One of the things I like about metal in particular are the small followings in different countries -- each bringing different pronunciation to the table when singing in English. I find it really fascinating. On analyzing my most frequent listenings, I've discovered these trends...

English vocals in North American / Japanese / Scandinavian accents.

When listening to other languages I prefer Japanese hands down, and sometimes French / Spanish.

Bring a British born person, I often avoid local accents as I find them uninteresting, but exceptions are made when it comes to some early 80s metal.


What about you?

Most bands/singers I listen to are from the US, Canada or the UK. But I do listen to some bands from France, Sweden, Japan, Germany etc.
It's nice to know the lyrics in English, but I can still enjoy the music without knowing the meaning of the lyrics. I get kind of annoyed when bands sing in English without having at least a decent grasp of the language, though it can be kind of endearing in a way. I like the sound of a French or Scottish accents for some reason.

It seems like a lot of English-speaking people listen to foreign music that they probably wouldn't like if it were sung in English... Maybe for a sort of novelty, or the fact that it is relatively unknown or considered "underground" by most others in their country. An example that comes to mind is... a lot of westerners listen some godawful Japanese pop music, but don't really listen to American/western pop music. Maybe the inability to understand the saccharine, trite lyrics makes listening a bit more tolerable.

I actually quite like hearing local accents, or at least same-nation ones. Generally anyone from up north i prefer their singing voice, like Geordies (Maximo Park) or Sheffielders (Jarvis Cocker, Arctic Monkeys).

Also, i absolutely love Indian singing voices, be they in Punjabi, Hindi or Urdu.

French sounds good for modern singing. I also like japanese traditional folk singing and things like noh chanting because it speaks directly to my soul in a way modern music can't.

I think english is both an ugly sounding and a difficult language in terms of pronounciation. It just happens to be the most commonly used language because of the influence the british empire and later the US had on the world for 300 years. If history had unfolded a bit differently then french, which sounds lightyears better, could have taken its place as the international language of choice for most people.

I've spoken to greek, african, japanese and south american people and a majority seem to think french "sounds good". It would be a good universal language and because it's pleasing to the ear it's perfect for singing.

The only european language I think sounds worse than english is flemish. Sounds like a dial up modem, "dat bipp dirr het bipp bupp". The weird thing however is that flemish accent sounds very nice, while the language itself sounds horrible. I can't even link the accent to the language, it's weird.

I like the sound of the Korean language in music. I think it flows well. I don't understand most of it, but I've never cared about lyrics anyway.