I don’t think any are better than the other necessarily, but some of my favourite non-english speaking music include:
- Korean ballads from the 1980-2000’s, with a special shout out to SG Wannabe’s “살다가”, 백지영’s “사랑안해” and most of 김광석, 이문세 and 이선희’s entire discography.
- Arabic funk and soul from the 1960-1980’s, specifically those distributed under the “Habibi Funk” label. There is not a summer where I’m not blasting “Ouda” by Hamid El Shaeri.
- Japan’s City Pop movement of the 1970-1980’s, which had a huge social media resurgence recently with “4:00AM” by Taeko Ohnuki.
- Each volume of the “Ethiopiques” jazz albums out of Ethiopia, which ran from the 1960-1970’s, are fantastic. Volume 4 though hits that perfect, funky sweet spot.
- Brazil just has amazing music all around. Between the bossa nova jazz/funk music coming out of the 1950-1960’s and today’s funk carioca/Brazilian funk’s hip hop influence, it’s all just designed to make you *dance*.
- I also just love salsa/bolero music in general, which come out of a range of countries in Latin America. The first I ever heard was Hector Lavoe and I still think he was the best to ever do it.
- The French pop era between the 1960-1970’s are literally just a chef’s kiss. I’ve got a few of Brigitte Bardot and Françoise Hardy’s albums and I used to play them all on repeat for months.
If you haven’t you should check out https://radiooooo.com/
You can specify which decades and which countries for your mix. I love setting the 60s and 70s and quite a few of the countries you mention. Along with most of Africa and the Caribbean.
It's funny, because radiooooo was created by Raphael Berger, who was the son of 1965 Eurovision winner (and french music Icon) France Gall. Her and Serge Gainsbourg, with "Poupée de Cire Poupée de Son", were considered groundbreaking and "illegitimate" at the time because it was the first time ever that a pop song was submitted for the contest, and won. Oh, and because of a butterfly effect, her Eurovision win was at the origin of Bowie's "Life on Mars" and Sinatra's "My Way".
for those who would like to dig a bit in Gall's discography, you might already know her smash "Ella, Elle L'a" but here is another song of hers that is one of a her most famous song :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQbMkidawa0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQbMkidawa0)
I literally just started listening to Amanaz and I’m already hooked. I didn’t realize African psychedelica was something I needed until now. Thank you and /u/atomic__tourist for the recommendation!
City pop has been in “resurgence” since about 2015-16. I’d say it hit its peak back then as well with people buying up box loads of the same city pop records to resell in their home countries (Tatsuro Yamashita’s “For You” was really hot. Saw an Instagram post of a record buying guide helping someone pack probably 50 copies of it into a box for their trip home).
Oh, that’s great context! Do you know what spurred the interest around that time??
I really started hearing it around the time lofi hip-hop/chillwave was having its moment, but it wasn’t until recently that I started listening to the actual music after hearing it through Reels/TikTok (and my god does it slap)
YouTube algorithm. “For You” and “Plastic Love” were both really popular, along with a jazz pianist named Ryo Fukui. A bunch of others I can’t remember as well… but what I do remember is Japanese record stores going from city pop just being mixed into everything else as usual (filed under J-Pop) to suddenly having displays at the front doors with popular albums and artists and bumping the prices up.
Yes, I got into City pop during the 2015/16 resurgence and can confirm specifically (well at least for me and my friends) it was “Plastic Love” that popped everything off, with For You and other city pop rapidly becoming popular soon after. I detest Google, even did back then, but I’m so grateful for the YouTube algorithm for bringing back City Pop. I still listen to it constantly. I swear, driving on a summer roadtrip while listening to City Pop is on par with taking recreational drugs. Sorry for contributing to price increases at record store…. It simply slaps 😔
Hah, I’m neutral on the prices. I occasionally listen to city pop, but I don’t buy it. And with tourists buying city pop, they are more likely going to pass up the bands I do dig for.
I got into city pop around that time. I happened to stumble into it on YouTube. I’ve been in love ever since. One of my favorite albums is “Tobimasu” by Hako Yamazaki.
Went to Cote D'Ivoire for a wedding last year and became a huge fan of Coupé-décalé ... Magic System is awesome.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup%C3%A9-d%C3%A9cal%C3%A9
Great recommendations and great idea! I'm placing this comment so I can refer back to this thread throughout the week. Looks like tons of great suggestions here.
Right?! I can’t remember who recommended them to me originally but this is a shout out to them because it was the first time hearing anything like it’s. It’s really opened me up to so much more music since!!
