English makes music sound good

[Unhallowed]

I agree. But mainly it makes METAL sound good, I don't mind French, Finnish, Portuguese etc in non-metal bands. Metal bands who sing in Finnish - it just doesn't sound good (with the exception of a few Impaled Nazarene songs). Same in Swedish, except that it's even worse. Unlistenable actually. German isn't good either to me. English isn't my mother tongue but it just fits music much better than any other language.

But of course there are exceptions. Like that band, Root, who have an album in Czech(sp?), it sounds great! The Finnish weird hard rock band YUP sings in Finnish, and I couldn't imagine it in English - it would be ruined. Turkish music like Baris Manco and Zeki Muren are great in their native languages. Oh yeah, they aren't metal. But still. It's just hard to find good metal in the bands' native languages because they aren't distributed around the globe because it's not in English.

Well, in conclusion I'll say that as long as it's not in Swedish or German I'll give it a listen.

 

[MacMoney]

I prefer english in metal since it is IMO fitting. Clean vocals in any other language bother me quite much since it just doesn't fit. Growled vocals too but not that much since if I don't pay attention I can't really hear what the singer is growling.

 

[Evisceratrix]

Originally posted by VultureCulture

2. it just doesn't sound silly in your ears if you use a language apart from your mother tongue. i usually tend to set the stakes too high if i use german, and all i write is kinda crap. in english tis is different.

i think i know what you mean here about the sillyness and setting the stakes too high. i collaborated on a nontindöskull song (a friend in sweden does nontindöskull on mp3.com. i collaborated on the song jag knullar demoner. stop laughing all you people who know swedish! we were trying to be cheesey! haha ) and i couldnt think of what i wanted to growl out for this one song..well, i found that putting it in swedish made my stupid lyrics not seem so stupid to me anymore.
but like somone else said-i like things in other languages when it sounds good

 

[mindflesh]

I think the main reasons English is the standard and often regarded as the best language for music, especially rock and metal, are:
1. Of course the fact that English is the only true "world language" - and nearly everything that tries to be international (without being translated to each and every language) has to be in English.
2. The large vocabulary and fairly easy and flexible grammar
3. The good balance of vocals and consonants (in classical operas, for example, they use Italian because it has the most vocals) - while vocals are sung, consonants give the songs either soft or sharp edges

And, naturally, we consider expressions in foreign languages cool where the same (or a similar) expression in our native language would seem a bit - or more than a bit - ridiculous.

But I have to say that there are many good bands with German lyrics...

 

[S4R]

Originally posted by Lina
And here's a question that's always stumped me: How the hell do people like mikael, who speak english as a second language, know all those random, flowery, medieval-almost words? Granted, some things don't make sense, but much of it does. I picture him sitting there with his Swedish-English dictionary and thesaurus, searching for just the right word.

That has been my thought exactly. Maybe he uses Microsoft Word to write lyrics and after he is finished he hits Shift+F7 and works his magic with the thesaurus, .

 

[terrymx]

don't worry, i do that too. i wish i know swedish. so many band i wanna understand

 

[Jayde]

I think German and Latin are cool languages to sing in. It's fun.

 

[moonchild]

i used to know some german and latin, wish id kept them up, anyway think i might learn swedish, how hard can it be? i mean i can already do the accent after a few bears and a li'l encouragement

 

[Hail Eris!]

[/QUOTE]
And here's a question that's always stumped me: How the hell do people like mikael, who speak english as a second language, know all those random, flowery, medieval-almost words? Granted, some things don't make sense, but much of it does. I picture him sitting there with his Swedish-English dictionary and thesaurus, searching for just the right word. [/B][/QUOTE]



I have been wondering this same thing also. I figured that he was thinking in swedish and those "random,flowery, medieval-almost words" were what translated best. Their meanings being more exact to what he would say in swedish......or he could just use em' cause they sound really cool and meaningful... or he wants to gives the songs some sense of nostalgia for the past...
or he could be doing the thesaurus thing.....or none of these...or all of these....


a simple question ( I think)? what was a turnstile in the past?

 

[luke]

Originally posted by moonchild
i used to know some german and latin, wish id kept them up, anyway think i might learn swedish, how hard can it be? i mean i can already do the accent after a few bears and a li'l encouragement

Who want's to hear my Irish accent??
*ducks flying beer bottle and scampers out the back door*

 

[D Mullholand]

Hmm... I'd say that what I've heard of Ukrainian and Russian metal - both languages sound great in extreme music, especially Russian which sounds rougher and not as "musical" as Ukrainian.

But : what about inventing a language ? Like Magma did - all of their songs are in Kobaian, which was made up as they progressed from album to album. The result sounds like a hybrid of German, Hungarian and something else, and fits the music perfectly. In fact, the band was choosing good-sounding phrases with no meaning whatsoever, and later attaching semantics and adding new words to the dictionary.

And what about scat (in jazz) ?

D Mullholand

 

[Lakestream]

maybe it's music that makes english sound good?