Music in foreign languages: How do you do it?

Ever since I started listening to Dreams Come True and X Japan, I have been a big fan of J-pop/J-rock and later on Korean music. It wasn't until a bit later than I really began to explore english language stuff in depth. But as far as asian music goes, it led me to listen to stuff in German, French, Russian, and so forth.

Now I want to know, when building a collection of foreign language music, especially stuff with a vastly different script, how have you managed it? I only have a superficial understanding of Japanese and Korean to be able to look stuff up on the internet and acquire it, mostly through eBay. If it wasn't for that, I'd have been screwed in obtaining these things. I don't even know the names of most of the songs for my favorite foreign artists that aren't in english save for a few words or phrases here and there, but I've amassed a pretty sizable collection regardless of the limitations.

So I ask, has anyone else here done this and how have you succeeded in doing it?

I have 1000's of Japanese and Russian metal albums. I cannot understand most English lyrics, so it is easy for me to dig just the music.

That's good to hear. There are also utilities available for effectively transliterating foreign scripts like japanese, korean, and russian. Just copy and paste.

Just as a follow up, if anyone is interested in knowing some tips on acquiring foreign language CDs or managing a collection of music with song or album titles in another language, then ask away.

For me, I know some basic japanese script, but with online utilities you can transliterate/romanize titles into readable words. I have never done this to the extent with other stuff except Korean. The most important thing of all is that you need to know at least the album and artist title. The song itself is third. Since you probably won't have a translator on hand to effectively translate the titles of the songs anyway, being able to at least have a rough transliteration of the title and the commonly accepted transliteration of the artist's name is what you need to know. I know quite a bit less korean than japanese even though I can phonetically read the script, but I know how to find artists easily. Since this kind of exposure to foreign music is based on the internet, you can either find websites or wiki entries with whatever info you can get about said artist, and lastly, you can use eBay since it has a global userbase. The biggest issue for non-english music outside of eBay is knowing a source that delivers CDs to english-speakers outside of their country. I've had to be patient and wait things out for something, anything of an artist I liked to show up on eBay. Having contacts is good but can often feel rude and manipulative to only know someone just to get CDs for you that they don't really care about. The production count of this stuff will also depend on the country. For example, Korean music, even alot of mainstream pop, can become really scarce only about 5 years after it has been released because of the small market. Unless the artist was super popular, chances are you won't have much luck finding their early CDs, and even then most of the ones by them you'll find to still be in print are usually Greatest Hits collections. I own alot of Korean music from the late 80s/early 90s so I know the market and difficulty completing a certain artist's catalog. Japanese music in general is alot easier though, but expensive. Even self-published indie CDs by notable bands turn up fairly often in that culture. I have more Japanese CDs than Korean stuff, partly due to production size and partly due to tastes that influence my collecting habits. Most Japanese music stores that ship outside the country only offer new releases like CDJapan. You'd have to use a gobetween like Rinkya or another site that charges extravagent fees for their service. I'd just stick to eBay.

The only non-English stuff I have are the first couple of Loudness albums, which are sung in Japanese (with some occasional random "Engrish" phrases here 'n' there)...obviously I can't sing along when I listen to 'em in the car due to the language barrier, so I just make up gibberish that sounds good.

Fat Freddy wrote:

The only non-English stuff I have are the first couple of Loudness albums, which are sung in Japanese (with some occasional random "Engrish" phrases here 'n' there)...obviously I can't sing along when I listen to 'em in the car due to the language barrier, so I just make up gibberish that sounds good.

Doesn't bug me at all. I have Italian, South American & Spanish prog, Central American psych and I have those Loudness, too... and that's what I do too for the sing-a-long stuff.

Without looking too closely I've got albums in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Finnish, Japanese, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Russian & Icelandic.

So no, not that bothered by it 

I have a couple of Loudness Japanese language albums and that's it. It doesn't bother me all that much. The songs are good enough that I don't really notice it.

I recently broke out some Witchcraft and Horisont, both which feature songs sung in their native language of Swedish. It doesn't bother me, however, I'm not sure how much I'd dig an entire album's worth of material in a foreign language. I like to at least have a vague idea of what's going on in the music I listen to.

I don't pay attention to lyrics anyway, so has no impact on my enjoyment.

I'd say about 5% of my collection is in a foreign language. I like to know what's being said, so I don't want to have too many non-English albums, but some are just too good to pass up.

Taivas lyö tulta!!