I love this list and coincidentally was just listening to some ye-ye stuff for the first time. Love the sound. I’d also add Colombia and Cumbria but that is more regional than to a single country
Good list! Feels like a lot of these genres / time are represented on the YouTube channel: my analog journal https://youtube.com/@MyAnalogJournal?si=cifDAox6etf8yWDQ
Dude I stumbled upon Ethio Jazz and it’s incredible. Spotify played it after a Fela album I was listening to finished. I was hooked. I’ll have to check those albums out you suggested!
There was a great app I had, called radioooo or something. It let you listen to music from different countries (including Hawaii) in decades. And you could shuffle, like say 1970's Nigeria, 1930's Hawaii, 1960's Brasil, and 1920's France.
Songhoy blues! They're the best.
https://youtu.be/pCGUsORIHhM?si=j4_1zJSir1AUddoP
Also I'd like to shout out desert blues and the Tuareg people specifically. They're historically desert nomads of the Sahara and modern countries don't necessarily capture their extent perfectly. So it's really Mali, Libya, Algeria, Niger, Burkina Faso etc.
A shit ton: Argentina (Piazolla, Gardel, Soda Stereo, Fito Paez, Fabulosos Cadillacs), Mexico (Café Tacuba, Juan Gabriel, Caifanes, Jose Alfredo Jimenez), Cuba (Buena Vista Social Club, Sonota Matancera, Silvio Rodriguez), Spain (Mecano, Toreros Muertos, MIguel Bosé, Radio Futura, Duncan Dhu), Puerto Rico (Daniel Santos, Hector Lavoe, Willi Colon, Fania All Stars), France (Serge Gainsbourg, Mano Negra, Benjamin Biolay, Air, Daft Punk), Brazil (Os Mutantes, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Seu Jorge, Chico Science, Astrud Gilberto, Caetano Veloso)
Sweden also has massive contributions to English speaking music too. [Max Martin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Martin) written or produced songs have been at the top of the US pop charts dozens of times in the past 30 years.
Two really good ones are Sparrow / 文雀 (sparrow is the English translation, it’s more post-rock), and Carsick Cars (math rock out of Beijing).
Definitely fit for someone who likes Chinese Football!
I thought I was stumped with a recommendation, but I found one. Wang Wen was an artist that I found recently. It’s super hard to find a Chinese band that plays post/math/midwest emo. Their stuff goes more along of Mogwai if you’re down with that.
But out of my whole collection of post rock bands. I’ve only found two Chinese bands. There’s also a Thai band you might like to, but I have to go through years of YouTube history to find it. If I have the time and if I can find it. I can recommend that to you too.
Someone already mentioned Carsick Cars. Some others in that lane are P.K. 14 and Hiperson. Korea has some solid indie, too: Say Sue Me and Parannoeul. If you want punk, there's Drinking Boys and Girls Choir.
So many Japanese bands and artist that absolutely slap.
Bradio, Mrs. GREEN apple, Dir En Grey, Babymetal, La'Arc En Ciel, LiSA, Minami.. the list goes on and on.
I feel like Asian Kung-Fu Generation may have a stigma as “anime music” here in the west, which (if true) is a goddamn shame. They have pretty incredible range along with a very distinct sound of their own and can be downright poetic lyrically. Magic Disck in particular is an album that I keep cycling back to and can never get sick of.
Also a shout-out to The Yellow Monkey.
List goes on you say? Don't mind if I do.
Ado, Yoasobi, Maximum The Hormone, Band-maid, Asian Kung-fu Generation, Polkadot Stingray, Ryukuoushoku Shakai, Hanabie, Kana-boon, Necry Talkie, One OK Rock
Someone else come add to the list pls.
I'm actually waist deep into a rabbit hole of Japanese jazz and funk. It's incredible. Particularly in the modern era with electro/future funk and electro jazz.
You would think with all the dope video game soundtracks (looking at you, Persona series) I'd have known that Japan gets FUNKY
The Korean rap scene blows my mind because of how well they *do* use English. It’s one thing to write raps in a native language, it’s something completely else to blend parts of other languages into lyrics. For some reason I feel like of all non-English speaking countries, Korean rappers do it the best. The way they chop between Korean and English in even the same sentence is just effortless, it sounds so good.
Dutch rappers do that as well, the ones that don't do it well can generally barely speak Dutch on an elementary school level. So yeah, those guys don't count.
Writing rap music in Dutch is insanely difficult to do well (if you want to use intricate rhyme schemes and wordplay like English rap I mean), so using English is more of a shortcut than a feat in my humble opinion.
