In Finland there is a very large and rich music industry in Finnish. Most people I know listen to at least some Finnish music regularly, especially when getting drunk. Music played in parties I go to is mostly in Finnish.
Our Spotify top 10 is all Finnish music (Harry Styles gets number 11), but when I look at other countries lists I see less native songs. Is music in your native language a big thing in your country?
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I’d say 95% of the music I listen to is in English (which is my mother tongue so I guess the answer to your question is yes).
I also listen to some in other languages, mostly in Welsh and German with 1 or 2 in French and Dutch too.
Wales does have a relatively strong Welsh language music scene, though it is mostly folk music, which I can appreciate but wouldn’t necessarily chose to listen to it when I’m on a train or something. There are some Welsh songs in more mainstream genres though.
This is a bit hard to answer because “stupid party music” is very popular in Danish, and I guess we party so much that those type of songs often take up a lot of the top 10… but more serious Danish music? It’s a bit more complicated and more of a hit and miss. Definitely not as popular, there’s a bit of a “scene” but most don’t reach a well known level really outside of some artsy circles. Danish music artists also tend to have an insanely short “run time”, I’ve noticed, like they’re active for two years and then you never hear of them again. Most people I know who has a big interest in music certainly don’t listen to majority Danish, that’d actually be considered a bit funny or laughable, like “how would you even do that with such a small musical industry”.
Some of the biggest names in Danish music, rap and such, I’ve heard people say they “love” but never listen to outside of parties.
Of course it’s not so clear cut what is “serious” and what isn’t, and the big darling at the moment, Tobias Rahim, is a good example of blurring that line. But in general…
Yesn’t.
Yea; most definetely! I love Danish music. Right now I’m really into the band [Blæst](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb1IlwLTrCI), I think they’re going to be the summer soundtrack ’22.
Groups like Minds of 99 also are hugely popular, and sing in Danish, _but_: a significant portion of Danish music is with English lyrics, since, you know, [it sells](https://seismograf.org/sites/default/files/images/Adorno_32_0.jpg). So while there is a lively Danish music scene, a lot of the big names perform in English.
I like to listen in a number of languages, from Portuguese to Polish although most of the songs I listen to is in Italian.
The [Spotify Italia top 50](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZEVXbJUPkgaWZcWG?si=Ac5wAelvSHqMr6uwlF_EsQ&utm_source=copy-link) is filled with Italian singers and songs, but I prefer to listen to my own playlist where, contrarily to the current trend of rap+autotune, I try to listen to an extended range of genres, from pop and rock to more melodic songs.
When it comes to Polish music, the best possible has already been done in the 70s, 80s, 90s. Nowadays, in my opinion, it’s a load of crap and I can’t listen to that. I prefer to listen to English and Italian music, but even in this case I prefer 70s, 80s and 90s. It’s kinda nostalgic.
I feel like music in Dutch has somehow become more mainstream again the last couple of years. It’s like artists realised that there’s no point singing in English, because that international breakthrough is unlikely to happen anyway.
Unfortunately for me, I haven’t really caught on so a lot of my friends and colleagues listen and refer to artists I haven’t even heard of since I’ve pretty much stuck with my own personal Spotify bubble.
Oh yes a lot. But what always have surprised me is how often there was Swedish music on radio in Norway and Denmark when i was younger. In Sweden we rarely hear music in any other Nordic language.
I also find it a bit funny when people say that ABBA is the biggest Swedish music band ever because i would argue that in Sweden **Ted Gärdestad** is a lot (better and) bigger. But he only sings in Swedish. I would urge everyone to check Ted´s music out on spotify.
Fun fact is that on Ted´s first album Björn Ulvaeus plays Guitar, Benny Andersson plays piano and Agnetha Fältskog together with Anni-Frid Lyngstad is vocal assist, this was before ABBA was born.
Not really “a lot”, but there are three or four Swiss German bands I like (Züri West, for example), and a handful of FRGerman and Austrian songs. Fanta4, Falco, Ärzte are timeless classics.
Our national radio stations have an obligation to make up 25 % of their music programme from domestic artists. While there are many that make English pop music, some do it in Swiss languages, and they’re really good.
