Yeah, some people primarily connect the poetic aspects of music with lyrics, and some people primarily connect with the music itself. The folks who mostly focus on lyrics (I've met a handful) are often confused by the rest of us.
I always likened the voice to another instrument. Do you know each note and effect of other instruments? No. The words arent necessary to enjoy. Might add to it. Might even detract.. It's up to the listener and no one else.
Or it turns out they’re razzing other bands. I’m a fan of Mahlathini, a South African mbaqanga singer. I thought the lyrics would be about deep, spiritual things and the like. I eventually looked up a couple of songs and found the lyrics were making fun of other bands that had to take a bus to a gig while they were riding in their own van.
Haha, half the time I'm like "If the lyrics are in the booklet, then it's probably important, otherwise, it's just about that sweet, sweet growl texture."
I agree. And when you aren't concentrating on what the words mean, the voice becomes just like another instrument. The whole tempo and pitch, the rhythm and flow all stand out more
100 percent this. I prefer most of my music to have that intrinsic, "my voice is my instrument" quality. Do I love some heavy handed lyrically sound stuff thrown in my face? Of course that's talent too. But when your lyrics make no sense unless the person listening is on drugs and sober people can still enjoy? That's art.
Well I wanna know about these Indigenous Australian bands
ETA: I'm literally Australian and can only think of Yothu Yindi and whatever Gurrumul did.
Oh plus Baker Boy! Love me some Baker Boy.
Then look for
Mongolian:
Nine Treasures
Altan Urag
Khusugtun
Hanggai
Tengger Cavalry
and from Taiwan:
Nini Music
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOn7uCux0uc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOn7uCux0uc)
And From Siberia:
Otyken
There was a band called tengger cavalry I stumbled upon that was incorporated throat singing. I was super into them. One of those very niche metal bands with a "gimmick"
they actually came to my small city randomly. Went to the show and I was one of 10 or 15 people that went. They rocked the place regardless. But you could tell the lead guy, Nature, was upset about there being no one there.
They ended up breaking up and the singer committed suicide. Pretty sure it was in relation to the Hu making it main stream.
Rip Nature
Tengger Cavalry definitely deserved better. The last thing Nature posted on the band's social was:
>It’s funny how NPR and Metal Hammer intentionally ignore mentioning us when covering this new band The Hu and the similar bands before them like we never started the Mongolian Metal sound TEN years ago. Apparently The Hu’s PR did a great job at wiping us out of this music history influence and claim it their first invention. Good job lads. Good for youth success. History will remember one day 🙂
Rock on.
The guy was out there composing music for Civilization and playing shows at Carnegie Hall, but this industry plant can come in and just wipe out his real passion project like that.
Absolutely! Japan makes incredible music in any genre. But pretty much anything that sounds good, I don’t care what language it’s in. I don’t pay much attention to lyrics anyway.
Japanese math rock is my personal favorite and very underrated! Hard agree, my favorite songs I have come to feel each emotion even if I cannot understand the lyrics.
Maximum the Hormone, DIR EN GREY, sukekiyo, BAND-MAID, SiM, Boris, MUCC, DELUHI, hanabie. , and Versailles! That should be a pretty good starting point lol. Japanese music is almost all I listen to.
I would argue Japan has been kicking ass in rock for the past decade. BabyMetal, Band-Maid, Nemophila, A Crowd of Rebellion, ColdRain, Necronomidol, Kosame, Unlucky Morpheus, PASSCODE, and Hanabie are a few off the top of my head.
One of my favorite bands ever. When I was introduced to them I was told they were like "Japanese System Of A Down." I don't really hear it, but I love them none the less.
They're not exactly like SOAD, but I can see the comparison because their sound is so eclectic and cleanly produced and they play around a lot with similar heavy/soft and fast/slow dynamics
Otoboke Beaver! 4 girls with the most insane punk/metal you will ever hear. The drummer is one of my favourite drummers of all time. Their songs are so funny and so good. One of the best live performances I’ve ever seen.
I know you said prog rock but I wanna shoutout Tricot here because I think they're an incredibly underrated math rock group. I never get tired of listening to their debut album and artsick is such a beautiful song even though I don't understand the lyrics lol.
There's also Galneryus which def leans more power metal but I'd say give them a shot still, they have some really good stuff
I love the contrast between hard music and femanine voices which is not very common. [BabyMetal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIKqgE4BwAY) tick that box for me. I think they were derided when they started because they look like a manufactured band, but they rock SOOO hard
There's something about female vocals with metal, the contrast almost makes it sound heavier. I've heard great English-speaking female fronted metal bands, but there's something about J-Metal & Kawaii metal that hits different for me. Plus some of these girls can scream pretty friggin heavy.
One American who falls into some of that same style is Poppy. The last couple albums she went pop/metal and it's glorious.