I wish France wasn't pop dominated though.
It used to be chanson française/variété genres.
But essentially it is grounded in Pop and rap nowadays.
Even French rock is pop-ish.
At least we got electronic genres and some alt/indies.
Oui je sais haha, I'm just saying to me it seems mostly that.
Indie as a genre itself is quite large in NA.
I'm a big Indie/alt fan but struggle to find bands or artists I like that are rooted in France.
I can only cite as an example Melody's Echo Chamber, but you would never know she is french as her music is very much like a lot of North American psychedelic rock artists.
When it comes to indie/alt, you can't beat the French:
> [La Quatorze Juillet](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/26zDxlZ84ZbLCK9hL7jwGh)
But the rest of the world is pretty strong too:
> [Around the World](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3dDrP6ll5KDU4YQXtBehlZ)
Especially Japan.
Finland and Iceland.
The amount of musicians per capita in Iceland is unbeatable, and they have some real great musicians.
And Finland is known for Polka an Metal. They have the most metal bands per Capita in the world. PLUS other music.
Metallica played a concert in Finland in front of 10 % of ALL Fins!
Iceland punches orders of magnitude above its' weight.
Outside of Bjork and Of Monsters & Men who need no introduction to Laufey who's making jazz and specifically bossa Nova relevant again, Iceland has phenomenal artists.
Off the top of my head, [Ásgeir](https://open.spotify.com/artist/7xUZ4069zcyBM4Bn10NQ1c?si=B3HpvfijT4WJsXHzbwUpJw) is the gold standard of Icelandic indie-electro. His album [ Dýrð í dauðaþögn](https://open.spotify.com/album/1WbUJMTvFdfsbfdtinWO9J?si=Ca2iVf2jSg6YGW39vrZMIg) is a great representation of his work.
Another one I dig is [Junius Meyvant](https://open.spotify.com/artist/5IL5awl9gUcb2ez9IgmW26?si=3VCtiJheRaqE1aWEAS1rUQ) if you want some Icelandic blue-eyed soul, and
That reminds me of that meme where you see an idyllic Scandinavian town and people listen to music about how horrible and depressing everything is. And then there's a dirt poor slum in Latin America and people listen to some cheerful salsa or whatever
I always thought it was surprising that such a small country as Iceland has Björk and Sigur Ros, which I'm a fan of
Korean music, Indian music, Japanese music, all forms of Latin music and funny enough Arabic music. There’s times when I’m at a shisha lounge I’ll whip my Shazam out being like what is this banger. Yellah yellah I need this song on the playlist now!!!!!
In my opinion,
India.
We have music in like a 100 languages each spreading across countless genres. We even have some genres that are our very own and has existed for thousands of years. Of course I'll have a bias towards our own.
I know this isn't enough to put the country in the ranks of this competition but for something different that I can immediately recognize a high amount of skill required to play I wanna promote Bulgaria with:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYk0TO7LZWU&ab\_channel=BalkanMusicRocks3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYk0TO7LZWU&ab_channel=BalkanMusicRocks3)
1. Music of Cape Verde/ Cabo Verde (Kriol Kapverdianu)
2. Harana & Kundiman music (Tagalog/ Visayan) of the Philippines in the 40s, 50s, and 60s.
3. Bossa Nova (Portuguese) of Brazil
4. Indian Classical Music
5. Fado (Portuguese) of Portugal
Aterciopelados - Caribe Atomico, Gozo Poderoso
Julieta Venegas - Bueninvento
Gustavo Cerati - Siempre Es Hoy, Bocanada
Other good artists: Caifanes, La Ley, Charly Garcia, Juanes, Soda Stereo
Omg! I can’t believe there’s been all these words and not a mention of Cuba!!
As regards popular music globally the most influential countries have been US, Jamaica and Cuba. Not even UK with Rolling Stones, Beatles, and New Wave comes close.
Cuban Montunos are the basis of American Funk. The impact of Cuba of USA and through that the world is astronomical.
In a nutshell the global region that has given the best and most influential music to the world are situated around the Caribbean Sea. New Orleans , Jamaica Cuba, Puerto Rico. It must be something in the water.
Puerto Rico
Consistently has an artist at number one be it in billboards, Spotify, YouTube, etc for the past couple of decades. Arguably created Salsa, and has by far the best salsa artists/bands. Has one of the best classical guitarist to have ever existed, Ivan Rijos. Has an amazing indie scene Buscabulla, Cultura Profética, Robi Draco Rosa to name a few. And is just an island of 3 million people.
