What Are You Listening To? International Music


  • I remember being stationed in Germany when "Genie in a Bottle"came out.  I heard it on the radio and assumed Christian Aguilera was a Spanish (from Spain) singer.  Things were different before wide spread internet.  

    Then they started playing "Blue" by Eiffel 65 four to five times a night in German Clubs ..... for a solid year.  I then get sent Stateside to the 3rd ID.  "Hey, have you heard this new track?"  "What it is?"  Cue listening to "Blue" by Eiffel 65 day and night for another year. 

    What is the point of the above stories?  Honestly, not much.

    What is the point of this thread?  There is so much good music from the around the world that is not mainstream..... at least not to US listeners.  

    Please post songs you are enjoying here.  

    Any language.  From any time.  What ever YOU enjoy.  Tastes in music vary incredibly widely.  If you like it, post it.  If someone doesn't like it they can listen for six seconds and move on.  But if they do like it.... how much richer does good music make one's life?

    I myself listen to a lot of Russian language music.  And just like American music, 95% of it is trash.... but the other 5 percent.... Wow.... a quality of life improvement.

    I'm excited to see what gets posted...  This forum has a great international community.



  • I'll lead off with a few favorites.....

    https://youtu.be/OoJjL5-k0PE

    Great track from Russian group "Night Snipers."  Fan made music video with scenes taken from the excellent Brotherhood of the Wolf.

    https://youtu.be/e1b1xrxXcZ4

    "My Tiny Heart" - German language song from the quite good series "Generation War" (very roughly the German Band of Brothers).

    https://youtu.be/0mvm2FI_xV0

    French language.  Fan made video... warning, spoilers if you are about 5 years behind on Game of Thrones.


  • https://youtu.be/7_UtlTqfFpo

    Serbian singer singing in Hebrew.  Don't have preconceived notions.  Just let your soul be uplifted by the voice of an angel.

     


  • https://youtu.be/M_kTSBqQkME

    English Language.

    https://youtu.be/9t7SclAXoQw

    Iranian-Dutch singer.  English Language.

    https://youtu.be/RDkkAa8DXzA

    French language.  Heard this for the first time at a bar on top of a Lebanese mountain.  

     


  • https://youtu.be/hpNtME-e0XY

    Französisch.

    https://youtu.be/EelX_LwPHbA

    Even more Französisch.

     

     


  • I am portuguese, and from Alentejo. So, while painting or building, I either listen to metal or to Cante.

    Cante is a unique form of singing that only exists here.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE3LJMKFs1w

    For me, that live very far away from my homeland, as an Alentejano, it is very important. Also, very hard to explain 😁

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8ksK23HbB0

    The miners anthem - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaRqbQls5Jw

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpD1_wBh1Y8


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqkHgAsFJT4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqkHgAsFJT4


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69VpHHMjq3k


  • And just yesterday I was teaching these three poems in class. We always teach poetry with music (as it should be) 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TedX_kY0yVo


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2q_ngA-X3c

     

    A sung poem about being arrested and beaten up by the police 😅

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3V7GR_ZzQU




  • And finally, the best band ever (unfortunatly,one of them died) to listen while painting, driving or anything really.
    Just acoustics.

    Dead Combo :)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B8JAuRHftU

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-isYBLIC_0


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA0rbLENu5w


  • Funny topic, JTam jauna (Mr JTam)...

    I'm now 50 years old. And "Sad but True", the fact is that "we're all living in Amerika" (Wunderbar, nicht wahr ?).

    For me, it's Metal on the beaches (Bathory, Iron Maiden, Tyr), it's Metal on the landing grounds (Metallica, Rammstein, Soulfly), it's Metal in the fields (Helloween, Nightwish, Theater of Tragedy) and in the streets (Moonspell, Nirvana, Su 'ta Gar), it's Metal in the hills (Arkona, Manowar, The Hu). I will never surrender !

    The Metal I prefer is not the US one, nevertheless, but the European one (it sounds very different).

    Three exceptions though : I love Mozart and I have a lot of pleasure to hear - and see - Chuck Berry (Johnny B. Goode) :

    ...and emotion when I hear Dolores O'Riordan (RIP) of the Cranberries (Zombie). I'm Euskalduna (Basque) and my wife is of Irish origin : Belfast/Donostia, the parallel is disturbing. This song is beautiful, clever, sad, powerful and performed with a splendid voice.

         


  • Chuck Berry (Johnny B. Goode)

    With this one, like so many other covers, I prefer the version I got used to first. Judas Priest's, in this case. An exception are Knorkator's and JBO's covers, but they are almost unrecognizably different, enough to make both versions stand on their own merits.

    For the more obscure things on my 160 hours Winamp playlist running on repeat, I can recommend Helrunar (relatively quiet German black metal) and Voivod (Canadian hard rock/trash metal).

    Schweigend saß ein Gott im Dickicht: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9nqzZvmpEY

    Nananana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUPFRy4MtLY


  • @JTam 

    Eiffel 65.. oh my!.. Carla Bruni. 😅

    I am fond of music since ... my childhood so the late 60s thanks to my elder brother. So I am listening to mostly everything excepted for FM trash, Technomusic, modern Rap and some subgenres of Heavy Metal. 