[Sigh - Imaginary Sonicscape](https://youtu.be/IIJ56d-8yPs?si=E-T_Ned1wc6U5x1G) (Prog-Metal/Black Metal and weird stuff)
[BABYMETAL - Megitsune](https://youtu.be/cK3NMZAUKGw?si=aHSR3lWvKh0T-40H)
[BABYMETAL - Karate](https://youtu.be/GvD3CHA48pA?si=6ktrrQCvBny8zcSl)
[ATARASHII GAKKO! – OTONABLUE / THE FIRST TAKE](https://youtu.be/9MNPt-zlz-8?si=qdtiV-wmCjCBdkdD) (Not metal but really good)
[Boris - Pink](https://youtu.be/bREC4gvH5Gw?si=nZEVBXwT1sBbv4Gf) (Boris is so versatile, they go from pop to drone metal)
[Midori - かなしい日々。](https://youtu.be/MQDZwvOM72k?si=7ZjSAm0DAgvCKTXY) (Jazz Punk)
[mass of the fermenting dregs - Delusionalism](https://youtu.be/5p_DvecvJKc?si=1dbIibZR4FDe9CbI) (Not metal but really good j-rock)
[Bi Kyo Ran - Bi Kyo Ran](https://youtu.be/tY2kilIen2w?si=cdF1Wydz-qQPaXpk) (King Crimson like Prog Rock from 1982)
Also check these artists but not all are metal:
Sheena Ringo, Tokyo Jihen, Perfume, Haru Nemuri, Number Girl, Ling Tosite Sigure, Supercar, Susumu Hirasawa, Tricot, Ichiko Aoba, Seiko Oomori, Macaroom.
Anime related:
[FranChouChou "Atsuku Nare"](https://youtu.be/1ENOjRem3s4?si=iKQeH_DwP4B5ARNZ) (From Zombienland saga anime but I love the song)
[Inkya Impulse (インキャインパルス)](https://youtu.be/hkL4hW4eniI?si=9ENu7sbhksigE3sp) (Ending of Asobi Asobase anime but also super good)
[Ho-Kago Tea Time - No Thank You!](https://youtu.be/_FDEH7hWb8c?si=I05ZVUNvI_SLAGXR) (HTT is one of my favorite bands ever)
Just want to give this recommendation a bit more detail. Ningen Isu are a metal trio who largely built their style on the music if Black Sabbath. They were originally considering producing English language songs, but quickly realized none of them had the ability to write English lyrics at the quality they wanted to release, and instead chose to write songs in their native Japanese.
While most people outside Japan first discovered them when Heartless Scat went viral on YouTube, I'd recommend Kyoufu no Daiou (Great King of Terror) as a first song to listen to.
Fun fake-out moment with this the other day: I was watching the end credits for the new Pokemon DLC and the post-game music started playing. It sounded EXACTLY like 2000’s Christian rock ballad, in English, and I thought “wow these Japanese cover bands are getting really good at imitating American music!”
…it was a fucking Ed Sheeran song.
I used to blast weeb shit on my speaker at my old job (we worked in a loud warehouse), it wasn’t until one day I started paying attention to the lyrics and they’re just singing about the most perverted shit haha.
Hope the rest of my coworkers didn’t understand it.
Sigur Ros is the perfect example…it’s a made up language, so it’s language as feeling, voice as instrument.
And it’s beautiful, too.
EDIT: Yep, some of the lyrics are in Icelandic in some songs. The question was about listening to songs in languages you don’t understand, and I don’t understand Icelandic, so…
Sigur Rós often use "vonlenska" in lieu of intelligible lyrics, including for the entirety of their () album, but most of their songs have Icelandic lyrics, and at least one song (All Alright) is in English.
As someone from Denmark who loves Sigur Rós, I've always found it amusing that occasionally I'll recognise words or phrases Jonsi sings as Icelandic and Danish both stem from Old Norse even though they diverged centuries ago. For example, the last line of "Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása" he sings "*Það Besta Sem Guð Hefur Skapað Er Nýr Dagur*" which is very close grammatically and in pronunciation to the Danish translation "Det bedste som gud har skabt er en ny dag"
Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance do the same. Sometimes English but often glossolalia.
https://youtu.be/MFN6BaulEX8?feature=shared
I love how atmospheric this is.
Amazing live as well. Only concert I've ever attended where the crowd was completely silent during the songs just soaking in the moment. Was incredible.
My first thought as well! If you ever get the chance to see them live, jump on it. I saw them at a festival years ago on acid and got an overwhelming sense of peace hearing them. It was beautiful.
I haven’t seen them while on anything but I have seen them twice…the second show was similar to the first but maybe 10 years later (earlier this year).
Can confirm overwhelming sense of peace, though. If you get the chance to go again, you probably won’t miss anything without the acid (and there aren’t many bands who can promise that).
My husband does all the time. As a gift, I got him tickets to see one of his favorite bands, Altïn Gunn. I’d describe them as Turkish psychedelic rock.
He’ll listen to anything in any language, though. He also loved watching foreign movies with subtitles growing up.
He’s bilingual, not sure if that makes a difference.
Gaye Su Akyol, another Turkish artist, just did a KEXP performance that is great with an awesome cover of Love Buzz.
Satellites, an Israeli band, is another psychedelic rock with a great performance on KEXP that is worth checking out.
Hadn't heard of this band before, but I'm checking them out on youtube. Cool stuff. The song I'm listening to sounds more like good funk/rock than psychedelic though.
I love Seu Jorge! My rudimentary Spanish usually gets me the general idea of his lyrics but Portuguese is a whole other thing. Half my car radio presets are latin music, because Florida. Husband does not understand why I do this.
I have a South American playlist on Spotify and it's mostly dominated by Brazilian music from Jobim/Jilberto to Gilberto Gil and newer bands like (the unfortunately named) Skank.
Not sure if you’ve ever explored more into Rammstein, but they’re pretty rad overall. May I recommend checking out the music video and then looking at the translation for Dicke Titten.
I listen to them a fair bit. Our country even has a band that is very inspired by them called Laibach. Fun fact they're one of the only modern bands to perform in north korea so that's something.
> Laibach
Just now looking at them on wikipedia and youtube. Fucking Hell, their early stuff is **THE SHIT**. Why did I not run into them 25 years ago?