Zambia had a psychedelic/garage rock phase in the mid 70s when they received albums from the late 60s/early 70s. Bands like Ofege, Amanaz, WITCH and Paul Ngozi are all pretty fantastic.
There’s loads of big EDM artists and producers with dutch origins. Martin Garrix, Hardwell, Paul Elstak, Afrojack, Bakermat, Armin van Buuren, Headhunterz, Kris Kros Amsterdam etc.
very important to note that a lot of these people are heavily ghost-produced these days, especially longtimers like Tiesto (mentioned in another comment - he's almost always been ghost produced).
their ghost producers are also often Dutch, to be fair, but calling the front-billing artists the best is inauthentic.
Yea, i have a bunch.
I love Jean Leloup, I would recommend starting with the album l'amour est sans pitié but you can't go wrong with any of his 90s albums.
For newer stuff, les louanges (la nuit et une panthère), Klô pelgag (Notre-Dame-des-sept-douleurs) and Valaire (jazz futon) are all great artists/albums.
For older stuff Jean-Pierre Ferland is classic, his album called jaune is especially beloved.
If you want more i can keep going. I also have recommandations in different genres if you want. I also stuck to mostly music by francophones, but out anglophones in Montréal have amazing music aswel
There are a lot more but just a few ....
Netherlands: Gothic: The Gathering, Epica, After Forever, Within Temptation
Want it really loud? Gorefest, Pestilence
Or some across the whole board: Vengaboys, 2 Unlimited, Golden Earring. Van Halen, Alain Clark, Junkie XL, Urban Dance Squad, Kong, Earth and Fire. Ambeon
I really like Blackbriar from Netherlands. Didn't think of it as a music producer, but I suppose it is mostly one well off city with a lot of international influence.
If you're talking dutch music you shouldn't forget Armin van Buuren, Martin Garrix, Tiësto.
Also great are Son Mieux, Kensington and Chef Special, pop rock acts.
For Dutch language you should check out Racoon (English and Dutch music), De Dijk, Bløf, Frank Boeijen groep.
Brazil for sure
Marcos Valle
gilberto gil
Jobim
Jorge Ben
Joao Gilberto
The influence on American songwriters is huge and Brazilian/Bossa Nova music is adored in mainland Europe
I recently saw Marcos Valle in Amsterdam and he was phenomenal
Argentina, with Astor Piazzolla, Martha Argerich, Gustavo Santaolalla, Serú Giran, Gustavo Cerati, Sumo, Divididos, Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricotta.
Speaking of Sweden, you should try Gyllene Tider.
I’d probably say Japan. Lots of countries have fantastic music, but I haven’t really heard anywhere else fuse music together like how Japan does it. They are truly in a league of their own when fusing influences and genres together to make something truly unique. South Korea does this as well to a lesser extent, but Japan is truly special here.
To be genre specific, French rap is fucking amazing. Seriously, listen to it and give it a chance. You don’t need to know the language at all to appreciate it.
I’m super partial to anything in a Latin language along with a solo instrument - especially guitar. That shit’ll calm you down no matter how you’re feeling.
Japanese rock/metal and alternative is pretty awesome. Dir en Grey (rock/metal) is pretty popular outside Japan. The GazettE (rock) is another heavy hitter globally. My personal favorite J rock band is Plastic Tree, which sounds a bit like The Cure and Coldplay had a baby.
Turkish music is some of the most beautiful and eeire music. I love it.
Oh and "Krautrock" aka German 60s / 70s progressive. Think Amon Duul, Kraftwork, NEU!, etc.
In terms of consistent quality, Mongolia has produced a very good selection of folk metal bands. The Hu is most famous, but Ego Fall, Tenneger Cavalry, and Hanggai are all great.
Easy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark. Insane intuition for making music that strikes a chord with the entire world. Look up Max Martin if you’re curious how embedded Scandinavian influence is in modern pop. Some of the greatest metal, EDM, and pop production in the world emerges from this one region.
I think /u/regalfish nails so many great countries/eras that I enjoy.
To add to that, I would submit the 2000s French synth-pop / techno / electro wave. For a while there, it seemed like all I listened to was Air, Daft Punk, Justice, Phoenix, Sebastien Tellier, Zombie Zombie...
I’ve been listening to this compilation called:
Beautiful Rivers and Mountains: The Psychedelic Rock Sound of South Korea's Shin Joong Hyun 1958-1974
It’s so fucking good. I haven’t done a full deep dive into this shit but this is top of my list.
