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topofsm 
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 17 2008
Location: Arizona, USA
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Points: 1698
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 Posted: May 27 2009 at 15:38 |
 lazland wrote:
debrewguy wrote:
I think it's due to Beethoven. I mean the guy titled his symphonies in English - like, the Fifth, the Sixth , also known as the Pastoral . SO they probably figured of Ludevig did it , why not them.
That, or because Mandarin is pretty hard to learn, even if it means a better chance of reaching 1 billion chinese.
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I wonder what Suppers Ready would sound like in Mandarin
The reason for English lyrics is obviously commercial. Even at the simplest Eurovision Song Contest level, most of the lyrics (such as they are) are in English, except the French who are too proud of the mother tongue to acquiese.
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Those damn French. I went to Paris for a week in a group with only 1 fluent French speaker. I was only 15 at the time, and I haven't even though of learning French. It was only with a huge sigh that any of them would speak English to me, and they were complete jerks to the adults in the group.
Unlike in Mexico, where I would struggle to utter a sentence in Spanish and immediately they'd change to English to accomodate me.
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lucas
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Posted: May 27 2009 at 15:54 |
^
I cannot agree more about the French. This is mainly due to their colonialist past, they still think they can speak french in each part of the world and therefore don't make any effort to learn english.
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"Magma was the very first gothic rock band" (Didier Lockwood)
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lucas
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Posted: May 27 2009 at 16:18 |
Petrovsk Mizinski wrote:
Because German was the language of Hitler. |
That's stupid !  It was/is also the language of Goethe, Fassbinder and W Herzog. You can also say that :
- russian was the language of Staline
- french was the language of Napoléon (a little "Hitler")
- italian was the language of Mussolini
- cambodian was the language of Pol Pot
- spanish was the language of Ernesto "Che" Gueverra (executed or asked to execute > 100 army and police officers)
Each nation had troubled moments in its history, that doesn't mean that people should be ashamed of their native language...
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"Magma was the very first gothic rock band" (Didier Lockwood)
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Rocktopus
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Location: Norway
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Posted: May 27 2009 at 16:24 |
Dean wrote:
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
[QUOTE=Rocktopus]I'm sure Tangerine Dream's Phaedra would never have charted in the UK, if the titles on their instrumentals were in German instead of English.
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We all know TD is instrumental, but with them was a change of label from the German OHR to the British Virgin Records.
BTW: Only mentioned them to make my point that not all the German bands were unpopular
Iván |
I only used Tangerine Dream to prove my own point, not to comment on yours. I didn't notice
that you had mentioned them already. I didn't underline instrumental because I
thought you or anyone else didn't know they made instrumentals. But to make clear that I don't think they would chart in UK with germansounding track titles. Even if all their music is instrumental. I think so because the britishspeaking audience is generally a lot more ignorant/sceptical to anything foreignsounding than us from the rest of the world (with all our strange, foreign languages).
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Over land and under ashes
In the sunlight, see - it flashes
Find a fly and eat his eye
But don't believe in me
Don't believe in me
Don't believe in me
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Dean
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Posted: May 27 2009 at 16:46 |
^ There you go with that word "ignorant" again and your lazy stereotyping of a whole nation. While it is conceivable that your average lager-swilling football hooligan Neanderthal Brit who spends their summer vacation eating Egg and Chips on the Costa Del Sol would be off-put by a foreign track title, anyone who was even mildly interested in Electronic music in the early 1970s would most certainly not.
The track titles on Tangerine Dream albums are immaterial since no one looks at them when buying the album, thinking "Oh 'Mysterious Semblance at the Strand of Nightmares' that sounds like a good sing-a-long toe-tapper, I must buy this." and neither Phaedra nor Rubicon are English words.
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What?
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Slartibartfast
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Joined: April 29 2006
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Posted: May 27 2009 at 16:49 |
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Don't make me ride the Valkyries up anyone's butt.
Edited by Slartibartfast - May 27 2009 at 19:36
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Rocktopus
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Posted: May 27 2009 at 16:55 |
Dean wrote:
^ There you go with that word "ignorant" again and your lazy stereotyping of a whole nation. |
Bull. I just generalized (and wrote that I did), and have a valid point. Even if not, you or your openminded friends are the one I'm thinking about. I often notice some outrageous center of the world beliefs coming from members of UK and US here at PA (even more outside) that would never have come from anyone living in the rest of the world.
