Other Languages

When you listen to music do you care whether they are speaking in english or not?

The reason I am asking this is because my band recorded a new song recently about the Illiad and there are some parts in it with narration but they are spoken in Greek. To me it sounds like shes talking backwards and I have no clue what she is saying. I dont have anything against music that does this but sometimes I feel like im missing out on something if I dont understand it.

Im going to share the song with everyone so you can hear it and give me some feedback. Just please keep this for yourselves only as this is only a demo and there are still a few things that have to be added or touched up. Most of you already know about my band but for the newer people if you want to hear songs from our debut album or buy it they are on our myspace page www.myspace.com/phoenixreign or our official page www.phoenixreign.com.

Anyway heres the file, its on rapidshare. If you dont have a rapidshare account just pick free.

http://rapidshare.com/files/122152569/PhoenixReign-TheIliad_withnarration__DEMO_.mp3.html

I don't mind 1-2 songs per album. In my whole collection I don't think I have an album that's exclusively in a non-English language save for Cenizas. I have Cenizas as a trade only because I don't care for the music so much.

I've always felt lucky that so much of the World's music (Metal) is sung in English. It's easier on me that way. (Selfish!)

I am a Japanese metal FREAK! And I don't have the first clue what they are singing about. I can't even read the lyrics. haha

Interesting topic. (In fact I started a discussion about this same topic on another forum a while ago!)

I don't have a lot of music that's sung in non-English. The only ones I can think of are the first three Loudness albums (THE BIRTHDAY EVE, LAW OF DEVILS LAND and DEVIL SOLDIER), which were sung mostly in Japanese (with an occasional "Engrish" phrase thrown in during a chorus). I like the music that I hear on those albums, but I don't listen to them often. I sometimes like to sing along (badly) to my CDs and obviously I can't do that with those records. (Allthough occasionally with these Loudness discs I'll just make up gibberish that sounds good... haha).

Oh, and just this past week I got a CD to review for Detritus zine from a Puerto Rican band called "Dantesco," they sing almost entirely in Spanish (except for one of the two bonus tracks at the end of the album, which is in English) -- I didn't care for the album at all, but it had nothing to do with the language barrier in this case, it was simply that the band wasn't very good. (they have one of the most weirdly annoying vocalists that I've heard in quite some time!!)

So I guess I haven't really exposed myself to enough metal in foreign languages to say whether it's an issue for me or not.

I dont mind at all. I dont care much about lirics anyway thats why i dont care if they are in Japanish, Spanish, Hungarian or English for exemple. I care about the songs, not the lirics or language.

Crematory-Klaigebilder

Don't know German and when singing along, I make up words that sound like the lyrics. If the music interests me then niether the lyrics nor the language therein matters much (to an extent).

By the way, PRD, I can't check out the sample you provided @ work but I will try to get to it @ home tonight. I have liked what little I've heard of your band's tune-age in the past.

I prefer engrish. I like to know what language they are singing in (even if I don't know what they are singing about). That one song that Armored Saint did in Spanish was kinda cool, but otherwise, meh. Even if the music was outstanding, I think I'd get bored not being able to sing along.

i listen to alot of foreign languages in my music. it doesn't make much of a difference to me. especially in the death/black genres.

Now what I do like (and most people find it a fault) is thick accented English. In the Powermetal arena (Euro-Powermetal especially) I think it adds to the overall experience.

mc666 wrote:

i listen to alot of foreign languages in my music. it doesn't make much of a difference to me. especially in the death/black genres.

This first time I listened to Pantokrator's "Blod" album, I had no idea it was in Swedish because the vocals were done death style. More than anything, I like the "feel" of music regardless of what language it may be in.

GrandNational wrote:

mc666 wrote:

i listen to alot of foreign languages in my music. it doesn't make much of a difference to me. especially in the death/black genres.

This first time I listened to Pantokrator's "Blod" album, I had no idea it was in Swedish because the vocals were done death style. More than anything, I like the "feel" of music regardless of what language it may be in.

Imagine my suprise in finding out that Holy Blood does not have English lyrics (the vocalist doesn's speak a lick of it according to an interview in Heaven's Metal), I could have sworn I heard the voclist yell "obey" on the song Kill from The Wanderer.

I don't mind at all really. Sure it'd be nice to know what they are singing about, but bands have to be themselves. I have albums of bands in Russian, German, Finnish, Swedish, Norwgian, Spanish, Portugese, French, Dutch, etc. To me its just what makes them unique.

Fat Freddy wrote:

By the way, PRD, I can't check out the sample you provided @ work but I will try to get to it @ home tonight. I have liked what little I've heard of your band's tune-age in the past.

cool well when you have time to hear it let me know what you think. Its actually one of our first songs we wrote as a band almost 10 years ago but we revamped it somewhat.


