this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025

566 points (98.1% liked)

Comic Strips

14134 readers

2771 users here now

Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.

The rules are simple:

The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
The comic must be a complete story.
If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
You may post comics from others or your own.
If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
Politeness.
Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.

Web of links

[email protected]: "I use Arch btw"
[email protected]: memes (you don't say!)

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

566

Foreign Music (midwest.social)

submitted 16 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

98 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Some non-English music I enjoy, though not at the same time:

Lisa Ekdahl - Vem Vet (Swedish) Nice catchy Swedish tune, maybe jazz?

Samain et Shuait - Les Nomades (French and Anishinaabe) First Nations hip-hop

Gwenno - Chwyldro (Kernewek) Folky dreamscapes in a functionally extinct language (they're bringing it back, though).

Moonchild Sanelly - Gwara Gwara (English and Xitsonga) Pop-funk-dance mixing international and indigenous traditions.

Majid Soula - Win Terram (Tamazight) Electronic beats from a Berber.

Jacques Dutronc - On nous Cache Tout, on nous Tout de Rein (French) A classic of French rock and roll.

Manu Negra - Mala Vida (Spanish) Punk styled music by folks who like their anarchist forebears.

San Salvador - Quau te Mena(Occitan) Occitanian folk traditions given new life.

TUDI-VOICE - 囡仔你甘知 (Hokkien) - Socially active Taiwanese band in Chinese folk tradition with a modern spin.

Beyond - Glorious Years (Hong Kong Cantonese) Cantopop legends.

Sorry for the YouTube links.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Recently I watched the Kneecap. A biopic of a north Irish hip hop / rap band, performing in Irish and English. Now they have entered my playlist.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

WFMU (a radio station in New Jersey) has a weekly show on one of its web streams. It's called Continental Subway, presented by an American called David Dichelle, who lives in Germany.

He plays all kinds of music in many different languages, as well as different versions of folk songs in English - he's working through the Roud Folksong Index and has reached Roud 350, The Topman and the Afterguard / The Sailor and the Soldier. However, most of what he plays isn't in English and as well as music from many different countries each week he will play 8 or 10 songs from a particular country chosen at random. This week it was Chad.

Very highly recommended, not least because all the shows back to 2017 are archived, so you can listen again when you want, and it's listener supported so there are no adverts. Links to all the shows and playlists here: https://wfmu.org/playlists/CW

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

I've got a pet peeve of spotting French ads using English language songs that they would never think of using if most people listened to and/or understood the lyrics.

Some examples :

A car manufacturer using the same song for decades, Johnny and Mary. Hard to tell who the song is really about, but it's clearly about a broken, quite unhappy and mentally unstable couple.

A big mart chain using Prayer in C in its happy, "let's be optimistic" clips.

And see the children are starving / And their houses were destroyed / Don't think they could forgive you

Hey, when seas will cover lands / And when men will be no more / Don't think you can forgive you

A perfume ad with Sia's Chandelier blaring out. Yeah, suicide by booze, definitely what I want to feel classy.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

The German version was #1 in America. The English version was #1 in Germany.

Guess the song?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 hours ago

99 Luftballoons?

checks link Yes!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

LOL!

My short story about foeeign music

Wife and 6-year-old get back from dance class:

6yo: I want to add that song we heard in the car to my playlist

Wife: oh what was that song again

Me: do you remember any words, we can search for it

6yo: no Wife: no

Me: what station was it on?

Wife: satellite, TikTok radio

Me: ohh ok, I guess we just need to wait or maybe if you find it on TikTok...

Days go by

Wife: It came on in the car but the title of the song was all weird characters

Me: was it like little stick figures or big slashes or just weird drawn characters?

Wife: just wierd

Me: Google: Russian songs on tik Tok

Moreart

Ohh!

I listen to it. It absolutely slaps

Google then mentions controversy

Then I translate the song's name.

LMAO. 'I will fuck"

Then I go to look for lyric translations

It's so fucking cringe and not in a naughty or dirty way, it's just lame cringe.

The beat of the music still slap though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Reminds me of this funny commercial (nsfw language).

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 hours ago

Rofl, That's awesome.

Another short story: My GF (now wife) was doing event planning. This was an outdoor dog event. Everything was very rural, very unsanctioned. The company they were dealing with brought in all of the stages and equipment. One of her tasks was to provide the music.