The guy who did the gardens where I lived in high school heard me blasting Rammstein. He passed me a note to listen to Laibach - didn't speak English - and I've been hooked. Their latest EP is great too. I love streaming and algorithms et al, but pre-Internet discoveries seemed so much more special.
They’re an absurd group of fellas which result in so many delightful videos. I’m also pretty fond of the pyro backpack they use at live shows. So. Much. Fire.
I went down the Molchat Doma to Eastern Europe post-punk pipeline. Buerak, Ploho, Vullny, a bunch of others I can't type. Good shit, and it's fun to try sing along
Have you seen them in concert? They’re awesome. This year they had Nuevo Testamento opening for them which is 80s pop. Set the perfect mood for the rest of the concert. Can’t wait for them to come around again
Entire Europe jammed to Dragostea Din Tei in the summer of 2004 without knowing a single word in romanian. Hell, most of us had no idea it was romanian.
Much of the US jammed to it around the same time when the [Numa Numa video](https://youtu.be/Cqd1Gvq-RBY?si=HTCv3d8HVUYXRcpc) blew up lol. Of course we didn't know the actual song name so it's just Numa Numa
Agree.
I first heard the music of Salif Keita in the mid 80's and I've added numerous CDs of African music to my collection ever since. For me, it is mostly artists from Mali that I am mostly drawn towards.
Amadou and Mariam
Fatoumata Diawara
Rokia Traore
Vieux Farka Toure
Tinariwen
Bombino (not from Mali)
I adore The Cocteau Twins, and anything Elizabeth Fraser is involved in. Her voice is the epitome of ethereal, imo.
For the most part, Elizabeth Fraser didn’t sing words for meaning, she just used various words she found in dictionaries in other languages; if she liked the word, and the sound of it felt right for what she was expressing, she’d use it. She did this for years because she was afraid of writing lyrics that made sense.
“It depends where I’m at in my head… The lyrics are words that I’ve found by going through books and dictionaries written in languages I don’t understand. The words don’t have any meaning at all until I sing them… I did it so I could sing something… My house is full of this stuff. It’s just full of it. I get a bug. I get a bug for words. But I don’t know what any of them mean. I just pull them out of foreign languages books and stuff like that. The music and the singing and the words created a feeling, and I had a freedom doing this that I didn’t have singing English. I just didn’t have the courage to sing in English.
“I felt like I was shark bait. I felt inadequate. I didn’t feel adequate as a lyricist. It’s a coping skill, really… I may resort to this again. This stopped working for me. It just did. And I found that when I tried to do this I wasn’t singing from my gut anymore, I wasn’t… I just had to move on. And so I began to sing lyrics again that people would understand. There was still a bit of this kind of stuff going on then [on Heaven or Las Vegas]—sound, rather than meaning.
“I don’t wanna know what they mean because it’s gonna be ridiculous. I might be singing about plum pudding or god-knows-what-else, you know? But it served a purpose. I really got a freedom from it. And it worked. It did work for me.
“With Four-Calendar Café, I knew I was at a place where I needed to be really honest with myself, so I immediately knew I was gonna be singing lyrics. A song like “Bluebeard,” the title is obviously very angry. At the time I felt very trapped, and I was… feeling my feelings for the first time, basically. I was experiencing old anger and new anger. Thirty years of it, really, all at the same time, all at once. I affirmed myself on that song. I was writing the way a responsible adult writes. It’s about waking up. I was doubting and questioning, and… I even made my declaration.” [From 1FM Radio “National Poetry Day” Interview, 1994]
The beauty of kpop is that I don't understand the words. Pop music tends to be vapid and insipid, lyrically, but relentlessly upbeat, musically, which is really what I need as I commute three hours a day.
Let me tell you as an avid kpop fan, the ignorance of kpop lyrics is truly bliss. There are Kpop artists and groups that will occasionally include an english verse or rap part in their otherwise Korean song and 4 out of 5 times those lyrics make me cringe.
I LOVE a lot of kpop songs. That love may've been completely lost if I understood the lyrics from the get go lol.
I’m pretty sure there’s waaaaay more non-Korean people listening to K-Pop than Korean people at this point, so I’d say there’s many people listening to music on languages they don’t understand.
There are just some things done in some countries that for some reason cannot or have never been recreated in others. Kpop has that something to it, also Japanese City Pop as well as new jpop are just *different* to their western counterparts. Or if I want to listen to dark electro pop, I need to turn to Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian artists.
All the time! Probably comes from growing up with the Eurovision Song Contest (back in the day when each country had to send a song in their own language), and thus getting to hear great songs in various different languages every year. I wish that language rule was implemented again in the contest.
I do; I listen to Finnish music a lot - it was actually one of my top genres on Spotify. But I don't even speak Finnish. That aside, my Spotify playlists are full with songs sung in languages I don't speak (Lithuanian, Czech, Swedish, Danish (to be fair, I'm learning that right now), Spanish, Icelandic, Portuguese, just to name a few I can think of now). Good music is good music. And how often do you listen to lyrics anyway - even if they're in a language you can understand?
Word! Saw them (I think) 2 months ago in Munich. Killer show. The singer wringed his fucking sweat-drenched shirt in his mouth at the end of the show and spat it in the audience. Was so sad I wasn't front row. Good times! <3
New album is killer, btw.
I just mentioned Stromae, I feel like no one recognizes his stuff.
I wish he made more music ( He seems to be on hiatus maybe?) but I will always sing along to Formidable. Do I understand French? No. Do I speak it? Also no.
He recently came back, but he was on a long hiatus! I believe his newest album is Multitude released in 2022.
