Tu vuò fà l'americano? Then Listen to More Music in Other Languages

English used to be the music industry's lingua franca. Now, we're more ready than ever to hear what the rest of the world has to offer. A huge playlist of non-English music awaits you.

I didn’t grow up listening to music in English. Not at home, anyway.

In fact, my most cherished childhood record was a 1969 Soviet-era cartoon soundtrack called The Bremen Town Musicians¹ .

Itself an adaptation of a German folktale, the story followed a troupe of troubadours and their adventures rescuing a king from bandits, romancing a princess, and of course all the rock and roll antics they got into along the way.

It’s absolutely delightful, but more to the point, the music is actually fantastic — inspired by both rock and folk (or, the Soviet Bards, more precisely) in equal measure, it’s produced beautifully, played well, and oozes charm.

Above, you can watch the cartoon in its entirety with terrible English subtitles. My favorite track is at the 7:47 mark, but I’ll warn you - the animation is employing some seriously outmoded stereotypes of Romani people. The song itself is no less incredible for it, but it does taint my memory somewhat.

In retrospect, this soundtrack clearly primed me for my later love affair with glam rock, Rufus Wainwright, and maybe even Tom Waits.

Sadly, like a lot of immigrant kids, if I wanted to stay relevant and relatable, I had to push aside my parents’ culture and focus on what everyone else was doing: listening to music in English.

After age eight or so, I could only trot out this sort of novelty during contextually appropriate occasions. To a roomful of first-year Russian students I’m tutoring? Fine. On a first date? Maybe not.

English: No Longer the Lingua Franca

I always thought it was a broadly accepted fact that singing in English was a prerequisite for success for any musician, regardless of their national origin.

It turns out I was essentially correct, at least before 2012.

“From September 2010 to August 2011, with the exception of Adele, only American acts – including Jennifer Lopez, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga and Black Eyed Peas – managed to top the charts across Europe.”²

Thinking back on the non-American or British artists who broke through our collective consciousness over the last few decades, there were precious few who managed it in their native language.

• Bjork’s lyrics weren’t particularly easy to decipher, but her hits weren’t in Icelandic.

• Ace of Base and Robyn most certainly didn’t sing their most famous songs in Swedish, and did anyone even realize that Rednex (yes, of “Cotton Eye Joe” fame) were Swedish in the first place?

• If Phoenix or Daft Punk ever sang in French, those are never the numbers that got them any airplay.

Until maybe the last five years, the only bands I can think of who became famous specifically for the songs they did NOT sing in English are Rammstein, t.A.T.u, and Sigur Rós.³

What band were you surprised to learn wasn’t from an English-speaking country?

Luckily, the world has changed. We’ve entered an era where non-English songs aren’t stuck with niche success — they dominate.

Gone are Shakira and Celine Dion’s monopoly over the bilingual household name business. Bad Bunny has more Instagram followers than entire European nations. Rosalía’s Motomami didn’t just win over critics; it landed her several Grammys and an upcoming role in Euphoria to boot.

And I barely have to mention K-Pop at all, right? Good, because I’m not going to.

In short, English no longer has to be the default, and our listening habits bear that out.

Read the full report at Luminated Data

Each year, Americans are listening to less music in English and more music in other languages.

Of course, the entire world is moving away from English-language music, but it’s the U.S. — the land of “this is America, we speak English” — whose change is the most heartening to see. It’s no surprise either that it’s the younger generations who are leading the charge.

Read the full report at Luminated Data

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We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

(Well… we’re trying to get out of it, anyway.)

This is New Bands for Old Heads, which means it’s all well and good to rehash the music you already know, but I need to knuckle down and get to the reason you’re here: new music that makes you feel nostalgic.

As you may have expected, I’ve pulled together a few recommendations on that theme, but I challenged myself to meet a few basic guidelines:

1. No artists from an English-speaking country.

2. No songs in English.

3. No songs from super well-known artists.

4. Only songs released in the last five years.

The third is always a tricky burden to meet, because I don’t know your life, dammit. But I’ll assume I’ve done my part already mentioning Bad Bunny and Rosalía in the post and not the playlist, at least.

Paid subscribers can access a three-hour playlist of non-English language songs I’ve hand-selected from new artists around the world.

If you’re a paid subscriber, here’s the full playlist.⁴

We're Not in Kansas Anymore: A 3-hour mega-playlist of new music from all over the world

Everyone else, please enjoy a preview below.

If you like Emo + Pop-Punk try:

• Ya Stanu Krasce (Я стану краще) // Ukraine

  • Did you know that Russia and Ukraine had a well-established Midwest Emo scene? It’s so good, and there’s so much of it, that I barely know where to start. It deserves its own post by an expert. But in the meantime, if you crave those early Jade Tree bands like The Promise Ring or Texas is the Reason with a distinctly melancholic edge, you’re in for a treat.

• tricot // Japan

  • A little more pop-punk than emo, this all-female Japanese math rock band has named both System of a Down and Fall Out Boy as influences.