So these songs come on the radio all the time; I don’t really have them on my spotify rotation.
I’d probably say 99% of the music I listen to is in English. It’s probably a 60-40 split between British and American artists.
Even foreign bands like Daft Punk or Sabaton (just two random bands off the top of my head) sing in English.
Am Finnish as well, but I guess I’m bit of an outlier based on what you said then. I wouldn’t say that I never listen Finnish music, but I also couldn’t say that it’s monthly occurrence. Although I don’t really get drunk regularly either so maybe that’s it.
Yes. Music sung in Galician has a deeply emotional component for us.
Not very well known abroad, although in recent years other fellow *Atlantic* countries have become aware of us, making its way into popular international releases, sung or just instrumental (Mike Oldfield, Loreena Mckennit, the Chieftains, …). It was the language of choice in Medieval Southern Europe for lyric composition along with Provençal until both of them were banned from public use. A part of it would survive into Portuguese, but that language shifted to the wills of peoples outside the core region, starting its own way.
yes, a lot. alternative hungarian music has its own scene with a whole, very popular subculture tho it’s definitely the most popular in my own bubble of collage kids. it’s also quite convenient since you can go to a concert every other week for a cheap price. plus the only affordable music festivals center around this genre so a lot of people listen to them at least a little for this reason.
there’s other stuff ofc in hungarian, it’s say the pop and the rap scene are pretty crap but a lot of people would disagree and they are popular (but i think mostly in the countryside/less educated people)
Yes, I do.
The Catalan musical stance is well alive (and with groups from all the catalan-speaking zones) so it’s easy to find music in Catalan.
And I listen to Spanish and English music too. And sometimes even in German and Italian (even though I don’t understand what they say).
Given that swedish and norwegian are almost the same.. For some reasons.. for decades music in swedish was much more popular than music in norwegian in Norway. Bands like Gyllene Tider having a higher standing in norway than most artist singing in native norwegian then… Regarding the season right now… Sommartider is kind of “national summer anthem” in norway.. Quite weird to see the [1981](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_cdAYydf50&ab_channel=lifesaver10)-clip of Gyllene Tider/Per Gessle in 2022… Probably the greatest/most successfull band in any of the scandinavian languages being able to pack football stadiums full of people some [25 years after](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnBfiQyeDcI&ab_channel=Dackes1) it was founded..
In recent years music in norwegian has become more and more aknowledged and popular..though within certain genres.. Though it’s hard to imagine this music being played many decades later.. like that swedish band does…
Anyways.. to sum it all up.. no summer in Norway without hearing Sommartidar xxx times… Either you like it or not..
I would say I am about 3:2 in foreign vs native. But radios are still a big thing and they do even mix, or mostly croatian music so it is def played. Our top charts usually separate the two though. If you go to Billboard then its all top 10 are serbian trap pop folk (imo shitty genre music) which is very popular among the youth (with harry styles also at 11).
Personally I almost exclusively listen to German music. I love medieval rock and there are just so many good German bands to listen to! And then there are bands that I have liked since childhood like die ärzte and I still listen to them today.
Yes, but not as much as in English. Music in Catalan/Valencian is *much* harder to find because you rarely hear it on the radio/tv, and when they do play a song it’s always the same 4 bands. So to find new music or stay up to date you have to rely on word of mouth or social media.
My native language is unsurprisingly English which makes up about 80% of the music I listen to. Although it’s been a while I used to listen to some music in Scottish Gaelic but there’s not much that I like. The rest of my music is French, German, Polish, Spanish, Italian and whatever other languages Spotify recommends for me. Charts in the UK are almost entirely English. I haven’t checked them recently but there’s usually a few songs in a different language or mostly English songs with a few words or a verse in a different language.
Yes, but usually it’ll be ‘older’ music. I don’t really follow modern music at all since I don’t listen to radio and rarely listen to new songs.
Everything from the Flemish ‘classics’ to carnival music in my own dialect, I love it all.
The [greek music industry](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Greece) (see “Popular music”) is also very big, with it’s own different genres and sub-genres. Old & modern folk music, greek metal, rembetika, greek rap, entekhna, skylladika and many more.