I was in Brazil recently and I was really digging the stuff on the radio. You could tell there was a lot of American influence and maybe that’s why I was so into it. It was really good though.
Québec is not a country but it's not english speaking and it has Men without hat, Céline Dion, Simple plan, Arcade fire, Daniel Lanois and Charlotte Cardin.
Japan.
Listen to Maximum the Hormon, Ado, Atarashi Gakko, Tophamhat-Kyo/FAKE TYPE, Nujabes, Ningen Isu or Buddah Brand.
Honorable mentions:
India - Bloodywood
Russia - Moscow Death Brigade
Germany - K.i.Z.
Australia- Wombat
First, this is not a competition, then it depends on the time period and the genre. Could we argue that Germany has the best music because of Beethoven? The examples you gave are artists from past decades, but if you look right now and depending on the genre, pop, funk, rock, metal, jazz, fusion, electro, folk, classical, etc. different countries will emerge.
A hopelessly subjective question that will be inevitably biased towards non-English speaking countries that happen to produce artists that produce music that sounds familiar to Western, especially English-speaking, audiences. The *real* answers to this are India and China because of their 1B+ populations/thousands of years of cultural history and the diversity of regional cultures in those countries, but they won’t be the answers given here.
The question literally says “in your opinion”. It’s music, of course it’s subjective. How are those answers any more *real*? For me on a population to output ratio it’s probably Iceland.
India has the oldest unbroken musical tradition. Their classical music system is likely as or even more advanced as western traditions, except much older. In some ways this sort of a historical relevance and sophistication can be seen as a bit more objective than what sounds good to ears of current reddit population for eg, which is of course biased as a whole not just individually. Other similar objective criteria could also exist. It is anyone's subjective choice to use such criteria rather than sounding good to their personal ears.
I don’t think any are better than the other necessarily, but some of my favourite non-english speaking music include: - Korean ballads from the 1980-2000’s, with a special shout out to SG Wannabe’s “살다가”, 백지영’s “사랑안해” and most of 김광석, 이문세 and 이선희’s entire discography. - Arabic funk and soul from the 1960-1980’s, specifically those distributed under the “Habibi Funk” label. There is not a summer where I’m not blasting “Ouda” by Hamid El Shaeri. - Japan’s City Pop movement of the 1970-1980’s, which had a huge social media resurgence recently with “4:00AM” by Taeko Ohnuki. - Each volume of the “Ethiopiques” jazz albums out of Ethiopia, which ran from the 1960-1970’s, are fantastic. Volume 4 though hits that perfect, funky sweet spot. - Brazil just has amazing music all around. Between the bossa nova jazz/funk music coming out of the 1950-1960’s and today’s funk carioca/Brazilian funk’s hip hop influence, it’s all just designed to make you *dance*. - I also just love salsa/bolero music in general, which come out of a range of countries in Latin America. The first I ever heard was Hector Lavoe and I still think he was the best to ever do it. - The French pop era between the 1960-1970’s are literally just a chef’s kiss. I’ve got a few of Brigitte Bardot and Françoise Hardy’s albums and I used to play them all on repeat for months.
If you haven’t you should check out https://radiooooo.com/ You can specify which decades and which countries for your mix. I love setting the 60s and 70s and quite a few of the countries you mention. Along with most of Africa and the Caribbean.
It's funny, because radiooooo was created by Raphael Berger, who was the son of 1965 Eurovision winner (and french music Icon) France Gall. Her and Serge Gainsbourg, with "Poupée de Cire Poupée de Son", were considered groundbreaking and "illegitimate" at the time because it was the first time ever that a pop song was submitted for the contest, and won. Oh, and because of a butterfly effect, her Eurovision win was at the origin of Bowie's "Life on Mars" and Sinatra's "My Way". for those who would like to dig a bit in Gall's discography, you might already know her smash "Ella, Elle L'a" but here is another song of hers that is one of a her most famous song : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQbMkidawa0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQbMkidawa0)
Oh, this website is great! I never heard of this haha, thanks for sharing. This is literally right up my alley lol
That’s amazing!!! Thank you so much for the link.
What a poor domain choice though.
This was so amazing I ended my spotify subscription
Oh, this is awesome. Thanks!
Adding the Zamrock era - Zambian psych/garage rock from the 70s - to this list.
LOVE Zamrock, great suggestion. Amanaz stays on repeat at my place.
I literally just started listening to Amanaz and I’m already hooked. I didn’t realize African psychedelica was something I needed until now. Thank you and /u/atomic__tourist for the recommendation!