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Over land and under ashes
In the sunlight, see - it flashes
Find a fly and eat his eye
But don't believe in me
Don't believe in me
Don't believe in me
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Dean
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Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
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Points: 37575
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Posted: May 27 2009 at 17:09 |
Rocktopus wrote:
Dean wrote:
^ There you go with that word "ignorant" again and your lazy stereotyping of a whole nation. |
Bull. I just generalized (and wrote that I did), and have a valid point. Even if not, you or your openminded friends are the one I'm thinking about.
I often notice some outrageous center of the world beliefs coming from members of UK and US here at PA (even more outside) that would never have come from anyone living in the rest of the world.
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I don't actually disagree with you - when your home country is essentially selfsufficent then there is little need to be outward-looking. In most music genres (outside Classical/Orchestral and Techno-Dance Music) most music bought in the UK was either home-grown or American. However, that does not make the people ignorant.
In Prog there was no need to go looking for music offshore when there were more than enough home-grown bands, yet still we did, even as early as 1970 when music from Germany, France, Italy and The Netherlands started to be heard on the radio - but we could only buy what was available in the record shops.
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What?
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Slartibartfast
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Posted: May 27 2009 at 19:38 |
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Rocktopus
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Posted: May 28 2009 at 03:22 |
Dean wrote:
I don't actually disagree with you - when your home country is essentially selfsufficent then there is little need to be outward-looking. |
While you think using terms like ignorant and sceptical are lazy generalizations (which I wrote that it was) about your fellow countrymen, I think your attitude towards music (not just prog) made in the rest of the world is lazy. I'm not saying everyone elsewhere is so fantastically openminded, and of course as a norwegian sharing a language with only 4 million people one's got to be outwardlooking. We're used to importing popularculture, while in UK, an album or single in any other language than british has hardly ever charted (except some novelty hits). When people here write that they can't appreciate vocals in any other language than their own, I've never seen it written by people from anywhere else than UK or US. Same thing when some americans take it for granted that Boston, Styx and Billy Joel, Heart etc.. were played to death on radio in the 70's all over the world, just because its their personal experience. Things like that. I can't think of it as anything but ignorant. I'm sorry but if I'm not allowed to generalize, its hard to point out any kind of observation.
Slartibartfast wrote:
Well of course UK and US prog is superior
to everything else in the world and I welcome your attempts to educate
us ignoramuses, but you do realize it's futile.
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Well, I can start with saying that UK must be one of the least interesting places for prog nowadays, and that US weren't among the 20 most interesting countries progwise in the 70's. (but I wasn't just writing about prog, or music in my first comments)
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Over land and under ashes
In the sunlight, see - it flashes
Find a fly and eat his eye
But don't believe in me
Don't believe in me
Don't believe in me
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Marty McFly
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Posted: May 28 2009 at 08:23 |
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Hey guys, I've just came again here on prog forum after I passed my high school final exams (so I have a lot of time and ideas) and came here also for calm discussion.
This hot-headed talking will not get any of us anywhere, don't you think?
If I should talk for myself, I don't like german language, so I'm glad that lot of them sing in english language. I actually am not able to listen something in german language. Don't take me bad, this nation has long history of culture significance, remember classical music, lot of book writers and also painters. But this language, it's just too hard to me, too strong and unfamiliar.
This is why I prefer english ones. But in my country (by the was, neighbour of Germany), lot of our bands (not only prog rock) sings in english language too. Probably from same reason, they want to get attention. To be different. But comparing our two countries is ... well, it's like David and Goliath.
But please people, keep your voices down, we're here in sacred prog library <smile>
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There's a point where "avant-garde" and "experimental" becomes "terrible" and "pointless," -Andyman1125 on Lulu  Even my
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Sean Trane
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Prog Folk
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Location: Heart of Europe
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Points: 20252
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Posted: May 28 2009 at 08:44 |
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
I guess because they wanted a chance to enter to the British/USA market, and because i believe most Germans also speak English.
Iván |
This is relatively inaccurate.
True most Germans (especially the ypounger ones) had to learn English or French because of the cold war troops stationed throughout Western Germany.
