Have you ever heard the music of German band Juli? What about Russian pop star Vitas or the Moldovan dance/pop trio O-Zone?
I’d be surprised if you had, since none of them sing in English, which makes them basically persona non grata, as far as American radio is concerned. In their native countries, however, they’re kind of a big deal.
It’s always been a somewhat baffling facet of American pop culture that, for a country that purports to be so ethnically diverse, that melding isn’t reflected on the pop charts.
Of course, there have been exceptions, such as Japanese crooner Kyu Sakamoto’s “Sukiyaki” or Sister Luc “The Singing Nun” Gabriel. For the most part, however, foreign languages seem to frighten music executives to the point that U.S. radio is shut so tight that foreign artists stand a better chance of breaking into Fort Knox than the American musical mainstream.
Foreign artists can occasionally become popular, as Germany’s Tokio Hotel and French power-pop geniuses Phoenix have proven, but that’s usually because they’ve translated and re-recorded their songs. Nena’s “99 Red Balloons” is the rare exception, since both it and the original German version, “99 Luftballons,” were American chart toppers.
Yet the reverse is true of our music in foreign markets. It’s not just McDonald’s and Coke that serve as our cultural ambassadors. When I was living in Germany in the summer of 2005, Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” were always on the radio, but I hardly ever heard German artists.
Thankfully, the Internet is creating chinks in the soundproof helmet mainstream radio has put over our heads. Through YouTube, Pandora and Last.fm, American music fans can finally find out what they’re missing out on.
So in honor of Nightfall closing out with French-Canadian pop/fusion trio The Lost Fingers tonight, here are my recommendations for some excellent non-English songs:
* “Dragostea din tei” by O-Zone (known online as “The Numa Numa song”)
* “Pheigin’ Mo Chroi” by Dervish
* “Die Perfekte Welle” by Juli
* “Jag vet en dejlig rosa” by Robyn
* “Tulinesangala” by the Nakisenyi Women’s Group (found on the Bela Fleck album “Throw Down Your Heart”)