Ask Lemmy

99 Luftballoons - Nena https://open.spotify.com/track/2IJftBfq7pJ43tfnOR0RB3?si=Tj9rOKguQkOmpb3jJM27uw

Rammstein

Prisencolinensinainciusol by Adriano Celentano

https://youtu.be/-VsmF9m_Nt8?feature=shared

Snow - Informer

So many. I like music and I like languages so when there are lyrics there's a good chance it's not English.

• Dead can dance - The Host of Seraphim - moody female vocals with backing instruments and synth that resembles religious sad hymns (not even in a real language)
• 王菲 Faye Wong《四月雪 April Snow - melancholy mandarin pop from 2003
• Hocico - Ecos - Mexican electro-industrial on the aggressive side
• Juno Reactor - Conquistador (part 1 and 2) - technically 2 songs, in Latin, Spanish and I think Xhosa. Same person who did the music from the matrix, these are sort of a musical interpretation of South American history
• Sepultura - Ratamahatta - Brazilian metal
• All about Lily Chou-Chou OST - Arabesque(アラベスク) - fictional band with female vocals, beautiful melancholy song in Okinawan
• Fly, Fly My Sadness - The Bulgarian Voices Angelite with Huun-Huur-Tu and Moscow Art Trio - Mongolian throat singers (if you've never heard this technique, it's incredible and unlike anything else, this song isn't the best example though, search for huun huur tu videos) and an ethereal Bulgarian choir.
• The Mirror Conspiracy ft. LouLou - Le Monde - French lyrics, chillout downtempo electronic
• Björk - Úm Akkeri - Icelandic version of her song The Anchor Song
• Yothu Yindi - Djäpana (Sunset Dreaming) - a classic 1989 Australian song in Yolŋu and English. Not my favourite but I wanted to have the continent represented here.
• Thievery Corporation - Satyam Shivam Sundaram - another downtempo chillour from the same group, this time in Hindi
• Daler Mehndi - Tunak Tunak Tun - too catchy not to mention, Punjabi pop, hilariously cheesy video clip

There are so many more. I didn't even touch Caribbean patois or Arabic or Polynesian languages etc. I'm very big on global music though, especially with a strong beat and lyrical themes on anti-colonialism...

Off the top of my head,

Psy - Gangnam Style

Rammstein - entire catalog

The Hu - most of their stuff

Manu Chao - clandestino

I got really into German punk a few years ago. Some of my favorites.

Die Ärzte Schrei nach Liebe

Wizo Raum Der Zeit

Die Toten Hosen Hier kommt Alex

Numa Numa Yay, Numa Numa Yay, Numa Numa Numa Yay!

Bella Ciao

The entire sound track for FLCL by The Pillows.

When that show was new, I could sing them all. Kinda. I certainly had no idea what the words were, but I listened to them enough that I could fake it lol

Tunak Tunak Tun will forever be a banger.

Eivør - Trøllabundin

I have listened to it so much that I know the lyrics perfectly, and it's even possible my pronunciation is close to correct, yet I don't speak a word of Faroese.

Anything by stromae really. In some of his songs you can even hear the emotion he conveys without understanding any French

France Gall - Ella, Elle L'a

La Bamba

Nier Replicant & Nier Automata soundtracks

All in chaos language (a.k.a. pure gibberish).

Anything by Sigur Ros.

Kind of a joke but the song is catchy.

Salsa Tequila

The guy is a Norwegian comedian I think & he bet his friends that he could get a dumb song into the Billboard top 10 or something. I believe he succeeded in a few European countries.

The song is absolutely ridiculous considering he doesn’t speak Spanish, but it’s just a funny story.

Stromae - Papaoutai (I found out it existed because Pentatonix did a cover of it)

That guy's also got some other interesting songs, with quite a bit of social commentary: carmen, Fils de joie, tous les mêmes, Santé

I think that would describe half my catalog :-/

• Finnish Iskelmä
  • Stig - Puumaa mä metsästä
  • Arttu Wiskari - Sirpa
  • Lemon - Nainen Tummissa (cover of Lady in Black)
• Thai
  • จ๊อบ บรรจบ - ดูเธอทำ (Job 2 Do - Doo doo doo)
  • Soreng Santi (สรวง สันติ) - Kuen Kuen Lueng Lueng (cover of Iron Man … sort of)
• most versions of Bella Ciao (except La Casa de Papel for some reason)
  • Bella ciao cantata dal coro R'Esistente del Pratello
• the “fun” stuff coming out of Ukraine
  • О.Пономарьов М.Хома Т.Тополя Є.Кошовий Ю.Ткач П.Чорний - УКРАЇНА ПЕРЕМОЖЕ
  • Andriy Khlyvnyuk x The Kiffness - Ukrainian Folk Song ARMY REMIX
  • Cвітоглядець - Bayraktar

All of Warduna and Heilung. Don't understand a single word but love the music.

