The other day, I arrived at work and noticed "Day-O" (or however the heck you spell it) by the Red Hot Chili Peppers blaring. Oohh...new song. I asked Jody (my boss) if he had made a new CD and he replied, "Yes, I did! That's because no one could understand your music! Some old lady came up to me once and asked, 'What is this???" Defiantly, I said, "I don't understand all my music.I just think it sounds good." After that, Jody admitted that to be fair, he added one French song to the new CD. Ha!
I have one coworker who never fails to say how much she hates French music. Supposedly, it's because she hates listening to something she can't understand but for some reason, she's perfectly fine when something's sung in Spanish or Italian.
Like I said, I don't understand every foreign song I fall in love with but some of their approaches to certain genres and some of the tunes foreign artists/bands come up with are far catchier than the mainstream coming out of North American radio.
It's really a damn shame that albums don't make it to the Billboards or Canadian Soundscans just because they're sung in different tongues.
Below is a list of non-English artists/songs worth checking out.
Mickey 3d (mickey3d.com) - A French band with one of the most original sounds out there...particularly their middle eastern influences which can be heard in songs such as "Yalil". My favourite songs include "La Mort du Peuple" (The Death of the People), "Les Mots" (Words), and "Le France a Peur" (France is Scared).
André - I came across the video to "Station Balnéaire" when I was watching MusiquePlus in Montreal. I've just recently tried finding his other songs and I really liked "Comptoir Postal" and "Tsigane et Sara".
Juli - "Perfekte Welle" is FAR better than most pop crap playing on the radio here at home. And I don't understand German at all!
Xavier Naidoo - Again, I wish I could understand German because I absolutely love his song "Was Wir Alleine Nicht Shaffen"! I haven't been this into an R&B song in so long! "Bevor Du Gehst" is also another notable song, in my opinion.
Le Vibrazioni - This Italian band was introduced to me by a friend. They play rock music bordering on pop which I tend not to like but the falsettos get me everytime. "Raggio di Sole" and "Dedicato a Te" are some of those inner conflicts for me.
Sandwich - While doing research for a final sociology paper last semester, I came across this article talking about Korean and Russian rock. This all of a sudden got me curious to find some Filipino rock as I really know next to nothing about it except for the classic Freddy Aguilar who's best known for his song "Anak" (Child) and The Eraserheads who were huge in the Philippines in the 80s and 90s (I had tried listening to the E-heads in junior high but just couldn't get into them...I recently tried listening to them again and have come to appreciate their music more). Anyway, the guy who used to play drums in the E-heads, Raimund Marasigan, is now the lead vocalist of Sandwich. They have some rather interesting tunes including "DVD X", "Sugod", and "Walang Kadala-dala"
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3 comments:
i'll add sigur ros to that list. i'm too tired to explain so go check them out http://www.sigur-ros.is/
Hey Jason!
I remember you mentioning them way back when and I did listen to one of the songs you sent me but I've already forgotten what they sound like. I'll for sure check them out sometime.
Bands here in the Philippines are sprouting like mushrooms! haha. there are a looot of good rock bands here. Try Rivermaya, Bamboo, and Rivermaya (they have a lot of english songs). Former lead vocalist of Eraserheads has his new band now, Pupil. Bands here are trying to be more patriotic, thus, most of their songs are in the vernacular. Those 3 I cited have lots of english songs. Enjoy
--Jes
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