Love Stromae though, he has some really good beats that he pairs a little too well with lyrics.
Yes, off the top of my head:
Rammstein (German), Stereolab (English/French), 60s Bossa Nova (Portuguese)
I know it is slightly off topic, but some extreme metal I listen to is completely unintelligible, they claim to sing in English, but I can’t understand a word of it.
Good Music gives Good Vibes. Music doesn’t have language but lyrics do. Certain lyrics will make us to repeat hearing it even though we don’t understand the meaning of a single word.
I've listened to the Cocteau Twins since the early 80's and a lot of Liz Frazer's lyrics are just made up words and phrases. I read that she picks words from other languages because she likes the sound of them. I love Rammstein and Heilung too.
I only really understand Dutch and English but i have songs in my library that are in Danish, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, German, French, Italian and Romanian.
As long as i think its a good song i don't care what language it is.
[Adriano Celentano](https://youtu.be/4C2wat_8VyI?feature=shared) would like a word.
You most certainly won’t understand it, but you’ll think you do at first.
Yes, absolutely. Good music is good music.
Half the bands I listen to that sing in English, I can't make out the lyrics anyway
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Me listening to black / death metal: yeah they are screaming something all right
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Yeah, some people primarily connect the poetic aspects of music with lyrics, and some people primarily connect with the music itself. The folks who mostly focus on lyrics (I've met a handful) are often confused by the rest of us.
I always likened the voice to another instrument. Do you know each note and effect of other instruments? No. The words arent necessary to enjoy. Might add to it. Might even detract.. It's up to the listener and no one else.
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Or it turns out they’re razzing other bands. I’m a fan of Mahlathini, a South African mbaqanga singer. I thought the lyrics would be about deep, spiritual things and the like. I eventually looked up a couple of songs and found the lyrics were making fun of other bands that had to take a bus to a gig while they were riding in their own van.
Shoegazers are pretty good at this as well.
"COOOOOKIEEEMONSTOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR"
Haha, half the time I'm like "If the lyrics are in the booklet, then it's probably important, otherwise, it's just about that sweet, sweet growl texture."
Horns up!
Pearl Jam
I agree. And when you aren't concentrating on what the words mean, the voice becomes just like another instrument. The whole tempo and pitch, the rhythm and flow all stand out more
100 percent this. I prefer most of my music to have that intrinsic, "my voice is my instrument" quality. Do I love some heavy handed lyrically sound stuff thrown in my face? Of course that's talent too. But when your lyrics make no sense unless the person listening is on drugs and sober people can still enjoy? That's art.
Came here to say exactly this. I only understand English, but listen to bands singing in Indigenous Australian, French, Japanese, Moldovan - whatever!
Well I wanna know about these Indigenous Australian bands ETA: I'm literally Australian and can only think of Yothu Yindi and whatever Gurrumul did. Oh plus Baker Boy! Love me some Baker Boy.
>Moldovan Numa numa will forever be a banger
Do you mean "Dragostea Din Tei"?
if it bumps, it bumps
The Hu Band has brought Mongolian throat singing into the mainstream, but I've really become attached to French Canadian artists like Lisa LeBlanc
The Hu Band are awesome
Then look for Mongolian: Nine Treasures Altan Urag Khusugtun Hanggai Tengger Cavalry and from Taiwan: Nini Music [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOn7uCux0uc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOn7uCux0uc) And From Siberia: Otyken
Tennger Cavalry is awesome. From Taiwan I also really like Chthonic
There was a band called tengger cavalry I stumbled upon that was incorporated throat singing. I was super into them. One of those very niche metal bands with a "gimmick" they actually came to my small city randomly. Went to the show and I was one of 10 or 15 people that went. They rocked the place regardless. But you could tell the lead guy, Nature, was upset about there being no one there. They ended up breaking up and the singer committed suicide. Pretty sure it was in relation to the Hu making it main stream. Rip Nature
Tengger Cavalry definitely deserved better. The last thing Nature posted on the band's social was: >It’s funny how NPR and Metal Hammer intentionally ignore mentioning us when covering this new band The Hu and the similar bands before them like we never started the Mongolian Metal sound TEN years ago. Apparently The Hu’s PR did a great job at wiping us out of this music history influence and claim it their first invention. Good job lads. Good for youth success. History will remember one day 🙂 Rock on. The guy was out there composing music for Civilization and playing shows at Carnegie Hall, but this industry plant can come in and just wipe out his real passion project like that.
Oh man that’s actually tragic.
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I saw them live this year and I understood zero words but they connected with the audience just the same.
and they're so fucking good live, in my top10 acts of all time I've seen live. Mother Nature in particular was so good live
Was about to comment how Lisa Leblanc is one of my favourite artists yet I don't even really speak French.
Absolutely! Japan makes incredible music in any genre. But pretty much anything that sounds good, I don’t care what language it’s in. I don’t pay much attention to lyrics anyway.
Japanese math rock is my personal favorite and very underrated! Hard agree, my favorite songs I have come to feel each emotion even if I cannot understand the lyrics.
Elephant Gym are Taiwanese but if you haven’t heard them they’re incredible.
Babymetal has changed me
I've listened to so much Casiopea and Nujabes recently
Been wanting to get into Japan's music for a long time. Do you have any recommendations for any good prog rock/metal bands?
Maximum the Hormone, DIR EN GREY, sukekiyo, BAND-MAID, SiM, Boris, MUCC, DELUHI, hanabie. , and Versailles! That should be a pretty good starting point lol. Japanese music is almost all I listen to.