Any from the Buena Vista Social Club, album is beautiful, their song Chan Chan is one of my all time favorites:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5cELP06Mik

Basically anything Sigur Rós does.

Though, half of their music is in a "language" nobody speaks.

Dragostea Din Tei (aka, the "Numa numa" song) is always a hit.

All of Sigur Ros. Makes me want to move to Iceland and be confused all day long.

I'm a Eurovision Song Contest fan, though I only came to it in the last few years, so I have a ton of good songs for this question!

ESC 2021

• SHUM by GO_A (Ukraine) was my winner for that year.
• Zitti E Buoni by Maneskin (Italy) was the actual winner and launched them to international success. They are on the US radio now too.
• Voy a Quedarme by Blas Canto (Spain) is very pretty. I DO speak Spanish, but y'all might dig it.

ESC 2022

• Brividi by Mahmood & Blanco (Italy)
• Trenulețul by Zdob şi Zdub & Frații Advahov (Moldova) is some of the most fun music I've ever heard.
• Saudade Saudade by MARO (Portugal) is partly in English but entirely beautiful.
• In Corpore Sano by Konstrakta (Serbia) was one of my top songs this year. Her odd stage/video performance really makes it.
• Stefania by Kalush Orchestra (Ukraine) was the winner this year, only partly because of the invasion. It was probably in most people's top 3 anyway, and it got such a huge percentage of the votes that it really skewed the rest of the results. (Fun fact, the flautist/lead in this song is the same flautist from SHUM in 2021)

ESC 2023

• Cha Cha Cha by Käärijä (Finland) is a TREMENDOUS bop. It's so catchy. As he was touring around before the actual semi-finals he lost his trademark lime green jacket, and fans made and brought replacements to shows for him until it was found.
• Mama ŠČ! by Let 3 (Croatia) is beyond weird but really catchy. They're the most charismatic artists ever to fake pooping themselves during an interview.
• Ai Coração by Mimicat (Portugal) is fun and has a kind of old school vibe.

ESC 2024 is in National Finals season now, where each country chooses their entry, usually with a reality show contest. The semi-finals are 7 and 9 May and the Finals will be on 11 May. You can stream on Peacock, or hop on a VPN and watch the live feed from Sweden or Denmark or somewhere.

Hijo de la Luna - Mecano

I recently found this song, Kai Tangata, by Alien Weaponry. They're a New Zealand band, and the song features a lot of Maori warriors and the entire song is sung in Maori. Really amazing imagery in the video, shows off a lot of combat and Haka.

Gangnam Style

Camille - Ta douleur

Yelle - A Cause Des Garçons (Tepr Remix)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqYhuwu614Y

My playlist of Armenian music is inappropriately huge. You will regret asking this question.

• Garabala - Habrban

• Serj Tankian ft. Larisa Ryan - Ari Im Sokhag

• Serj Tankian - Artsakh

• Garik and Sona - Mayro I do not have a huge crush on Sona Rubenyan shut up.

• Adana Project - Gini Lic maybe turn off the subtitles unless you hate Turkey as much as Armenia does...

• Sevak Amroyan - Yarkhushta aw fuck yeah

• Nare Gevorgyan - Mer Ergire

I have many, MANY more. I am not remotely Armenian, just a huge SOAD fan who fell down a youtube rabbit hole one day...

I quite like stromae on occasion. And I'm a fan of rammstein, but while I don't speak German I do understand it reasonably well so I'm not sure that counts

Discovered Leningrad - Fish
in a similar post on Reddit a while back

I listen to a lot of K-pop. I don't know more than a very small handful of Korean.

Leva's polka

Ave Maria

Äppelknyckarjazz by Movits! Such a great album.

"Prisencolinensinainciusol" by Adriano Celentano. I don't know if we could really say what language it's in, but I definitely don't speak it.

https://youtu.be/-VsmF9m_Nt8

Surprised there are no mentions of BTS more generally, lol

Although I guess for most they are a bit of a "gateway drug" to the K-pop genre.

The entirety of NieR and NieR Automata's vocal tracks. Most of them are actually just gibberish.

I have an entire playlist for this. But the my favorite ones are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7cuTnbF-2c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J9FuvPmMoI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbaAxgufFA8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nfziCIMrHs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvfFJGeZH_w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVkGRoLicuA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWl5NcRB8UI

There are a lot of operas that I thoroughly enjoy that are largely in Italian that are just incredibly moving. Pavarotti singing Pagliacci is insanely moving, as one example.