Music Discrimination

Random post tonight but an interesting subject nonetheless. Let’s talk about music ^_^. We all love and need music in our lives; music can cheer us up and it can sometimes set the atmosphere. We have favorites and then we have stuff we don’t listen to. While we usually don’t listen to certain music based on categories/genre but how about the language it is in? A year or so ago, a friend once asked me something along the lines of “why do asians listen to other asian music even if they have no idea what the song is about?” to which I simply answered “music is universal, I don’t care what language it is as long as it is *music* to my ears… and it’s not some guy ‘singing’ about his wealth, 24’s, clubbing, proudly doing drugs/sluts/hoes/degrading the opposite sex, and anything disgustingly vulgar” (now you know what kind of music I’m against). She didn’t understand my answer unfortunately and went on “but you don’t understand it! I don’t ever listen to anything unless I know what the artist is talking about. You don’t see me listening to… spanish, or french or german music and I’m white!”… … “… that’s your loss then” was all I could say at the end ^^;. She goes to claim that it doesn’t matter how “popular” or “good” the song is, if it’s not in English she won’t listen to it and deem it “bad”. Wow xD. I often see people not listening to some music due to style but rarely involving its language. She does have a good point though- why DO Asians generally listen to other Asian music despite we don’t understand the language it is in? ALL the asians I know (friends and foe) listen to at least one other different asian music. I know some of my non-asian friends who listen to songs that aren’t in English (but they’re sorta of the more otaku type ^^;). I stated my reasons (music is universal!) which might or might not apply to others. Asian music also have a certain “style” to it that is influenced by its culture and that part is more important to me than the actual language it is in. I listen mostly to Chinese (both Mando and Canto), Japanese, and Korean with some bits of Spanish and English ^^. I’ll share who I listen to the most some other time.

So questions… do you listen to music that you don’t understand the language of? Do you have a language preference for music? (Do you discriminate based on language?)

Above image is of BoA and here’s her US debut single…

<3 her dancing. BoA with wet hair FTW! ^^;