Dir en grey was my first real foreign band. I remember picking up withering to death almost 20 years ago and absolutely loving it.
This makes me feel old. I got into Dir En Grey just before Withering to Death was released. The first album I listened to was Macabre.
Same, I was obsessed when they started playing Saku on MTV2. Withering to Death holds a serious special place in my heart.
Band Maid is from Japan and I got really into them this past year. Rock is alive and well in Japan.
I would argue Japan has been kicking ass in rock for the past decade. BabyMetal, Band-Maid, Nemophila, A Crowd of Rebellion, ColdRain, Necronomidol, Kosame, Unlucky Morpheus, PASSCODE, and Hanabie are a few off the top of my head.
I don't remember who said it, but - "Rock never died, it just moved to Japan"
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In South America is the same with rock bands
Mrs. Green Apple is another I like the sound of.
Ohh man I'm excited to find this thread. Just started listening to J Metal earlier this year and there are so many suggestions for good bands here.
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One of my favorite bands ever. When I was introduced to them I was told they were like "Japanese System Of A Down." I don't really hear it, but I love them none the less.
They're not exactly like SOAD, but I can see the comparison because their sound is so eclectic and cleanly produced and they play around a lot with similar heavy/soft and fast/slow dynamics
Otoboke Beaver! 4 girls with the most insane punk/metal you will ever hear. The drummer is one of my favourite drummers of all time. Their songs are so funny and so good. One of the best live performances I’ve ever seen.
Seeing them on their U.S tour in March
They were my first thought when I saw this thread. I almost prefer that I can’t understand the lyrics because the music itself is so full on.
Yeah it's like when I can't understand the words, the voice becomes another instrument and I'm focused on the sounds and annunciation of it more.
I know you said prog rock but I wanna shoutout Tricot here because I think they're an incredibly underrated math rock group. I never get tired of listening to their debut album and artsick is such a beautiful song even though I don't understand the lyrics lol. There's also Galneryus which def leans more power metal but I'd say give them a shot still, they have some really good stuff
Tricot is so good. The funky riffs from "18,19" constantly get stuck in my head.
I love the contrast between hard music and femanine voices which is not very common. [BabyMetal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIKqgE4BwAY) tick that box for me. I think they were derided when they started because they look like a manufactured band, but they rock SOOO hard
There's something about female vocals with metal, the contrast almost makes it sound heavier. I've heard great English-speaking female fronted metal bands, but there's something about J-Metal & Kawaii metal that hits different for me. Plus some of these girls can scream pretty friggin heavy. One American who falls into some of that same style is Poppy. The last couple albums she went pop/metal and it's glorious.
Poppy's metal forays are so awesome. I Disagree is such a crazy record, and I don't mean that in a bad way st all.
I like Yousei Teikoku for this same reason.
[Sigh - Imaginary Sonicscape](https://youtu.be/IIJ56d-8yPs?si=E-T_Ned1wc6U5x1G) (Prog-Metal/Black Metal and weird stuff) [BABYMETAL - Megitsune](https://youtu.be/cK3NMZAUKGw?si=aHSR3lWvKh0T-40H) [BABYMETAL - Karate](https://youtu.be/GvD3CHA48pA?si=6ktrrQCvBny8zcSl) [ATARASHII GAKKO! – OTONABLUE / THE FIRST TAKE](https://youtu.be/9MNPt-zlz-8?si=qdtiV-wmCjCBdkdD) (Not metal but really good) [Boris - Pink](https://youtu.be/bREC4gvH5Gw?si=nZEVBXwT1sBbv4Gf) (Boris is so versatile, they go from pop to drone metal) [Midori - かなしい日々。](https://youtu.be/MQDZwvOM72k?si=7ZjSAm0DAgvCKTXY) (Jazz Punk) [mass of the fermenting dregs - Delusionalism](https://youtu.be/5p_DvecvJKc?si=1dbIibZR4FDe9CbI) (Not metal but really good j-rock) [Bi Kyo Ran - Bi Kyo Ran](https://youtu.be/tY2kilIen2w?si=cdF1Wydz-qQPaXpk) (King Crimson like Prog Rock from 1982) Also check these artists but not all are metal: Sheena Ringo, Tokyo Jihen, Perfume, Haru Nemuri, Number Girl, Ling Tosite Sigure, Supercar, Susumu Hirasawa, Tricot, Ichiko Aoba, Seiko Oomori, Macaroom. Anime related: [FranChouChou "Atsuku Nare"](https://youtu.be/1ENOjRem3s4?si=iKQeH_DwP4B5ARNZ) (From Zombienland saga anime but I love the song) [Inkya Impulse (インキャインパルス)](https://youtu.be/hkL4hW4eniI?si=9ENu7sbhksigE3sp) (Ending of Asobi Asobase anime but also super good) [Ho-Kago Tea Time - No Thank You!](https://youtu.be/_FDEH7hWb8c?si=I05ZVUNvI_SLAGXR) (HTT is one of my favorite bands ever)
Check out Maki Oyama’s “acu-metal” work. Also I just saw *Hanabie* play… they’re pretty wild. Not prog, though. Sort of Kawaii-pop / deathcore fusion!
Melt-Banana
[Ningen Isu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbI79e5iZKs) J-metal trio.
Just want to give this recommendation a bit more detail. Ningen Isu are a metal trio who largely built their style on the music if Black Sabbath. They were originally considering producing English language songs, but quickly realized none of them had the ability to write English lyrics at the quality they wanted to release, and instead chose to write songs in their native Japanese. While most people outside Japan first discovered them when Heartless Scat went viral on YouTube, I'd recommend Kyoufu no Daiou (Great King of Terror) as a first song to listen to.