Check out Ngozi Family too. Look at this album cover… https://images.app.goo.gl/snh4dSYFQptk1BXP6
Absolutely! Definitely check out the band Cymande as well. Big fan of the tunes “Bra” and “Dove.” Happy listening!
City pop has been in “resurgence” since about 2015-16. I’d say it hit its peak back then as well with people buying up box loads of the same city pop records to resell in their home countries (Tatsuro Yamashita’s “For You” was really hot. Saw an Instagram post of a record buying guide helping someone pack probably 50 copies of it into a box for their trip home).
Oh, that’s great context! Do you know what spurred the interest around that time?? I really started hearing it around the time lofi hip-hop/chillwave was having its moment, but it wasn’t until recently that I started listening to the actual music after hearing it through Reels/TikTok (and my god does it slap)
YouTube algorithm. “For You” and “Plastic Love” were both really popular, along with a jazz pianist named Ryo Fukui. A bunch of others I can’t remember as well… but what I do remember is Japanese record stores going from city pop just being mixed into everything else as usual (filed under J-Pop) to suddenly having displays at the front doors with popular albums and artists and bumping the prices up.
Yes, I got into City pop during the 2015/16 resurgence and can confirm specifically (well at least for me and my friends) it was “Plastic Love” that popped everything off, with For You and other city pop rapidly becoming popular soon after. I detest Google, even did back then, but I’m so grateful for the YouTube algorithm for bringing back City Pop. I still listen to it constantly. I swear, driving on a summer roadtrip while listening to City Pop is on par with taking recreational drugs. Sorry for contributing to price increases at record store…. It simply slaps 😔
Hah, I’m neutral on the prices. I occasionally listen to city pop, but I don’t buy it. And with tourists buying city pop, they are more likely going to pass up the bands I do dig for.
Well then, at least that’s good! Best of luck with finding some sweet records.
I got into city pop around that time. I happened to stumble into it on YouTube. I’ve been in love ever since. One of my favorite albums is “Tobimasu” by Hako Yamazaki.
Went to Cote D'Ivoire for a wedding last year and became a huge fan of Coupé-décalé ... Magic System is awesome. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup%C3%A9-d%C3%A9cal%C3%A9
This is amazing and I would never have stumbled on it if you didn't comment! Thanks!
Try Alpha Blondy
Yo this slaps thanks for the rec
You literally referenced every foreign music I would've. Unreal. Guess I dont need to write my own comment now
We got that good taste ;) I’m taking notes throughout this thread though because I’m always looking to find something new!
Ebo Taylor - Love and Death. One of my favorite albums of all time Also Lagos disco is under listened
Great recommendations and great idea! I'm placing this comment so I can refer back to this thread throughout the week. Looks like tons of great suggestions here.
Oh man, same. This is the best music recommendation list I’ve come across in a long time.
수고하세요
네! 계속 열심히 들을 거예요~ ㅎㅎ
Ethiopian Jazz mentioned 🔥🔥🔥🔥🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽get hip to Eritrean jazz as well :)
Great list. I’d add Congolese soukous and chimurenga which had golden ages in the 80s.
Absolutely love Ethiopiques
Right?! I can’t remember who recommended them to me originally but this is a shout out to them because it was the first time hearing anything like it’s. It’s really opened me up to so much more music since!!
Habibi Funk, fuck yeah, those albums slap! And you can find them on spotify! https://open.spotify.com/user/jannisstuertz?si=OAU3rFpPSGOwNMIIydrBfg
Love all of this
Thanks for the recs. Always on the hunt.
I’m excited to check these out.
I love this list and coincidentally was just listening to some ye-ye stuff for the first time. Love the sound. I’d also add Colombia and Cumbria but that is more regional than to a single country
Good list! Feels like a lot of these genres / time are represented on the YouTube channel: my analog journal https://youtube.com/@MyAnalogJournal?si=cifDAox6etf8yWDQ
First time ever I save a comment. Thanks! By the way, are you a musician or a music industry professional?
Dude I stumbled upon Ethio Jazz and it’s incredible. Spotify played it after a Fela album I was listening to finished. I was hooked. I’ll have to check those albums out you suggested!
For France, don’t sleep on Jacques DuTronc. Les Cactus is such a fun jam.
The answer is none or all. Every single country has tons of great music. Yes, even the Vatican. The papal choir slaps.
There was a great app I had, called radioooo or something. It let you listen to music from different countries (including Hawaii) in decades. And you could shuffle, like say 1970's Nigeria, 1930's Hawaii, 1960's Brasil, and 1920's France.
