"ten ni todokisô ni kakeagaru no kono omoi / sen no nami haruka ni yume yori tooku made yukô"

[larryhammer]

I have a mild difficulties with spoken word recognition. In person, where there's social cues, it's only sometimes an issue, though I still occasionally guess wrong. But it does mean I have to listen several times to a song in English to figure out what it's about, unless the singer is enunciating especially clearly. Songs in other languages, no matter how fluent I might be, I need to read the lyrics to have a clue.

All by way of justifying why I included Spanish on this mix of songs I don't know* what they're about:

Wakaranai ga, Suki da. ("I don't understand, but I like it.")

01 / "Ponta de Lanca Africano (Umbabarauma)" / Jorge Ben Jor
02 / "Dil Vich Lagya Ve" / Chup Chup Ke soundtrack
03 / "Äppelknyckarjazz" / Movits!
04 / "Hanjûryoku Ryokô (反重力旅行)" / Capsule
05 / "Toc-Toc-Toc" / Kitty Hoff & Forêt-Noire
06 / "Epoca" / Gotan Project
07 / "J'étais Là" / Zazie
08 / "Jigeum Naui Nolaega Deullindamyeon (지금 나의 노래가 들린다면)" / Peppertones
09 / "Tiempo y Silencio" / Cesária Évora & Pedro Guerra
10 / "Vivre" / Zap Mama
11 / "Meli Meli" / Cheb Mami
12 / "Tím, čím chcete" / Gipsy
13 / "Sælugaukur" / Krauka
14 / "Grita" / Jarabe de Palo
15 / "Mundo" / Sporto Kantes
16 / "Rainha" / Céu
17 / "Nosotra Vida" / José Saavedra
18 / "Kin no Nami, Sen no Nami (金の波 千の波)" / Akino Arai
19 / "Zhǎo Zì Jǐ (找自己)" / David Tao
20 / "Hakol Kashura" / Habanot Nechama
21 / "Ekibobo" / Samite

Download available here until the link expires in a week.

Reflecting what I have on hand, Spanish, French, and Portuguese are over-represented (I've even more Brazilian pop than I thought, and enough tasty songs in French to fill a mix with just that), while eastern Europe and western + central Asia are under-represented. Interestingly, three of the four African artists live and perform in the European power that colonized their home country (the Ugandan instead went to the United States). Also, not allowing random bits of English lyrics rules out a lot of K-pop, or at least the sort K-pop I seem to end up with. All titles romanized because my version of WinZip can't cope with high ASCII in file names.** This time the local artist is José Saavedra again (Batucaxé having not made the final cut).

For your amusement, the music videos for "J'étais Là" and "Zhǎo Zì Jǐ," and the joyous and spectacular movie scene for "Dil Vich Lagya Ve."

* Not counting, yanno, Googling lyrics and/or videos. As one does.

** Speaking of which, the Peppertones title is romanized by Google -- no guarantees for accuracy.

---L.

Comments

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Mix! Woo!

I recognize some of those songs!

I love it when we feed songs back and forth in different contexts.

[larryhammer]

*g*

At one point I tried removing everything that had come from one of your mixes, by way of maximizing stuff new to you, but soon realized the silliness and futility of it. Besides, this absolutely needed the Evora.

Hope you like this one.

---L.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Mundo is a song I know! I like that song!

[oracne.livejournal.com]

I like it so far!

[larryhammer]

I hope you like the others too!

---L.

[larryhammer]

Yay!

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

How lovely! I always need music I don't understand for my writing playlists. Thank you!

[larryhammer]

That's one big reason I started collecting the stuff. As much as I like classical music, it has too much dynamic range to work well for screening noise in a coffee shop.

---L.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

分からないが好きだ could more or less be the motto of my non-film-score collection. :-) Awesome, and I'm looking forward to listening to these!

[larryhammer]

Is that "non-film-score" as in the sense of not from films or not a score?

---L.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

In the sense of, music I own that is does not fall into the "film score" category.

(As those form a large percentage of my music collection.)

[larryhammer]

Ah, the ambiguity of modifiers ...

---L.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Speaking of which, the Peppertones title is romanized by Google -- no guarantees for accuracy.

It's right, I think.
Interesting about excluding kpop with bits of English in; most of the time, I can barely decipher the English unless I'm listening hard. Like, although I know what happens phonologically to it, it's easier for me to catch a word or two in Korean than to catch the English, and my Korean is not very good. I'm curious, then, whether you're excluding on principle or because you find the English bits distracting....

[taigerchily.livejournal.com]

as for music you don't understand i could recommend swissgerman pop ;-)

[larryhammer]

Both principle and distracting. I mean, I can't exactly claim I don't understand it if "blah blah blah blah Wizard of Oz blah blah blah" makes me double-take.

Which was a pity, as otherwise I would have loved to include the song by a collaboration of northern and southern Sudanese singers.

---L.

[larryhammer]

Please do.

---L.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

...And I can definitely see that it would be weird to exclude only the subjectively intelligible bits. (If the Oz thing is Clazziquai, at least two of the group's members are fluent in English, but they and Epik High are a rarity thus, AFAIK. Still.)

[larryhammer]

Clazziquai, yup.

Epik High's English is good enough I didn't realize they weren't using native-English-speaker guest vocalists until I looked them up. (I also, shame, somehow had thought they were European. In my defense, "One" sounds very EuroPop.)

I also had to exclude some of Stephanie Sun's better songs.

---L.

[taigerchily.livejournal.com]

hmm, let's see...

Polo Hofer (www.polohofer.ch / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml4KboNa9yg)
Züri West (www.zueriwest.ch / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxdZ_HaLJzQ)
Gölä (www.golamusic.com / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqbVnYqD1VQ)
Patent Ochsner (www.patentochsner.ch / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qSGZiscsgc)
Span (www.spanonline.ch / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuPrNQY6tqY (bad quality of the clip, haven't found a better one)
Baschi (www.baschimusig.ch / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY_xBFWy6Sc)
Mash (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mash_%28Band%29 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ax3HmHUK3I)

Peter Reber (www.peterreber.ch / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57XSxSstUdM&playnext=1&list=PLC53219B59A2259B6 / not really chanson, but quite close to it)
Mani Matter (www.manimatter.ch / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty7gj3TACyo / swiss german chansons)

Bligg (www.bligg.ch / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4vYXj8lZ8Y / swiss german rap)

and last but not least

Gotthard (www.gotthard.com / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX2bLv4vios / in english, not swiss german, but in my humble opinion the best swiss band ever)

[larryhammer]

Sweeeet. I especially like Züri West and Peter Reber, but Baschi isn't bad and clearly had a blast making that video. Thanks!

And gads, but rap in any language can sound so bombastic.

---L.

[pseudo_tsuga.livejournal.com]

Oooo, thank you! I'm always looking to expand my collection beyond North America and Japan.

[larryhammer]

De nada. I hope you like the selection.

---L.