Why did most German bands sing in English?

pianoman wrote: It's probobly very hard to make German sound melodic. German is one of the harshest languages.

This is totally untrue, as anyone can tell you who's familiar with bands like Novalis or Can - not to mention great composers like Bach, Mozart and Schubert. German can be incredibly tender.

A recent post has this:

Years ago I asked a German friend this question and his answer was: "Because English is the langage of Rock and Roll, it is the language of Elvis and The Beatles."

I think there's much more truth in that. English is THE language of rock music, and it took a while for bands from non-English speaking countries to get confident enough to sing in their own language. Generally speaking, the tendency to "sing in your mother's tongue" only really got going with the "Do it yourself" spirit of punk and new wave.

You see the same kind of thing in Dutch. The big international bands from the Seventies (like Focus or Golden Earring) sang in English, Latin or even gibberish! In the late 1970s/early 1980s there was an avalanche of home-made rock artists (Raymond van het Groenewoud, Doe Maar etc. etc.) who produced one lively album after another... in Dutch. This was the start of a whole new thing. Of course they didn't sell outside Holland and Belgium!

King By-Tor wrote: for someone usually so elitist and pretentious, you made a good, solid point there

The smarter you get, the more I make sense.

I've noticed this before. Indeed, it's not just Germany. Take a look at Greek rock.

Not so weird, though. In the 18th century, Italian was THE language of Western music. Handel wrote Italian operas for Covent Garden in London; Haydn and Mozart wrote Italian operas for theatres in places like Prague or Vienna.

Rocktopus wrote: 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.

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - May 27 2009 at 10:11

listen 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.   Remember PFM; they signed with manticore Records, but they had to translate several albums.   Iván In the case of PFM, manticore isn't an Italian label but Brain and Ohr were German labels if I'm not mistaken. PFM's other label was Italian right? But I would imagine that even german labels would want their (German) bands to sing in english for the market, but from what I've heard German music was virtually unknown in Britain and also the US. On top of that, it is my understanding that most Krautrock and Acid Folk records from Germany were very rare, many not being pressed in huge numbers, reissued to cd until nearly if not more than two decades later, or reissued to cd or on vinyl until those cd reissues.   You have to read The crack in The Cosmic Egg and Krautrock sampler Did the record companies just keep trying even though there was no return, was there enough return (subtracting the estimated sales they lost in Germany because they didn't sing in the native language), or was it for some other reason?   I don't think so, Tangerine Dream sales were the most and the almost sing nothing and they hit big in German and Britain. The question can also be phrased like this:  From what music (mostly prog, ~70's) I've heard Italian bands sang mostly in Italian, Spanish mostly in Spanish, French mostly in French, Sweedish mostly in Sweedish and so on. But german bands sang mostly in English. Why didn't all the other bands sing in English too? Was Germany just obsessed with the UK audience (even though they were not getting anywhere)? If so, why that the situation?   I think that most German 60's teens want to break his inmediate WWII past and albeit with the many of the U.S. bases around the main German cities the explosion of rock and roll was a revelation to them, so the want to break the U.S. and U.K. market, you have to listen a band called The Monks that the played a totally freaked out disc and that band were integrated by U.S. soldiers.That record causes a furor in most German audiences.   Also check the treatment that Stockhausen do to Deuschtland Uber Allies.   Finally, anyone know what percent of Germans were fluent in English in the early 70's?

Mybe we should propose The Monks to proto prog

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Rocktopus wrote: 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.   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, but it's obvious that the change when they changed label was clear, they even reach the album charts.   Seems that the problem is not exclusively because of the language, but also how more easily they reach the UK or USA market as soon as they sign with a local label.   Iván

^ Sadly, my experience was pretty similar - I was in Munich in 1984 for three weeks and I came home with only one album, Spliff ~ Schwarz auf Weiss,  (and they sing in German ).

pianoman wrote: It's probobly very hard to make German sound melodic. German is one of the harshest languages.

Which is why Rammstein records in German. Although they tried to write English songs they felt that their subject material would go over better in German.They do have  English & Spanish versions of some songs.