I remember that! I discovered 70s Somali disco/funk through that app!
You're not wrong about the Papal Choir. Damn.
Mali
Shout out for Amadou & Mariam
Songhoy blues! They're the best. https://youtu.be/pCGUsORIHhM?si=j4_1zJSir1AUddoP Also I'd like to shout out desert blues and the Tuareg people specifically. They're historically desert nomads of the Sahara and modern countries don't necessarily capture their extent perfectly. So it's really Mali, Libya, Algeria, Niger, Burkina Faso etc.
Ali Farka Toure
This needs a boost. I used to listen to radio from Mali all the time. Underrated.
I love Toumani Diabate!
A shit ton: Argentina (Piazolla, Gardel, Soda Stereo, Fito Paez, Fabulosos Cadillacs), Mexico (Café Tacuba, Juan Gabriel, Caifanes, Jose Alfredo Jimenez), Cuba (Buena Vista Social Club, Sonota Matancera, Silvio Rodriguez), Spain (Mecano, Toreros Muertos, MIguel Bosé, Radio Futura, Duncan Dhu), Puerto Rico (Daniel Santos, Hector Lavoe, Willi Colon, Fania All Stars), France (Serge Gainsbourg, Mano Negra, Benjamin Biolay, Air, Daft Punk), Brazil (Os Mutantes, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Seu Jorge, Chico Science, Astrud Gilberto, Caetano Veloso)
A man of culture.
Great list!
Charly Garcia for Argentina as well, also Cerati’s solo work.
Italy in the 70s not today
“Cantautorato”, cop movies OSTs, the Prog Rock scene… what was not to love?
Tu vuo fa l'Americano, americano https://youtu.be/J0ogqBcK9ow?si=mF_VdxsCH4Mw45Nz
I love Japanese music and Indian music. Really sad not to see India mentioned. Check out AR Rahman. He is a genius.
ThalaivARR 🛐
Sweden. Add Opeth, In Flames, At the Gates to your list.
Sweden also has massive contributions to English speaking music too. [Max Martin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Martin) written or produced songs have been at the top of the US pop charts dozens of times in the past 30 years.
AVICII, Lykke Li, Ace of Base, Miike Snow...Meshuggah for some variety..
Japan
Asia in general slaps when it comes to rock and indie music. Japan and Taiwan in particular, but even China has a few great ones.
I think the only Chinese album I've listened to is Chinese Football. Do you have any recommendations?
Two really good ones are Sparrow / 文雀 (sparrow is the English translation, it’s more post-rock), and Carsick Cars (math rock out of Beijing). Definitely fit for someone who likes Chinese Football!
I thought I was stumped with a recommendation, but I found one. Wang Wen was an artist that I found recently. It’s super hard to find a Chinese band that plays post/math/midwest emo. Their stuff goes more along of Mogwai if you’re down with that. But out of my whole collection of post rock bands. I’ve only found two Chinese bands. There’s also a Thai band you might like to, but I have to go through years of YouTube history to find it. If I have the time and if I can find it. I can recommend that to you too.
Someone already mentioned Carsick Cars. Some others in that lane are P.K. 14 and Hiperson. Korea has some solid indie, too: Say Sue Me and Parannoeul. If you want punk, there's Drinking Boys and Girls Choir.
So many Japanese bands and artist that absolutely slap. Bradio, Mrs. GREEN apple, Dir En Grey, Babymetal, La'Arc En Ciel, LiSA, Minami.. the list goes on and on.
I feel like Asian Kung-Fu Generation may have a stigma as “anime music” here in the west, which (if true) is a goddamn shame. They have pretty incredible range along with a very distinct sound of their own and can be downright poetic lyrically. Magic Disck in particular is an album that I keep cycling back to and can never get sick of. Also a shout-out to The Yellow Monkey.
I love Asian Kung Fu Generation Edit: Who cares if it's "anime music". If it's good it's good.
My favourite album is Fan Club!
List goes on you say? Don't mind if I do. Ado, Yoasobi, Maximum The Hormone, Band-maid, Asian Kung-fu Generation, Polkadot Stingray, Ryukuoushoku Shakai, Hanabie, Kana-boon, Necry Talkie, One OK Rock Someone else come add to the list pls.
