http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0_Ib4Rg0Tk

First of all, anyone know what language this is?

Secondly, I've seen this a lot. People singing an a song in English while conversing in their original language. Here in the U.S., it would be very unusual to see someone address a crowd at a stadium in English and then start singing in Bulgarian. I know many academies/schools offer foreign language courses. Same here. So, what gives?

And here's a French girl singing Christina Aguilera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biuxI1OATT4&feature=related

There are a bunch of youtubes with this interest in our music. It just seems really weird.

Its swedish.

And what gives is crappy Americanised music has crushed the creativity of half the planet.

Yeah, I was wondering about that, too. Of all the cultures to embrace, they want the most superficial?

There's nothing inherently wrong with Anmerican culture and music, I like a lot of it, but its just a shame to think how much good music in other languages never gets to see the light of day because everyone's obsessed with making it big in America.

If you can keep your opinions related to the specific type of music and not bash a particular country as "superficial", which is untrue, then this could be an interesting conversation.

I...don't really see the problem at all. The song's in English, are you saying musicians should make up words in their own language on the spot to songs written in English?

The panel of judges is Swedish and the song is in English, how many options for use of language can you come up with for that situation?

Here in Spain, a lot of the radio stations play a mixture of national and English songs. Walk round the supermarkets, the canned music is a mixture of both languages. The local girls can sing along to "English" songs, but they cannot converse in that language other than a few words.

Meh. I'm not anti-American or anything like that. (I'm American). I just get discouraged when people like Britney Spears become super-popular and grown advlts get obsessed with the Twilight series. I have a hard time finding people who've even heard of Joyce's Ulysses.

Do they actually know the meaning of what they're singing though? I listen to a couple of Spanish bands because I like the music and the "sound" of the lyrics, but I never sing along because I don't have the blindest idea of what they're actually saying.

As a local English girl guy I know a song with some Spanish in it that I can sing to... by Sublime. Don't hear too many any foreign language songs on mainstream radio, though I don't listen to much radio. I can only ever think of seeing Movits! on The Colbert Report doing their interview in English but then singing in Swedish. I'm sure shows that have bands play at the end have some more of those type of things.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/239946/july-27-2009/movits-

English is just the most well-understood language in the world, followed by Spanish and French. Main reason being the age of imperialism and cultural dominance.
And American culture is not shallow at all, it just has not developed far and is probably the biggest melting pot of different people bringing in their or their ancestors culture since ancient China - which took thousands of years to finally bring everything under fewer banners.

Rather bad example, wouldn't you say, as the Twilight-series has been translated to some 37 different languages.



Could be related to it being one of the worst works of literature ever written.

Besides, is it that odd that people aren't very familiar with a work of fiction written a hundred years ago?

I believe it's Swedish.

And you know those lyrics are pure smut Anyway, you should check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJQsHK3pvD0.


Go sit in the corner and think about what you've done :stare:

Are you being serious?

It's not even a bad example because of that - Twilight just doesn't have anything to do with American culture at all. The Mary Sue factor is what makes it so popular. And that's not an American thing.

It doesn't have to. It's not good writing and yet millions of Americans are eating it up.

I'm forced to think about what I've done every day of the week, and that is actually having read the damned thing.

I only did it for an A and some cake anyway, and the greatness of that book is in no way related to the actual content of it.

As are french, germans, spanish, brits...so again what does this in particular have to do with america?
In every [censored] airport book shop around the world I've been to I've seen the Twillight novels in the bestseller lists at some point or another.

I still don't see how you can manage to pin this one of the americans as a people when the vast majority of Twilight-fans aren't american at all.

No no. It doesn't have to have anything to do with America. That's not what I'm saying. I'm trying to understand why people are so interested in something so light. Doesn't matter if it was written in Germany or Gabon. It's not good writing, but that doesn't stop people from reading it.

How about "Because they enjoy the Twilight-series"?

That doesn't seem such a far fetched explanation, does it?

It does to me. I don't understand why people around the world like Spears' music, either. Kinda like eating cake for dinner.

I have to agree on that. Now you don't have to like any particular aspect of a certain culture, but calling it superficial is just offensive to those who are part of it, and is never a good way to get people to respect your opinions or start a reasonable, intelligent discussion.

In this case, though, it's not uncommon for people to sing songs in languages other than their own, and why should it be? Language is simply a way for people to communicate with other people, and if someone can communicate in more than one language, that's great, that means they can speak to a greater portion of the world's population. And there's no reason to stop there, if they can sing in another language too, then why shouldn't they? If you're going to sing, you should sing a song that you know how to sing, and that you like, if that song is in a different language from what you normally speak, then so be it. Singers should be able to sing songs in any language they want, whether it's a cover or an original song. English is just a common choice of a foreign language to sing in for people from non-English speaking countries, probably because so many people in the world speak it, even if not as a first language, and the influence that English speaking countries have had on popular culture.



And are you going to try to stop them from doing so? So they like different things from you or don't like or know about what you like? So what? There's nothing wrong with people having different opinions, the only thing wrong is with those who can't accept this. Now I'm not saying I like Twilight or Britney Spears, I have no interest in either, and don't really see the appeal in them, but I can't deny that there are those who do like them, and I have neither the means, desire, nor right to change this. They can like whatever they want for all I care, all I ask is that they don't expect me to also be interested in the same things.



Every country has produced bad novels before, as well as bad works in other mediums. Whenever there's creative works being made, some of them are bound to not be as good as others. And yet just as great works can fall into obscurity, not so great ones can also be very popular, this is in no way unique to America.

And it couldn't be so popular if there wasn't SOMETHING in it that SOMEONE found appealing. What is that? Well, since I'm not part of that fanbase, I can't say I know, and I don't particularly care, I'd much rather just let them read whatever they want while I read the books I like then try to deduce why they're reading ones I don't want to read.

And why has this thread turned into a discussion of Twilight? I thought it was about people singing songs from other countries instead of their own at the start?

It's the Mary Sue factor, as I stated already. The main character is basically face- and otherwise feature-less. She doesn't have a personality, just traces of things about every girl might relate to. They can just put themselves in Bella's role and pretend that their dreams come true. Pure wish-fulfilment fantasy. So basically they enjoy it because it's so shallow that they can dig their own depth in it.