why do european bands choose to write and perform songs in english?

are they thinking ahead about their international appeal? or is it the result of growing up mainly hearing english pop music?

Both of the above, I think. Even a Genuine Artist like Bjork must balance artistic sensibilities with commercial realities in order to become popular.

also why italo is great

dungen actually sing in swedish, not Dungen. -ed.

i remember reading how kleenex wrote in english because they found the german language too precise and therefore restrictive, and that the phoneticism and abundance of seemingly nonsense phrases and sayings in the english language was more interesting than in german

Mademoiselle K seems to be doing OK so far only doing rock in French. In this interview she doesn't rule out writing songs in English one day, but only once she's mastered the language and can think in English.

ce n’est pas dit que je n’écrirais pas en anglais un jour mais il faudra d’abord que j’ai vécu là-bas, que je me mette à penser dans la langue.

Chanter en anglais juste pour chanter en anglais… Effectivement c’est facile, ça favorise énormément la musicalité, y’a pas à dire, c’est la langue du rock. Mais je le ferai quand je saurai exactement ce que je veux dire. Je peux pas chanter “I love you, why don’t you stay?”.

(Mind you, the hidden track on the first album is in English. The lyrics consist of "I wrote a song, my first song in English. I wrote a song to talk about nothing. And you're going to listen to me, if I have nothing to say.")

So, is she that unusual for a French rock singer? (I'm in the UK, so completely ignorant in these matters, but my love of Katerine Gierak encourages me to learn more)

But did they choose English purely for that reason? I think the phoneticism of random words in Malayalam is pretty interesting.

xpost

I think international appeal is one explanation, but it also has something to do with genre. In Finland we have some homebrewn genres and scenes (like Finnish schlager or "Finnish rock", a particular type of rock music popular in here) which are almost always sung in Finnish. But then there are some genres which are so much associated with the English language, that it is usually the language of choice even if the band has no intention of selling it's music internationally. Indie rock and soul/funk are the first to come to mind; what unites both of these is that they're relatively marginal in Finland, and therefore feel more "foreign" (even though almost every type of popular music in here was originally an import) and more closely related to their country of origin (UK and the USA) than some other genres which have gained a bigger foothold here. This why it is more hard to do indie or soul/funk in Finnish and still sound credible, even though a few acts have managed to do that.

On the other hand, almost all rap done in Finland is in Finnish, and only a couple of rappers have managed to become popular in English. I think that is because rap as genre put a lot emphasis on locality and everyday experience, so Finnish rappers tend to rap about local issues, and doing that in English would just sound phoney.

To put it simply, some genres are just easier to adapt to local languages, whereas other are more strongly attached to the English language.

are they thinking ahead about their international appeal? or is it the result of growing up mainly hearing english pop music?

I would say either or. Some are hoping for a breakthrough abroad (not neccessarily in English speaking countries), others are of the opinion that English is the rock language and rock is supposed to be sung in English.

Of course there's a lot of European music not sung in English too, but you don't get to hear it. Which means the first thing does make sense in a way.

Regarding rap, most Norwegian rap records were in English in the 90s, but in the oughties Norwegian rappers - inspired by Swedes such as Petter and Ken - started rapping in Norwegian instead.

I think part of the reason why it took some time is that the "melody" of the Norwegian language is very special and doesn't really sound right in rap. So, when people did eventually start rapping in Norwegian, they did so with a "melody" that sounds more like immigrant slang than actual typical Norwegian pronounciation.

see also: Use of English in dance music : pourquoi?

I was listening to LiliPUT/Kleenex this morning and scanning through the liner notes of the Kill Rock Stars compilation:

Aside from the odd number in French, the band's own Swiss-German, or un-languages, the songs were in English - which Schiff and Spirit, the principal writers, barely knew. They wrote in English ... not to reach markets in the U.S. or U.K. or even to communicate across their trilingual homeland; to them, German or Swiss-German was simply too precise, too definite, with a word for every phenomenon, for songs. There was no room in the language for play. But English was a field of chance, happenstance - as LiLiPUT picked out words for their sounds and then tried to string them together with a semblance of logic, meanings would be lost and meanings would emerge out of the mess.

Jeg tror det har noe med at det er ikke så veldig lett for folk utenfor Norge å forstå når teksten er på norsk. Derfor kan det være nyttig å synge på litt andre språk, for da er teksten så mye lettere å oppfatte, liksom. Norske artister som ønsker et publikum i utlandet velger derfor engelsk som sangspråk, ettersom det ikke er så veldig mange utenfor Skandinavia som er istand til å forstå norsk.

Interesting that Kleenex would use English for its mystique, it has the same effect for a native English speaker. As an English speaker I find I don't care whether Europeans sing in English or their native language, it doesn't affect the quality...then again I am familiar with French and German.

Oddly enough, Welsh is the only foreign language I've ever heard that sounds almost as appropriate as English in a rock context (Super Furry Animals). If you're only half paying attention, you can often mishear entire lines as English. Not to say that other languages never work.

Back in the stone age of Norwegian rock, that is in the 50s and 60s, the bands would choose to sing in English not because of international ambitions (they were mostly nonexistant), but just because they though that, well..... rock music was supposed to be in English.

Today there is a well-established Norwegian language scene, and it is acknowledged that Norwegian is an excellent language to sing in. However, I think it is also a matter of what kind of audience one is aiming at. Some generations feel like Norwegian lyrics are kind of naff, and young pop stars will not get through so easily to those audiences. It may also be a matter of not sounding too different from whatever the kids are into.

I think, largely, artists that do choose to sing in Norwegian tend to do it because:
- They want the lyrics to be heard and paid attention to, or maybe they just feel they write better lyrics in their own native tongue (which in most cases obviously they do)
- They have some sort of "local" base, which means not only singing in Norwegian but actually singing in their local accent, about stuff from their local area - or that people in their local areas (and maybe similar rural areas) can relate to - is crucial to them.
- They want to make a statement about not wanting to be heard outside the country's borders, or simply maybe not wanting commercial success at all

Those that choose to sing in English, on the other hand, may do it because:

- They want their music to be heard internationally (which has worked for some, such as a-ha, Lene Marlin, M2M, Madcon, Annie, Röyksopp etc)
- They don't feel like their lyrics are important. Alternatively, maybe their lyrics suck badly, and for Norwegians, a really horrible cliche love lyric sounds even more embarrassing in Norwegian than in English
- They feel like that kind of music is "supposed" to be in English, or maybe they don't want to sound too obviously Norwegian as opposed to the American and English stuff the kids are mostly into.