And since the soldiers were out to spend money and drinking in clubs, the idea was to give R'nR in English, by importing bands (Beatles in Hamburg , Manfred mann etc....) , but the young Germans also saw a way to get in to rock (and out of the ruins) by forming groups and singing in either English and/or German , depending on the crowds they had.
So they switched to English to first conquer the 400,000 troups staying in Germany. US (or UK for that matter) was not even on their minds yet.
Edited by Sean Trane - May 28 2009 at 08:46
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let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword
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NotAProghead
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Posted: May 28 2009 at 08:49 |
Don't forget there were 2 countries - West and East Germany (DDR). And most of bands from DDR (Puhdys, Karat, Lift, Stern Combo Meissen, City, Electra etc) sung in German.
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Who are you and who am I to say we know the reason why... (D. Gilmour)
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Vibrationbaby
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Posted: May 28 2009 at 09:30 |
English is the international language of aviation. That`s why Amon Duul II started to sing in English because they were flying so high on wacked out drugs. 
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GaryB
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Joined: April 17 2009
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Points: 451
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Posted: May 28 2009 at 09:43 |
As I stated earlier, all of my prog LPs are from the 70s because they were purchased when I worked at the record store. Even though I have many LPs by Genesis, Gentle Giant, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, etc. I mainly concentrated on LPs that were not released in the U.S.
The country that I have the most LPs from is Italy with Germany being the second most. Italian, like Spanish, is a more flowing, melodic language and seems to be easier to listen to. Most of my favorite German bands sing in English (Satin Whale, Jane, Birth Control, etc.)
I also managed to pick up several LPs from eastern Euro countries like Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia. Most of, if not all of these LPs have vocals in their native language. If some people find German lyrics difficult to listen to, they should look into some bands from these countries and then they may be a little more receptive to German lyrics.
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Ivan_Melgar_M
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Posted: May 28 2009 at 10:26 |
Sean Trane wrote:
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
I guess because they wanted a chance to enter to the British/USA market, and because i believe most Germans also speak English.
Iván |
This is relatively inaccurate.
True most Germans (especially the ypounger ones) had to learn English or French because of the cold war troops stationed throughout Western Germany.
And since the soldiers were out to spend money and drinking in clubs, the idea was to give R'nR in English, by importing bands (Beatles in Hamburg , Manfred mann etc....) , but the young Germans also saw a way to get in to rock (and out of the ruins) by forming groups and singing in either English and/or German , depending on the crowds they had.
So they switched to English to first conquer the 400,000 troups staying in Germany. US (or UK for that matter) was not even on their minds yet. |
I believe we are talking about two moments in history.
Most surely with 400,000 troops in their country and even Elvis on Germany doing his MS, the early German rockers went for English, because they had a captive audience.
But in Prog's heyday I guess is more a ccommercial issue, remember, troops hardly listen Prog, and without a good British label and singing in German, it was a bit harder to reach the UK/USA market, where the posiblility of making a real career was.
Iván
Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - May 28 2009 at 10:58
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NotAProghead
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Posted: May 28 2009 at 10:49 |
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
remember, troops hardly listen Prog
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Who are you and who am I to say we know the reason why... (D. Gilmour)
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debrewguy
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Posted: May 28 2009 at 11:06 |
NotAProghead wrote:
Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:
remember, troops hardly listen Prog
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no need to generalize just because they're soldiers.
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"Here I am talking to some of the smartest people in the world and I didn't even notice,” Lieutenant Columbo, episode The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case.
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debrewguy
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Posted: May 28 2009 at 11:06 |
Slartibartfast wrote:
Don't make me ride the Valkyries up anyone's butt.
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were valkyries female, per chance ? if so, how did the auto censor miss that one
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"Here I am talking to some of the smartest people in the world and I didn't even notice,” Lieutenant Columbo, episode The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case.
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Ivan_Melgar_M
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Posted: May 28 2009 at 11:11 |
Please Claude not hgeneralizing, here in prog Archives we have ex soldiers, marines, etc, but it's not the general rule, troops are recruited from the general population and general population doesn't listen Prog, as a majority.
Please don't try to imply a discrimination that doesn't exist, this is the last place where I expected people asking to talk in politically correct terms.
Iván
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Why did most German bands sing in English?