• Mitocôndria // Brazil

  • Emo knows no borders, and Brazil has its own well-trod scene. Mitocôndria gives us a taste of Thursday and Saves the Day.

Who are your favorite bands from outside of English-speaking countries? New or old, regardless of what language they sing in? (Though bonus points if it’s not in English!)

If you like Darkwave + Coldwave:

• Ploho (Плохо) // Russia

  • Who better to handle darkness and depression than the post-Soviet bloc, right? This band is well known in Eastern Europe, and very clearly influenced by Soviet post-punk vanguards Kino. Just imagine The Cure and Sisters of Mercy raising their child on a steady diet of brutalist architecture and Cold War politics, and you’re halfway there.

  BONUS — Reader recommendation of the week:

  Francis Tuan // Poland (sent in by Snow Hope Bones)

  • Their track “OK Doomer” is dark synth-pop with echoes of Depeche Mode.

• Nürnberg // Belarus

  • More gloomy Eastern Bloc rock? Don’t mind if you do. I hear a lot of The Smiths’ “What Difference Does it Make?” but you’ll catch a lot of other ‘80s post-punk influences, too.

If you like Alt-Rock + Indie Rock try:

• Irnini Mons // France

  • This band is a bit hard to pin down, but they apparently managed to catch Steve Albini’s ear. A little bit noise rock, a little bit post-punk, and a little bit grunge… with lots of highly unexpected layered vocal harmonies. Though this band doesn’t sound much like Sleater-Kinney, the guitar lines often do remind me of Carrie Brownstein’s work.

• BRATTY // Mexico

  • Up-and-coming bedroom pop artist Jenni Juárez is young enough that the influences she cites — like Clairo and Snail Mail — are new bands themselves, at least for our purposes. But whether she realizes it or not, she’s drawing on much deeper lineage.

• Seaside // Indonesia

  • Another entry in the “scenes you didn’t know existed” category: Indonesian dream-pop/shoegaze. This song is the band’s first foray into singing in their native language, a rare occurrence for the genre. Slowdive or Lush with a twist.

  If you just want to dance:

• Ankathie Koi // Austria

  • Theatrical glam rock with unapologetic nods to ‘80s pop icons (especially Madonna on other tracks).

• KOMPROMAT // France

  • Okay, fine. These guys do sing in English occasionally. But on this track, it’s only the title itself repeated occasionally — the rest of the lyrics are in French, I swear! Dark Justice vibes, otherwise. French tourists at a Berlin nightclub, perhaps?

A bit of this, a bit of that:

• Aaron Choulai // Japan

  • Hip-hop fused with free jazz. Think Thelonious Monk and Snoop Dogg freestyling in Japanese.

• El Khat // Yemen (based in Berlin)

  • “Everything but the kitchen sink” instrumentation brings traditional Yemeni music and modern Middle Eastern pop together to paint a picture of “the contradictions of the Arab Jewish identity.”

The playlist has so much more: psych-rock, yé-yé, blues, traditional, pop, experimental, post-punk — just about anything your heart desires.

Paid subscribers, stay tuned for a full playlist of non-English bops in your inbox in the next few days. Feeling the FOMO? Be sure to subscribe.

A Little Neapolitan Post Script

I took the title of this post from a song you’ve most likely heard in a different format: a 2010 remake called “We No Speak Americano” (yikes) by Australian band Yolanda Be Cool. If you can’t hear it in your head, you’ll remember after just a few bars.

But the original, “Tu vuò fà l'americano,” was written in 1956 (and famously sung by Sophia Loren and Paolo Bacilieri in It Started in Naples).

The singer mocks another Italian who is affecting American ways — dancing to that no good rock’n’roll, drinking whiskey and soda, playing baseball — when really there is no way for him to deny who he is: a Neapolitan, through and through.

Is it a totally appropriate pick for this piece? Nah, probably not. Sure, I like the idea that we should be true to our own cultures and embrace who we are. But it’s just as important to be open and curious about others’. There’s a lot more to listen to than just songs in English, and there’s a whole world of music beyond our borders.

Just a bit of a bromide to sign off on.

xo

Gabbie

1. Бременские музыканты (Bremenskiye muzykanty), actually — I would have translated it “The Musicians of Bremen” until I looked up what it was officially.

2

Lindvall, H. (2012, January 13). Behind the music: What it costs European acts to sing in their own languages. The Guardian. Noting also that dance club tracks were an exception to this rule.

3. I of course look forward to being schooled in the comments section.

4. Why don’t I just put the playlist behind a paywall, you ask? Because Substack has told me officially that there is no way they can allow comments from free subscribers on posts that have a paywall in them. Even if the paywall is super far down. Even if you WANT all of your subscribers to be able to comment. So I’m doing this incredibly convoluted workaround to allow everyone access to the community that I love so much here. I’M SORRY and/or YOU’RE WELCOME.