Also check out Ningen Isu. The song that I heard first and sold me was called Heartless Scat. From there it was rabbit hole time.
Kikagaku Moyo is pretty sweet.
The Pillows.
Some good bands are Mass of The Fermenting Dregs, and Asian Kung-Fu Generation
someone else mentioned them sandwiched between a bunch of other stuff, so just reiterating: Boris! phenomenal band with some incredible, HEAVY music
My fav Japanese bands are coldrain, ONE OK ROCK, Band-maid and Babymetal. Japan really does have some amazing bands
I adore ONE OK ROCK.
I've seen ONE OK ROCK twice. They're my FAVORITE band, absolutely love them and how they keep changing their sound.
Fun fake-out moment with this the other day: I was watching the end credits for the new Pokemon DLC and the post-game music started playing. It sounded EXACTLY like 2000’s Christian rock ballad, in English, and I thought “wow these Japanese cover bands are getting really good at imitating American music!” …it was a fucking Ed Sheeran song.
I used to blast weeb shit on my speaker at my old job (we worked in a loud warehouse), it wasn’t until one day I started paying attention to the lyrics and they’re just singing about the most perverted shit haha. Hope the rest of my coworkers didn’t understand it.
Sigur Ros is the perfect example…it’s a made up language, so it’s language as feeling, voice as instrument. And it’s beautiful, too. EDIT: Yep, some of the lyrics are in Icelandic in some songs. The question was about listening to songs in languages you don’t understand, and I don’t understand Icelandic, so…
Sigur Rós often use "vonlenska" in lieu of intelligible lyrics, including for the entirety of their () album, but most of their songs have Icelandic lyrics, and at least one song (All Alright) is in English.
As someone from Denmark who loves Sigur Rós, I've always found it amusing that occasionally I'll recognise words or phrases Jonsi sings as Icelandic and Danish both stem from Old Norse even though they diverged centuries ago. For example, the last line of "Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása" he sings "*Það Besta Sem Guð Hefur Skapað Er Nýr Dagur*" which is very close grammatically and in pronunciation to the Danish translation "Det bedste som gud har skabt er en ny dag"
Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance do the same. Sometimes English but often glossolalia. https://youtu.be/MFN6BaulEX8?feature=shared I love how atmospheric this is.
They sing a lot in Icelandic as well.
Eivør is Faroese and sings in Icelandic some as well. https://youtu.be/fi6TxPHoSa4?si=Zd1TBQNoq2wBvd5t
They sing in Icelandic. Only a very select part of their discography uses "Hopelandic", the made up language. Mainly, the album ( ) Untitled
I was going to point out Sigur Rós, such a great band.
Amazing live as well. Only concert I've ever attended where the crowd was completely silent during the songs just soaking in the moment. Was incredible.
My first thought as well! If you ever get the chance to see them live, jump on it. I saw them at a festival years ago on acid and got an overwhelming sense of peace hearing them. It was beautiful.
I haven’t seen them while on anything but I have seen them twice…the second show was similar to the first but maybe 10 years later (earlier this year). Can confirm overwhelming sense of peace, though. If you get the chance to go again, you probably won’t miss anything without the acid (and there aren’t many bands who can promise that).
My husband does all the time. As a gift, I got him tickets to see one of his favorite bands, Altïn Gunn. I’d describe them as Turkish psychedelic rock. He’ll listen to anything in any language, though. He also loved watching foreign movies with subtitles growing up. He’s bilingual, not sure if that makes a difference.
Gaye Su Akyol, another Turkish artist, just did a KEXP performance that is great with an awesome cover of Love Buzz. Satellites, an Israeli band, is another psychedelic rock with a great performance on KEXP that is worth checking out.
Altïn Gunn has been in heavy rotation for me for two or three years now. Great band and I've had a chance to see them live twice.
Just wanted to say Altın Gün. They are so good. Also Tinariwen (touareg rock) KEXP is such a goldmine for great music
Hadn't heard of this band before, but I'm checking them out on youtube. Cool stuff. The song I'm listening to sounds more like good funk/rock than psychedelic though.
Checked them out based on your comment. Wow, I love it!
I don't know a word of Portuguese but I love me some Jobim
Same but with João Gilberto.
Jorge Ben Jor is my guy.
I love Seu Jorge! My rudimentary Spanish usually gets me the general idea of his lyrics but Portuguese is a whole other thing. Half my car radio presets are latin music, because Florida. Husband does not understand why I do this.
Antonio Carlos Jobim Elis Regina Joao Donato Sergio Mendez Caetano Veloso Atrud Gilberto Gal Costa Joao Gilberto
Nice list, I like all those Brazilian artists but it’s missing my top two: Jorge Ben Milton Nascimento
Novos Baianos Jorge Ben Tom Zé Curumin Chico Cesar Lenine Celso Machado
I have a South American playlist on Spotify and it's mostly dominated by Brazilian music from Jobim/Jilberto to Gilberto Gil and newer bands like (the unfortunately named) Skank.
I thought Jobim was just a name Paul Rudd made up Now ill have to check them out!
Du! Du hast!
Du hast mich!
Du hast mich gefragt...
Was?
ich hab nichts gesagt
Willst du bis der Tod euch scheidet, treu ihr sein für alle Tage?
NEIN!
(The sickest heavy metal guitar you’ve ever heard)
r/commentsyoucanhear
Not sure if you’ve ever explored more into Rammstein, but they’re pretty rad overall. May I recommend checking out the music video and then looking at the translation for Dicke Titten.
