_lTrIFg&list=RDSW6L_lTrIFg&start_radio=1 - one of the best NPR tiny desk concerts ever
If you liked Rosalen you should like those.
-
Lemmyvision song contest? Then that means it’s time to link Feddit UK’s original submission, the Northern Boys with the phenomenal Sexy Train:
I saw that last year on Lemmyvision! It’s on regular rotation, along with T-Pain.
How does Israel take part in EUROVision anyway?
Lots of countries not in Europe are eligible, such as Canada.
The requirement is basically only for a nation’s public broadcaster (like the BBC, CBC, RTE) to be an Associate Member of the a European Broadcasting Union, which largely comes down to paying an annual fee.
Should the EBU restrict the contest regionally? Maybe, but they haven’t so far.
Australia has sent acts for the last several years, and they’ve been a great addition.
Of course region locking is not an issue, a country with fascist regime is.
Better yet, learn another language. I’m sad for all the people that won’t ever be able to experience some of the french-canadian culture. So many great books, songs, movies that people who don’t speak french will never know.
Of all languages, French? German’s where it’s at.
French
I know french, the amount of great books is about the same as every other language.
But I learned french so I can refuse to use it, instead of not understanding it.
Toronto or good old west Island?
Every kpop song
That was great
There’s some good Japanese punk rock. And not that it’s a big reach for Americans, but Australia has some great hip hop.
The Japanese rock scene is great. I love Toe’s For Long Tomorrow
