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It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

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Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#81

Post by opminion »

pretoriusB wrote: post #78
opminion wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps Gangnam Style is more of a novelty in the English-speaking countries, where foreign pop music is uncommon, than in those countries where it is common: Italian teenagers might not care that much whether it is in Korean or English, whereas English teenagers will notice that they are dancing to a song whose lyrics they cannot possibly understand.

I am a European, and it depends on the country (and the age). In a lot of European countries young people (up to 30+) have been taught English and they can follow an English song quite easily. Even in France, despite never admitting it in public. (This is especially true for music fans). They might have some trouble with heavy stuff, like some lyric heavy Dylan songs or 500-wpm rap, but they can get most pop/dance so…

Note that I didn't say that European teenagers wouldn't understand the English lyrics, but that they won't care that much about the language, if only because they are used to listening to music in other European languages.

Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#82

Post by noonespecial »

alnis wrote: post #80
noonespecial wrote: post #70

I've always been fascinated by "near language". Its an odd feeling as my brain recognizes the basic sounds and tries to find a foothold but fails. There was a story posted here quite a while ago about a short movie made entirely in "english-like" language. I think it featured a couple arguing. Maybe someone can help me out here? It gave me the eery feeling of being a young child again listening to adults talking arou…

You're thinking of "Skwerl": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt4Dfa4fOEY

Thank you. That was it.

Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#83

Post by riffraff »

jerf wrote: post #60
riffraff wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, he's not saying that, the anger is towards the lack of communication. English sounds the way he speaks, but the tone (and the question) is unrelated. As an italian, I can tell you American English may sound many ways but I'd never define it "angry".

Out of curiosity, how would you describe it? As a American I can't get enough distance to tell.

ah, good question! I think "boasting" is the correct word. Loud, self-important, maybe pretentious? But not in an unfriendly way, rather in a silly one. Think of an overdone John Wayne gag.

To be honest, I think this has more to do with subconscious cultural references, rather than the sound itself.

E.g. the sound of en_us always evokes Italians speaking in gibber-american-english[0] rather than some martin luther king jr's speech.

[0] stuff like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1joXNHs4_ME

Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#84

Post by jerf »

riffraff wrote: post #83
jerf wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, how would you describe it? As a American I can't get enough distance to tell.

ah, good question! I think "boasting" is the correct word. Loud, self-important, maybe pretentious? But not in an unfriendly way, rather in a silly one. Think of an overdone John Wayne gag. To be honest, I think this has more to do with subconscious cultural references, rather than the sound itself. E.g. the sound of en_us always evokes Italians speaking in gibber-american-english[0] rather than some martin luther ki…

I didn't want to excessively prejudice the answer, but to me English sounds like a relatively harsh language. Every other language always seems to sound smoother, except maybe really fast Spanish and to some extent Russian, which, if not "harsh" per se, often sounds angry to me, or with all the slurred-soundings Zs in it, drunk. No connection to the stereotype of drunk Russians intended; one wonders if there is a connection there, though. (Though it could also come from reality; from what I've seen of the statistics "drunk Russian", alas, has a lot of truth to it.)

What really opened my eyes was German; if you read German with English phonetics, it sounds awful, though it's sort of fun to do. But when it is read or spoken correctly, it's a more soft, flowing language than English.

Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#85

Post by Aardwolf »

opminion wrote: post #81
pretoriusB wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a European, and it depends on the country (and the age). In a lot of European countries young people (up to 30+) have been taught English and they can follow an English song quite easily. Even in France, despite never admitting it in public. (This is especially true for music fans). They might have some trouble with heavy stuff, like some lyric heavy Dylan songs or 500-wpm rap, but they can get most pop/dance so…

Note that I didn't say that European teenagers wouldn't understand the English lyrics, but that they won't care that much about the language, if only because they are used to listening to music in other European languages.

That makes it seem as if English is the same as just another European language for a non English European. That is not really the case.

Most music and movie culture, especially for teenagers, is in fact English. Less often it's your own native language, and even more rarely (but still existant!) other European languages.

English is also the one non-native language you kind of learn automatically (unlike other languages we had to learn at school), due to being surrounded by it so much, and the internet.

Slightly off topic: When seeing one of the extremely rare movies made in my own country, I'm always surprised by how awesome it is to see something I actually can relate to, e.g. when they speak some juicy dialects or show some typical living room in a house as they look here. American movies always seem "fake" or something to me, and also always use the same dialect, but I wonder if for Americans they can actually relate to that just like I can relate to native movies of my own country :)

Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#86

Post by joezydeco »

pretoriusB wrote: post #77
nostromo wrote: post #37

Songwriters should use this as a designer uses lorem ipsum.

Songwriters do use their version of lorem ipsum. That said, they cannot use one and only set of lyrics (such as the above) for all songs they write, because the appropriate "lorem ipsum" for each song depends on its form (melody, rhythm, number of verses, etc). They (well, we) use those "lorem ipsum" placeholder lyrics when they first compose the music, to mark the phrasing they want to achieve. It can be either gibb…

More infamously, Phil Collins "Sussudio" was a placeholder lyric that never got replaced.

Re: It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something

#88

Post by tripzilch »

RuggeroAltair wrote: post #63
JasonFruit wrote: post #9

I'm amazed at how well he has the sounds down. I'd never peg him as Italian, and I probably wouldn't realize it was gibberish until the backup singers did it slowly; I'd think I was just failing to get it, like listening to Dylan on a bad day. I'm amazed at the contrast with British actors trying to do American accents, which never fool me; is it easier to do it with gibberish, or is he just unusually good at mimicki…

I've had this funny song in my playlist for a long time. I used to listen to it when I didn't know any english and it's amazing how at the time I couldn't distinguish it from normal english, since often in songs it's hard to catch all the words (and in some cases you even have to find the lyrics to get them all right). I must add that sounds in languages are a very strange thing. When my american friends who don't sp…

Hah, yeah I totally get that :) The brain seems to have to know what language they're listening to before it can understand it. And it takes just slightly too long:)

I noticed this again when watching Iron Sky, a movie with both English and German text (I am Dutch, and can understand both--though English is easier for me). For some reason the cinema showed a version with German subtitles for the English parts instead of the other way around. It was very hard to understand, especially because some scenes were English with German accent or vice versa. I'd hear the start of a scene, and--subtitles or not--I needed a few seconds to determine the language before I could comprehend what they were saying. So I missed the first few seconds of many scenes, because at the same time there was a lot going on on the screen, making it very hard to keep up.

(I did watch the movie again with English subtitles, and caught much more of the jokes--such as a Brazilian resembling the Führer's moustache. Great movie)

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