I listen to them a fair bit. Our country even has a band that is very inspired by them called Laibach. Fun fact they're one of the only modern bands to perform in north korea so that's something.
It's the other way around. Laibach inspired Rammstein. Laibach has been around way longer then Rammstein
ah my bad, don't even know the history of one of our biggest bands
> Laibach Just now looking at them on wikipedia and youtube. Fucking Hell, their early stuff is **THE SHIT**. Why did I not run into them 25 years ago?
The guy who did the gardens where I lived in high school heard me blasting Rammstein. He passed me a note to listen to Laibach - didn't speak English - and I've been hooked. Their latest EP is great too. I love streaming and algorithms et al, but pre-Internet discoveries seemed so much more special.
my standards aren't very high, she doesn't need to be a model, she doesn't need to be mart, she doesn't need to be rich, she just needs gigantic tits
They got some good music videos too. Real talented individuals
They’re an absurd group of fellas which result in so many delightful videos. I’m also pretty fond of the pyro backpack they use at live shows. So. Much. Fire.
A security guard stopped beating my ass at a rammstein show because the lead singer set himself on fire. Good times
Saved by the fire bell or fireball?
I probably listened to Zeit start to finish 20 times this year. It’s so good.
That song brought a tear to me eye when it came out. Been listening to Rammstein for 20 years and they never disappoint.
>Du! Du hast! Er! Er hat!
I went down the Molchat Doma to Eastern Europe post-punk pipeline. Buerak, Ploho, Vullny, a bunch of others I can't type. Good shit, and it's fun to try sing along
Molchat Doma are great
Love me some Molchat Doma!
Have you seen them in concert? They’re awesome. This year they had Nuevo Testamento opening for them which is 80s pop. Set the perfect mood for the rest of the concert. Can’t wait for them to come around again
Entire Europe jammed to Dragostea Din Tei in the summer of 2004 without knowing a single word in romanian. Hell, most of us had no idea it was romanian.
The entire world jammed to this song. A brazilian singer that goes by the name Latino made a Portuguese version of it.
Much of the US jammed to it around the same time when the [Numa Numa video](https://youtu.be/Cqd1Gvq-RBY?si=HTCv3d8HVUYXRcpc) blew up lol. Of course we didn't know the actual song name so it's just Numa Numa
to be clear, as far as I'm aware Americans exclusively listened to that song through the Numa Numa video
Mdou Moctar is one of my favorite bands and I don’t know a single word they’ve said
How about Tinariwen?
Agree. I first heard the music of Salif Keita in the mid 80's and I've added numerous CDs of African music to my collection ever since. For me, it is mostly artists from Mali that I am mostly drawn towards. Amadou and Mariam Fatoumata Diawara Rokia Traore Vieux Farka Toure Tinariwen Bombino (not from Mali)
Rammstein and Alien Weaponry
>Alien Weaponry Thanks for the recommendation, I'm digging it
You should try the Polynesian band Shepherds Reign, equally awesome as Alien Weaponry.
Take my upvote for Alien Weaponry, those guys rule.
Cocteau Twins have entered the chat.
I love Heaven or Las Vegas so much that I have had to start coming up with what I think the lyrics are
I adore The Cocteau Twins, and anything Elizabeth Fraser is involved in. Her voice is the epitome of ethereal, imo. For the most part, Elizabeth Fraser didn’t sing words for meaning, she just used various words she found in dictionaries in other languages; if she liked the word, and the sound of it felt right for what she was expressing, she’d use it. She did this for years because she was afraid of writing lyrics that made sense. “It depends where I’m at in my head… The lyrics are words that I’ve found by going through books and dictionaries written in languages I don’t understand. The words don’t have any meaning at all until I sing them… I did it so I could sing something… My house is full of this stuff. It’s just full of it. I get a bug. I get a bug for words. But I don’t know what any of them mean. I just pull them out of foreign languages books and stuff like that. The music and the singing and the words created a feeling, and I had a freedom doing this that I didn’t have singing English. I just didn’t have the courage to sing in English. “I felt like I was shark bait. I felt inadequate. I didn’t feel adequate as a lyricist. It’s a coping skill, really… I may resort to this again. This stopped working for me. It just did. And I found that when I tried to do this I wasn’t singing from my gut anymore, I wasn’t… I just had to move on. And so I began to sing lyrics again that people would understand. There was still a bit of this kind of stuff going on then [on Heaven or Las Vegas]—sound, rather than meaning. “I don’t wanna know what they mean because it’s gonna be ridiculous. I might be singing about plum pudding or god-knows-what-else, you know? But it served a purpose. I really got a freedom from it. And it worked. It did work for me. “With Four-Calendar Café, I knew I was at a place where I needed to be really honest with myself, so I immediately knew I was gonna be singing lyrics. A song like “Bluebeard,” the title is obviously very angry. At the time I felt very trapped, and I was… feeling my feelings for the first time, basically. I was experiencing old anger and new anger. Thirty years of it, really, all at the same time, all at once. I affirmed myself on that song. I was writing the way a responsible adult writes. It’s about waking up. I was doubting and questioning, and… I even made my declaration.” [From 1FM Radio “National Poetry Day” Interview, 1994]
Heilung, Kvelertak, and BabyMetal to name a few.
Babymetal kick ass, awesome live show.
Huge fan of the French Prog band Magma. They invented their own language.
Yup, Wardruna.
Same, also Heilung.
Love their sound!
Wardruna sounds like a battle cry and I am in LOVE with it.
Manu chao
Not even Manu Chao understands all the languages on some of Manu Chao's records.