    While painting or scratchbuilding, I was used listening to Classical Music and Old stuff like US/UK 60s/70s Music (from Revival, Psychedelic to Arena and Progressive rock), some French oddities (like Alan Stivell -a Breton musician known for being behind the revival and recognition of Celtic Music in Europe, Gerard Manset -known for his majestuous progressive rock opera La Mort d'Orion, or William Sheller -same as Manset but with a solid background of classical music since he learnt about it under the very last student of Gabriel Fauré), 70s Electronic music (Jean-Michel Jarre, Klaus Schultz, Vangelis...) or casual US/UK/French/Euro 80s hits...

    My favourite title is the live version of "Spered Hollvedel/Délivrance" recorded live in Dublin in 1972. Spered Hollvedel -or Esprit Universel (Universal Spirit)- is a mix of traditional Breton Church music Alan Stivell organized as the introduction to Délivrance in order create a 6mins long moving song.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kkl4ssj8uyA

    And another one from his 1976 album "Trema'n Inis" ("Vers l'île" in French or "Toward the Island"), a compilation of Breton poems (in Breton or French) set to music by Stivell. My favourite one is Paol Keineg's "Hommes liges des talus en transe.. et des villages abandonnés" or "Liege men from slopes in a trance... and forsaken villages" 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT5_ymKB4gI

    Gérard Manset's La Mort d'Orion...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7gyTlZDgFs

    William Sheller's Lux Aeterna

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

    and the 1989 cult videoclip of "Excalibur" -produced by legendary designer Philippe Druillet and filmed à la Ivan the Terrible of Sergueï Eisenstein, taken from his album "Ailleurs" (1989)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ced7E-nk1uY

     

    While DMing rpg games or playing wargames, Classical Music, Classic OSTs and 90s New Age stuff were my main sources to (re)create an vivid atmosphere till I discovered new subgenres like Neo-Classical, Ambient/Dark/Space Ambient or PostRock in addition to Epic Music (like Two Steps from Hell or AudioMachine) and Retrowave. And as I am still playing UFO: Aftermath and Rimworld while listening to bandcamp I added new music subgenres like the first six albums from the Irish postrock band God is an astronaut

    My favourite album: "All is Violent, All is Bright" (2005)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhXHH2sZlQU

    and more especially "Forever Lost"

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEphsKl1g9M

    or "Fragile"

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMV8XWGAHmQ

    (Friendly warning both videoclips can make the viewer quite... uncomfortable)

    I do enjoy "Andromeda Skyline" main song from the second eponymous album of Swedish post-whatever Ison

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iqduvIg5ew

    Or "Man Plus" (based on Frederik Pohl novel) from Goodbye, Titan's "Daedalus"

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DECL38aFk5w

    Or "Solstice" from Catalan band Astralia

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnIYkI5AP-0

    I could add all of Iron Maiden albums since Bruce came back with awesome and powerful songs like :"Out of the Silent Planet", "The Man who would be King", "For the Greater Good of God", "Empire of the Clouds" to name a few.

    .. or the second album "El Norra Alila" of Israeli whatever Metal band Orphaned Land

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whZ3_jU65Mc

    .. or most of discography from Crows in the Rain an Iranian postrock/neoclassical band and more especially their most achieved masterpiece Sorrow for an Unfinished Dream based on the japanese book about Sadako Sasaki, the girl of the Thousand Paper Cranes.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEdBiEOI71I

    And thanks to bandcamp, I've been amongst the first fans of THE ambient label (covering all genres and subgenres of nowadays Ambient music: from Classic Ambien and Dark to Space and even including Postrock for about 5 years now...) known as CryoChamber:

    https://cryochamber.bandcamp.com/

    https://www.youtube.com/c/cryochamberlabel

    Same for Synthwave/Retrowave 

    https://www.youtube.com/c/NewRetroWave

    My current favourite bands are :

    FM-84 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSGnNMnvM6M

    The Midnight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pUL7u-mYqA


  • @Pierre Lerdou-Udoy 

    Manowar... wow didn't hear that name for about... 40 years. They were quite popular with Yngwie Malmsteen amongst my friends during high school... while I was still loyal to Judas Priest and post-DiAno Iron Maiden 😅


  • I was so young !

    Manowar... The Triumph of Steel, 1992 : Achilles, Agony and Ecstasy in 8 Parts, Spirit Horse of the Cherokee, The Demon's Whip and Master of the Wind (very good ballad). I've seen them in Toulouse, in 1998 I believe, "au Bikini" (tout près de l'usine AZF : tout a sauté en 2001).

    As a "batteur" (drummer, battery) in a local, small and unknown metal band, I loved the rythm, clear, strong, simple and precise of this band. And the Fantasy-side of their texts.

    A toi qui es un presque "pays", une question : on leur parle de la Mano Negra (Toulousains) et de Noir Désir (Bordelais) ? C'était bien, ça...

    I translate for our comrades. As Steven comes from Southern France, like me, I ask him : do we speak about "La Mano Negra" (Toulouse) and "Noir Désir" (Bordeaux) ? French alternative and excellent Rock bands of the 90's.


