how much of your listening time is spent with music that's sung/rapped in a language that you don't understand

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i'm wondering why i still haven't connected with kwaito like i want to - like i feel i should when it's doing everything that the music i like does. except speak english, which might be a bigger stumbling block than i'm willing to admit. i normally have no problem with this (stereolab, 2raumwohnung, king sunny ade etc etc), but maybe for me to like kwaito as i want to (it being my country's best selling music), i have to identify with it, make it *central*, in a way that requires lyrical understanding? doesn't make sense to me either. but anyway, the thread question...

― m. (mitchlnw), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 18:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I think I prefer lyrics sung in a language I don't understand, depending on the beauty of that language. Cause "I want you baby ooh I love you" sounds cheesy as hell in English, but in Spanish, if sung well, it's heartbreaking and beautiful.

― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 18:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Much more than is healthy considering how much of my collection is Irish Folk music in Gaelic...
and much more than usual considering the first track in the queue on my mp3 player is Puffy AmiYumi "Teen Titans Theme (Japanese Version)"

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 18:36 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm starting to try and overcome this, coz yes, it has been somewhat of a stumbling block i think (although i do tend to believe that music "means" more when it "works" in the culture you live in.)

but here i sit, looking around a room holding some 40,000 cds and lps 95% of which are not in the english language, and i am making a tentative start.

― gaz (gaz), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 21:32 (twenty-one years ago)

i've never really listened to lyrics. for the longest time i listened to strictly instrumental music, but i really like the human voice. music in languages i don't understand is perfect because i'm not really listening anyways.

― JaXoN (JasonD), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)

not much time.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 21:41 (twenty-one years ago)

crucial Josh post in this regard, re: words in hiphop (from are there any hiphopheads who don't really listen to the words?) (and i'd forgotten about my crappy answer to that thread, but it still should have been longer i think):

"maybe the words are sidestepped in this sort of thing because it's hard to explain how they too can be part of the enjoyment of the immanence of the music without being called out for not properly following the rules of the boring non-immanent domain of 'lyrics' "

― m. (mitchlnw), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 21:55 (twenty-one years ago)

about 45% but I'm lyrically obsessed with anything in english.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 22:53 (twenty-one years ago)

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