So everyone is pretty much mixed on this situation. Did anyone else listen to the track I posted? Its just a narration in Greek not the whole song which is sung in engish.

I listened but didn't care for the vocals. The narration just didn't add anything to it to me.

Yea the vocals arent really done yet. Theres stuff I dont care for myself either.

DallasBlack wrote:

GrandNational wrote:

mc666 wrote:

i listen to alot of foreign languages in my music. it doesn't make much of a difference to me. especially in the death/black genres.

This first time I listened to Pantokrator's "Blod" album, I had no idea it was in Swedish because the vocals were done death style. More than anything, I like the "feel" of music regardless of what language it may be in.

Imagine my suprise in finding out that Holy Blood does not have English lyrics (the vocalist doesn's speak a lick of it according to an interview in Heaven's Metal), I could have sworn I heard the voclist yell "obey" on the song Kill from The Wanderer.

Another good example. Holy Blood and Eluveitie, those type of bands could sing in Elvish and I'd still like it.

Most of my metal is in a foreign language

I like metal in different languages. And I love it when even if I don't understand the language I get what they're conveying. The music overcomes the language barrier for me.

PRD, I liked the demo track. Parts (mainly the chorus) of the vocals I'll really dug actually. Wasn't too fond of the narration at the start but thought it worked well woven into the song. To me it really added to it. Of course having you explain what it was may have biased my opinion. Loved the solo as well.


I too like the accented English in my metal. I used to always get into arguments with my buddies about Doro's accent. They couldn't stand it. My favorite part of Sonata Arctica is acctually the accent. There are probably countless other bands where that is also true.

I don't mind. I like it when bands sing in Norwegian the most because I like the way the Norwegian languages sound and I can understand a little bit of the words. It is nice to have a translation of the lyrics though.

jstate wrote:

I like metal in different languages. And I love it when even if I don't understand the language I get what they're conveying. The music overcomes the language barrier for me.

PRD, I liked the demo track. Parts (mainly the chorus) of the vocals I'll really dug actually. Wasn't too fond of the narration at the start but thought it worked well woven into the song. To me it really added to it. Of course having you explain what it was may have biased my opinion. Loved the solo as well.


I too like the accented English in my metal. I used to always get into arguments with my buddies about Doro's accent. They couldn't stand it. My favorite part of Sonata Arctica is acctually the accent. There are probably countless other bands where that is also true.

Glad you liked the song. The narration is a little plain now the way it is, but were going to be adding a couple of more details to it. The initial idea is there. I suggested maybe putting the english translation in the background but we'll see what happens.

I like bands with accents too. I feel the same way about Sonata Arctica, they are probably my favorite when the accent comes through.

The early Loudness albums.
Aria (Russian metal band).
Anonymus (Canadian metal band -- their first album is in French, and their second album is mostly French, with a couple of English songs, and some Spanish and Italian songs. Most of their material from their third album forward is in English. Their first album, Ni Vu, Ni Connu, is their best. It's almost like 1980s Metallica recorded one more album, but did it in French instead of English.)

I couldn't care less what language it is. I've got Japanese bands where the lyrics are partial English, partial Japanese, some bands from the Czech Republic with lyrics exclusively in Czech, and one from Argentina with 3 songs in English (the rest are in whatever they speak in Argentina (maybe Spanish? Portuguese?)). Doesn't bother me one bit.

Personne n'aime la musique en français ici? Pas la musique de France car moi je ne l'aime pas mais celle du Québec. Moi j'adore la musique anglaise mais aussi celle en français. Après tout je suis à la base quelqu'un qui parle en français.

That's a thread about other languages so let's talk about MINE! What you didn't understand...? I'll translate for you...

So...Nobody over here like French musique? Not only musique from France (Don't really like the accent) but the musique from Québec. I reallly like English Musique but French is my mother language so...

jstate wrote:

I like metal in different languages. And I love it when even if I don't understand the language I get what they're conveying. The music overcomes the language barrier for me.

PRD, I liked the demo track. Parts (mainly the chorus) of the vocals I'll really dug actually. Wasn't too fond of the narration at the start but thought it worked well woven into the song. To me it really added to it. Of course having you explain what it was may have biased my opinion. Loved the solo as well.


I too like the accented English in my metal. I used to always get into arguments with my buddies about Doro's accent. They couldn't stand it. My favorite part of Sonata Arctica is acctually the accent. There are probably countless other bands where that is also true.

Sonata Arctica is a good example of a accent working to the better of the band. I feel the same way with Seventh Avenue which I'm always reading complaints about the singer's accent which to me is what sets them apart from other german power/speed bands.