I helped her make a nice lengthy playlist that would easily last the entire event. I did however have all of my mp3s with us.

About 30 minutes into the all day event, someone came up and made a request for a song. We were just using winamp, She didn't see the harm in it so she just grabbed whatever they requested and shoved it in the playlist a couple of songs down. All of a sudden there was a line to make requests.

I already had a lot of the low hanging fruit like who let the dogs out in the queue.

Well apparently, five or six request later they asked for Nine Inch Nails - closer, oh yeah great dog themed song...

I didn't have my phone with me. I was all the way at the other side of the event. I hear that familiar synth bassline queue up. Buum Dom Bop be boom boom de dibidibi.

I start running toward the stage. Trying to grab her attention to stop the song.

Buum Dom Bop be boom boom de dibidibi, you let me violate you

I'm running some more but I'm out of shape. The music is quite loud there's no way I could scream loud enough for her to hear me.

Buum Dom Bop be boom boom de dibidibi, you let me desecrate you

I get a stitch in my side and shin splits at the same time... I have to slow down.

A couple more lines go by, I'm not going to make it in time

Buum Dom Bop be boom boom de dibidibi, you let me complicate you

Oh we're almost through the precourse now

Boo dooo booodooo booOOODOOdeedee help me I broke apart my insides

I'm about 30 ft away but I am desperately out of breath.

Boo dooo booodooo booOOODOOdeedee. Help me get away from myself

A lot of the guys in the crowd around me are laughing their asses off because they know what's coming

I want to fuck you like an animal

I want to feel you from the inside

Volume off

Scandalous! Mother's holding their children's ears, hundreds of bros sitting around thumbs up in the whole event.

We learned a few valuable lessons that day. Don't take requests for Media that you're not ultimately familiar with, Don't bring any media with you that you don't want the public to hear.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Zappa's Bobby Brown topped the charts in several European countries, with most people oblivious to the lyrics, people thought it was just some pop song :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

Zappa remains great.

But also at least half of his songs are absolute smut, and we love him for it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

OMG you're right. Was guilty of that too :)
It's such a catchy tune.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

KMFDM

German: Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid aka No Majority For Compassion (No Pity for the Majority)

American: Kill Mother Fucking Depeche Mode

Loved them in the 90s through early 2000s when I was in my teens. Including the extended family like PIG, En Esch, and Skold. Last decade and a half have been meh.

Though I'm pretty sure everybody has fondness for the music they liked from teens through early 20s.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

It's better than the best.

[–] [email protected] 68 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

God, I can hear this gif so well. One of my favorite songs/music videos.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

For those of us less culturally educated, could you share the artist and title?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Oh, my moment! This song has some nice lore, here's the Wikipedia article.

The song was released in 1998 and was a big hit in India, reaching the West in the 2000s where it quickly became one of the OG memes.

Even back then, at least by the time the song reached the West, the CG graphics were already considered awful, and still the song was so catchy that it didn't matter.

It turns out that this was the whole point. Mehndi was already a big name in India, but was criticized for always using "an overabundance" of beautiful dancing women in his videos, and that this was the only reason he was popular.

He then recorded this video, featuring only himself, and grabbed another Indian #1 hit...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 minutes ago

Thanks! Just saw the music video, and I can't really say I get the hype, but the backstory makes this pretty amazing.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 hours ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFP3Jc5ztgg

[–] [email protected] 55 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

TBF English is an extremely common second language, so listening to English-language music as a German or French person doesn't have quite the same impact as an American listening to German- or French-language music.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 36 minutes ago (1 children)

A couple of my favorite bands are Electric Callboy and Landmvrks who are from Germany and France respectively. They both sing in english (although Landmvrks does have a smattering of french here and there) and i can only assume that the higher likelyhood of commercial success in english markets factors in to why they dont sing in their native languages.
So a contributing factor may be not many native english bands would choose to produce music in another language but the opposite is true so the music pool of english is even more saturated.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 minutes ago

That's definitely a thing, too. I can only imagine how bad it must be in smaller nations like Netherlands or Czechia, considering how much fewer native speakers they have compared to German or French.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Du hast..

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I do listen to Rammstein despite being mostly only English speaking. I'm picking up more and more of the the lyrics in the songs and what they mean.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

The song came out in '97. Either that is a really deep song, or you may need some help with your German...

load more comments