  • @Pierre Lerdou-Udoy 

    "Ah Noir Désir" ... I do remember when Bertrand Cantat was walking around with his friends on Rue Sainte Catherine when still almost unknown excepted for the local scene. The Mano was not my favourite band back then, I was more into Les Béruriers Noirs, Ludwig Von or Parabellum... 😁 



  • @Steven StGeorges 

    Ref:

    Are you familiar with Gunship?  They have a lot of great stuff like:

    https://youtu.be/-nC5TBv3sfU

    Great song and great video.

    And another from Gunship:

    https://youtu.be/3kOWOAi5_2o



  • Looks like a fun discussion, I'm always on the lookout for new music.

    I mostly listen to music while driving - I think about half of the bands Pierre mentioned are on regular rotation in my playlist (Manowar, Bathory, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Moonspell, Theatre of Tragedy, Nightwish), and I'm at least familiar with most of the others (Arkona, The Hu, Nirvana and Rammstein).

    Some of the music I heard from this weekend's driving that hit the right spot for me:

    Purson (UK) and their singer Rosalie Cunningham's solo band do a sort of retro psychedelic rock/metal:

     

    Coldbound (Finland) with Theatre of Tragedy's former singer Liv Kristine (Norway), a sort of dark and moody gothic metal thing:

     

    Draconian (Norway) also does a sort of melancholy gothic/doom thing:

     

    Me and That Man (Poland) is a sort of gothic country/western project fronted by Nergal from the black metal band Behemoth:

     

    Garmarna (Sweden) used to play traditional folk music, but has been branching into experimental and darkwave sounds:

     

    Orphaned Land (Israel) play a sort of progressive folk metal borrowing from traditional music from across the middle east:

     


  • @Yronimos Whateley 

    Hi Brother,

    Good to hear from you.  Hope all is well.


  • @JTam 

    No no no Mecano allowed... 😅

    Regarding Retrowave... no a big big fan of Gunship but Carpenter Brut, Perturbator to name a few. 

    I do prefer the Midnight's Nocturnal.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Qx7R655LI

     


  • @Yronimos Whateley 

    Still glad to meet another Orphaned Land fan ... 😁


  • @Steven StGeorges 

    No Mecano?  Why not?  I know nothing about them.  I do remember this song from the mid 90a in Germany... But it may or may not have been this version on the radio.  I just found this version on YouTube and enjoyed it.  Judging from the YouTube comments they're surprisingly popular in the Russian speaking world.  (Which happens, there are Western bands popular in Russia that Americans have never heard of.  It's kind of like Japan.)


  • @JTam 

    Mecano was an awesome band -saw them live twice back to the 80s- and enjoyed quite an international success mostly in Latin countries (so France, Belgium, Swizterland, Italy and Portugal + Central/South America and maybe amongst the spanish fringe of US population). 

    While Almodovar was the symbol of the post Franco Movida on the big screen, Mecano was his musical counterpart.. their first lps were 100% newwave with a spanish touch. Till then the sole spanish singer known worldwide -read Latin countries- had been Jeannette with "Porqué te vas", (main song of Carlos Saura 1976 movie "Cría cuervos") and ... Julio Iglésias. 

    Most of my native South-West region was back then dotted with a lot of spanish-born refugees from the 1936 Civil War, and Mecano was played on a loop and most of time ad nauseam as soon as they released some of their songs in French. Ana Torreja moved to Paris after Mecano but did not achieve as much as success as expected.. 

    I think you listened to Haggard version of the song

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcebw6vZdWU

     

     


  • @Steven StGeorges 

    Thanks for the background.  I appreciate it.  Always interesting to learn new things.

    It might have been the Haggard version on the radio.  I don't remember the guitar solo... But it's been more than 20 years....

    I did pick up the DJ Sammy version on CD at some point:

    https://youtu.be/9YMlxWCV3ZQ


  • Haiduk - Morph [melodic black metal]

     


  • Lately I've been digging Orville Peck.  He's got a little of Roy Orbison, Chris Isaak, Dwight Yoakum, Marty Robins, and Elvis, and a nice bit of that sweet melancholy and darkness that mainstream country seems to avoid.

    A slower, more somber tune:

    https://youtu.be/q3esGD6lcMM

     

    And one that's a little faster:

    https://youtu.be/DY_jTTOkGUo

     

    The man's voice is pure gold.

     

     


  • @Benjamin Hayward 

    Reminds me just a bit of Cigarettes After Sex:

    https://youtu.be/QI8VrXkffcg

    Who in turn remind me of a male Mazzy Star.

    Top 10 songs of all time:

    Fade Into You.

     

     


  • Other style of music, coming from the mountains of which I am one of the sons : "Born in the Pyrénées"!

    Aqueras Montanhas (those Mountains over there), in occitan/gascon of Béarn :

    ...and Agur Xiberoa (I salute you, Soule), in the version of an old poet and musician (bertsolari). Listen the purity of the voices : the shepherds here are great singers !

     



  • Haiduk - Sea of Fire


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