Do foreign vocalists ruin your prog experience?

I am starting to feel out of place here for not being a native English speaker.

Well, I blame Sinfield for it taking so long for me to really get into PFM.  When I was first interested in trying Italian bands, I wasn't to keen on the idea of non-English vocals (I happen to think that a lot of prog lyrics are VERY good and quite literate and, well, lyrical).  So I bought The World Became The World.  I thought the lyrics were worse than horrible, and it kind of turned me off to the whole thing (the production on that particular CD was pretty poor as well).  Thankfully, I was encouraged to get Per Un Amico a couple years later and finally was able to hear PFM the way they were meant to be heard (IMO).

Actually the first music I heard that had non-English vocals and lyrics was De Republica by Deus Ex Machia..............which is all in Latin!  So my first non-English music experience had lyrics in a dead language :-)  However, their singer is obviously heavily influenced by Stratos and uses his voice as an instrument.  This allowed me to take a fresh listen to prog in a variety of other languages.

At this point, I much prefer when bands sing in their native language.  The music is actually enhanced by this approach as it tends to take on a different form than when they try to use English (and, in the case of a lot of Italian bands who do this, sound like they are trying to be PG Genesis).  Seeing Banco live in 2001 was really the experience that cemented my respect and preference for musicians singing in their native language.  They are able to express themselves more effectively and it doesn't matter that I don't understand (I do get translations from time to time, but it's usually better to have a native speaker who also speaks English explain the lyrics as often translations don't really give you the whole picture).

On the other hand, some bands that use English instead of their native language, like The Flower Kings, do an excellent job and actually end up writing some interesting lyrics and phrasings that native English speakers would never write........in a good way.  This is somewhat rare for this to work well, but when it does it is quite good.  Besides, Swedish is one language that I have difficulty with in a prog context (I'm thinking of Anglagard and the orginal Kaipa).  Which isn't to say it "ruins" my listening experience, only that I can't really get a handle on the cadence and phrasings which I think diminishes my enjoyment and appreciation somewhat.  But other languages, particularly Italian, I've come to enjoy even more than my native language.

Bottom line is, I generally think it works best when artists express themselves in the language they are most comfortable and capable of expressing themselves with.  I'll do my best to appreciate it.

I don't know why (I sincerely don't have an idea), but I can't stand music that's not in english, in 95% of cases (including my native language).

No.

Edited by Peter - December 18 2007 at 22:15

Ghost Rider wrote: Changing the subject a bit, just a fleeting remark about Premoli and singing in a language he didn't know. If he didn't bother to try and get a translation of the lyrics, that was a very bad move on his part. Opera singers often have to sing in languages they don't know, but they have to master at least the pronunciation rules, and understand the words they have to deliver. This is what a former opera singer told me - she took German classes to be able not to butcher the pronunciation of German Lieder.   That's exactly mmy point, as i said i don't know if Premoli spoke English on those days, but I'm 100% sure a proffesional musician like him knew exactly what each word said, because that's his job.   For an Italian person that doesn't know English is almost impossible to sing in that language and be remotely capable to be undestood if he diddn't took pronuntiation classes, I'm sure that if he didn't spoke English, a detailled translation was given to him and a complete phonetical detail of how each word should sound, because even when his accent is strong, any person can understand what he's singing.   So my point stil stands, I believe he didn't identified his music with the new lyrics, but the preasure of the label was strong.   Iván

My view on foreign music/vocals is, bring it on!

Any language is good for me! I am a non-native English speaker. And I usually don't care much about the meaning of the lyrics, rather I care about the sound of the voice.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: jimmy_row wrote: ^^  And to be honest, there aren't many people who are big fans of PFM's Italian lyrics.   Maybe not in England and USA because most people wouldn't listen music in other language, but i believe they already were a respected band in Italy.   Iván

I think you may have misunderstood my point:  they were definately a very popular band in Italy throughout the '70s...what I'm saying is that the lyrics weren't particularly good.  Of course they lose a lot of their beauty through translation, but from what I've seen translated, Sinfield's lyrics for the English albums were better than the Italian lyrics IMHO(of course there were other problems...).

kenethlevine wrote: While I concur to a point that the voice in a language I don't understand is mostly another instrument for me, someone had mentioned that , for them , this amounts to instrumental music.  Not so for me.  I'm not a big fan of instrumental albums - early Mike Oldfield being a notable exception, and even there you got brief lyrics - but non English (and French) singing is a distinctly different instrument than any other - the instrument of voice, which to me adds critical variety to most albums and points of focus for the listener, and therefore albums with singing, in any language, are not iinstrumental to me.

couldn't agree more.... but I felt like my immersion in Italian prog helped when I started getting into (by accident at first hahah) Demetrio Strato's solo work.  I had listened to the vocals not for lyrical  understanding if you will.. but to measure and judge the way it complemented..  or contrasted again  the music.  It was exactly that.. another instrument to my way of listening to it.  With Stratos,   where the voice was truly the instrument.. the ONLY instrument....  a year or two ago.. .sh*t.. .that album would have been chucked out the window of my car.  Now... I really dig it.

I just reviewed the entire output of Welsh prog folk group Pererin.  All their vocals are in Welsh, and on the first two albums it's fine, because the music is so strong and the voices havce so much variation.  The third album is a different matter.  Here is the link:

http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=155795

While I concur to a point that the voice in a language I don't understand is mostly another instrument for me, someone had mentioned that , for them , this amounts to instrumental music.  Not so for me.  I'm not a big fan of instrumental albums - early Mike Oldfield being a notable exception, and even there you got brief lyrics - but non English (and French) singing is a distinctly different instrument than any other - the instrument of voice, which to me adds critical variety to most albums and points of focus for the listener, and therefore albums with singing, in any language, are not iinstrumental to me.