Most people in Cyprus only listen to greek music, with the exception of international hits that are basically forced on us (Ed Sheeran, Cardi B, Lady Gaga etc.). Some people, especially teenagers, will refuse to listen to anything greek because it sounds “cringe”. It’s a teenager phase that everyone my age also went through. It goes away after your first real hartbreak, lol.
There are also many people who outright refuse to listen to anything non-greek and only listen to “real” greek music, wich basically means old folk music. Those people are usually hillbilies from rural areas. There is also modern folk music, wich is popular among people under 40.
Not really, I’m honestly pretty ignorant about Italian music. I’ve just discovered [Nu Genea](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1FDkTO7D_0) which is Italian, but mostly not **in** Italian. There’s plenty of Italian stuff in the top 40, but I usually really dislike that kind of stuff.
No at all. Maybe occasionally, if I happen to hear a Slovak song I like then I’ll listen to it on my own but that has happened maybe around 5-7 times in my life.
I would say 85% of music I listen to is in English, 10% is French and 5% is random songs in other languages, including Slovak. I remember I have some German, Spanish, Norwegian and Hungarian songs in my playlists somewhere.
I’m Ukrainian but have been living abroad for 18 years now. When I used to be back home I listened to very little Ukrainian music as the market was flooded with ruzzian product. For that reason I primarily listened to English music, but recently there was a switch and I was positively surprised to see a lot of very good quality Ukrainian music. Now I’d say arouns 10-20% of the music I consume is in Ukrainian and I expect it only to increase. Music is a big thing I guess, lots of different artists and some of them are pretty amazing.
Almost exclusively, other than some mediaeval music in Latin, Old French, etc. There are certain songs I like that are in other languages, but none that I seek out purely for the reasons of hearing, say, Spanish or Italian. There’s only one band that I like who sing exclusively in another language and that’s 883 😄
A lot of Dutch artists write english songs and there’s a whole lot of dutch language music I don’t like and frankly find kind of irrelevant, Jan Smit for instance, but recently there’s been a ton of really good music in Dutch , Froukje , Goldband , Susan & Freek, S10 and I already listened to Spinvis, Herman van Veen and some cabaretiers.
Truth be told I don’t listen to a lot of ‘proper’ Slovene music. I like some rap/trap artists that use a mix of Balkan languages and a lot of slang. My most liked genre is metal, and Slovene groups prefer to sing in English. There are a couple of really god songs in Slovene, but unfortunately they are in minority.
I listen to some underground stuff but on the radio I would say its generally:
non-icelandic music 70/30 icelandic music
I think some people here dont enjoy icelandic mainstream songs which has been very dominated by rappers in the past 4-5 years.
Never. There just isn’t any I like. The only artists that come close to the genre of music I’m generally interested in are the duo we sent to Eurovision a couple of years back called zalagasper but half of their songs are in English anyway
I mostly listen to English and French music
Edit: my most replayed 2022 songs are 50% English, 40% French and 10% Spanish but mostly I’m just obsessed with Unloved and Lous and The Yakuza lol. I also speak German but I haven’t found any German music I like yet (recommendations anyone?)
My native language is Swedish. I’d say around 30% of the music I listen to is in Swedish. Definitely more music in Swedish than Finnish for me.
> Is music in your native language a big thing in your country?
Well… Finland-Swedes definitely listen to a lot of music in Swedish, but I don’t think that’s true for the population in general.
I don’t usually listen to Spanish music, but most music aired and in tops is in Spanish, be it from LatAm or Spain too.
Spanish (from Spain) music in the past used to be more dominant here and abroad too, but we keep pulling the weight.
Not really. I’ve just still this impression from growing up in the 90s and 00s that Norwegian isn’t cool. To me it is all either older songs that were all over the place in the 70s and 80s, country and other genres not relevant for someone younger, often played at radio stations, outright unhip. That’s probably based on a reality that was a long time ago. I’m not really connected to today’s music which seems to be more about Norwegian artists singing in Norwegian again. Hip hop, rap and such just isn’t my taste, nor is country or trashy music.