Yes, love me some kpop!
The beauty of kpop is that I don't understand the words. Pop music tends to be vapid and insipid, lyrically, but relentlessly upbeat, musically, which is really what I need as I commute three hours a day.
Let me tell you as an avid kpop fan, the ignorance of kpop lyrics is truly bliss. There are Kpop artists and groups that will occasionally include an english verse or rap part in their otherwise Korean song and 4 out of 5 times those lyrics make me cringe. I LOVE a lot of kpop songs. That love may've been completely lost if I understood the lyrics from the get go lol.
I’m pretty sure there’s waaaaay more non-Korean people listening to K-Pop than Korean people at this point, so I’d say there’s many people listening to music on languages they don’t understand.
There are just some things done in some countries that for some reason cannot or have never been recreated in others. Kpop has that something to it, also Japanese City Pop as well as new jpop are just *different* to their western counterparts. Or if I want to listen to dark electro pop, I need to turn to Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian artists.
All the time! Probably comes from growing up with the Eurovision Song Contest (back in the day when each country had to send a song in their own language), and thus getting to hear great songs in various different languages every year. I wish that language rule was implemented again in the contest.
Same here! Because of ESC I have Islandic, Ukranian, French and some other languages in my playlists! :)
Same! I'm from Uruguay and love ESC because of that. Last year I had Serbia's doing on repeat: Biti zsdrava 👏🏻 Biti zsdrava 👏🏻 Biti zsdrava 👏🏻
I started listening to maneskin when they won in 2021. Those guys are massive now.
Love Charles Aznavour, Francoise Hardy etc but my french is really poor.
Yup. Polysics, Balothizer, Einstuerzende Neubauten. Shoot, death metal is allegedly sung in English, and I’ve never understood a word of Wormed🤣
I don't understand german, but deutschland by rammstein makes me feel like german is my homeland
I do; I listen to Finnish music a lot - it was actually one of my top genres on Spotify. But I don't even speak Finnish. That aside, my Spotify playlists are full with songs sung in languages I don't speak (Lithuanian, Czech, Swedish, Danish (to be fair, I'm learning that right now), Spanish, Icelandic, Portuguese, just to name a few I can think of now). Good music is good music. And how often do you listen to lyrics anyway - even if they're in a language you can understand?
Kvelertak!
They’re such a fun band to see live too!
Word! Saw them (I think) 2 months ago in Munich. Killer show. The singer wringed his fucking sweat-drenched shirt in his mouth at the end of the show and spat it in the audience. Was so sad I wasn't front row. Good times! <3 New album is killer, btw.
Kikagaku Moyo sings in a made up language and it really levels the playing field. No it's not similar to Sigur Ros
Manu Chao speaks/performs in ten languages! Thanks for the reminder, that’ll be my morning play.
Brazilian music is worth a listen. We have tickets to see Sergio Mendez next year, looking forward to it.
Brazilian EDM is very good. I guess they have Brazilian Bass or something like that. Really cool music if you’re into that kind of music.
If not, you're missing out on Stromae, Rammstein, etc.
I just mentioned Stromae, I feel like no one recognizes his stuff. I wish he made more music ( He seems to be on hiatus maybe?) but I will always sing along to Formidable. Do I understand French? No. Do I speak it? Also no.
You might enjoy his music more by looking up what the songs are about. Papaoutai for example means "dad where are you" and it's intense.
Santé is another one with a deep meaning, especially considering it was made during covid times.
Iirc Sante means Health and "Cheers!". It's a good start for a song about Covid.
He recently came back, but he was on a long hiatus! I believe his newest album is Multitude released in 2022. Love Stromae though, he has some really good beats that he pairs a little too well with lyrics.
I’ve been listening to Kaizers Orchestra for years and I know like 3 words in Norwegian.
Yes, off the top of my head: Rammstein (German), Stereolab (English/French), 60s Bossa Nova (Portuguese) I know it is slightly off topic, but some extreme metal I listen to is completely unintelligible, they claim to sing in English, but I can’t understand a word of it.
Gogol Bordello is pretty bitchin'.
Yes, The Hu, and Bloodywood, though the latter do sing in English too.
Sign language or nothing for me.
Yes, I love me some Japanese music!
i don't know russian, but i LOVE Molchat Dolma
Ana Tijoux is a Chilean hip hop artist. I’ve started learning a little Spanish but I didn’t know any when I first started listening to her.
Brujeria fucking rules
Good Music gives Good Vibes. Music doesn’t have language but lyrics do. Certain lyrics will make us to repeat hearing it even though we don’t understand the meaning of a single word.
I've listened to the Cocteau Twins since the early 80's and a lot of Liz Frazer's lyrics are just made up words and phrases. I read that she picks words from other languages because she likes the sound of them. I love Rammstein and Heilung too.
Manu Chao is good to practice listening to Spanish (along with a bunch of other languages peppered in)
yes J-pop bands
Jpop is my guilty pleasure
Yes! From classical opera in Italian or German to hip hop in all sorts of languages.
I only really understand Dutch and English but i have songs in my library that are in Danish, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, German, French, Italian and Romanian. As long as i think its a good song i don't care what language it is.
[Adriano Celentano](https://youtu.be/4C2wat_8VyI?feature=shared) would like a word. You most certainly won’t understand it, but you’ll think you do at first.
Don’t speak a lick of japanese, but I enjoy a lot of music that’s in japanese.
Quite a few actually. Rammstein since I was a kid. Kpop, J-Rock, Alice Et Moi, Maneskin, Paradis, Sebastian Yantra