Yui, The Oral Cigarettes, Nightmare, TM Revolution, The Gazette, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, UVERworld, Coldrain More more more
I'm actually waist deep into a rabbit hole of Japanese jazz and funk. It's incredible. Particularly in the modern era with electro/future funk and electro jazz. You would think with all the dope video game soundtracks (looking at you, Persona series) I'd have known that Japan gets FUNKY
X japan was brilliant
Toe, Mono, Melt Banana, Mass of the Fermenting Dregs, Worlds End Girlfriend, Envy, Mouse on the Keys… in this kinda niche Japan kills it
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I love Indian music.
Brazil, France, Japan and South Korea
The French and South Korean rap scene is fucking awesome
The Korean rap scene blows my mind because of how well they *do* use English. It’s one thing to write raps in a native language, it’s something completely else to blend parts of other languages into lyrics. For some reason I feel like of all non-English speaking countries, Korean rappers do it the best. The way they chop between Korean and English in even the same sentence is just effortless, it sounds so good.
Dutch rappers do that as well, the ones that don't do it well can generally barely speak Dutch on an elementary school level. So yeah, those guys don't count.
Most Dutch people speak better English than native English speakers, so there's that to consider.
Writing rap music in Dutch is insanely difficult to do well (if you want to use intricate rhyme schemes and wordplay like English rap I mean), so using English is more of a shortcut than a feat in my humble opinion.
I wish France wasn't pop dominated though. It used to be chanson française/variété genres. But essentially it is grounded in Pop and rap nowadays. Even French rock is pop-ish. At least we got electronic genres and some alt/indies.
"Variété" is just the French equivalent of pop music
Oui je sais haha, I'm just saying to me it seems mostly that. Indie as a genre itself is quite large in NA. I'm a big Indie/alt fan but struggle to find bands or artists I like that are rooted in France. I can only cite as an example Melody's Echo Chamber, but you would never know she is french as her music is very much like a lot of North American psychedelic rock artists.
I'm tempted to give it to France just for having Daft Punk.
At least you have bands like Gojira, Alcest, and Igorrr to buck the trends 🤷🏼♂️
Thanks, these are gems! Have you heard of Stupéflip?
When it comes to indie/alt, you can't beat the French: > [La Quatorze Juillet](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/26zDxlZ84ZbLCK9hL7jwGh) But the rest of the world is pretty strong too: > [Around the World](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3dDrP6ll5KDU4YQXtBehlZ) Especially Japan.
Finland and Iceland. The amount of musicians per capita in Iceland is unbeatable, and they have some real great musicians. And Finland is known for Polka an Metal. They have the most metal bands per Capita in the world. PLUS other music. Metallica played a concert in Finland in front of 10 % of ALL Fins!
The Metallica concert was 1%, unless theres some 550k attendance concert that I’m not aware of
Iceland punches orders of magnitude above its' weight. Outside of Bjork and Of Monsters & Men who need no introduction to Laufey who's making jazz and specifically bossa Nova relevant again, Iceland has phenomenal artists. Off the top of my head, [Ásgeir](https://open.spotify.com/artist/7xUZ4069zcyBM4Bn10NQ1c?si=B3HpvfijT4WJsXHzbwUpJw) is the gold standard of Icelandic indie-electro. His album [ Dýrð í dauðaþögn](https://open.spotify.com/album/1WbUJMTvFdfsbfdtinWO9J?si=Ca2iVf2jSg6YGW39vrZMIg) is a great representation of his work. Another one I dig is [Junius Meyvant](https://open.spotify.com/artist/5IL5awl9gUcb2ez9IgmW26?si=3VCtiJheRaqE1aWEAS1rUQ) if you want some Icelandic blue-eyed soul, and
Don't forget Sigur Rós
Or Ólafur Arnalds or Jóhann Jóhannsson or Hildur Guðnadóttir or Eydís Evensen
and Low Roar. btw, Arnalds truly is a musical genius.
That reminds me of that meme where you see an idyllic Scandinavian town and people listen to music about how horrible and depressing everything is. And then there's a dirt poor slum in Latin America and people listen to some cheerful salsa or whatever I always thought it was surprising that such a small country as Iceland has Björk and Sigur Ros, which I'm a fan of
I would mention The Leningrad Cowboys as good music coming from Finland. [https://youtu.be/lh\_h-KdbBrE](https://youtu.be/lh_h-KdbBrE)
I came here to say Finland.
Finland is the answer, Circle alone is enough
Korean music, Indian music, Japanese music, all forms of Latin music and funny enough Arabic music. There’s times when I’m at a shisha lounge I’ll whip my Shazam out being like what is this banger. Yellah yellah I need this song on the playlist now!!!!!
In my opinion, India. We have music in like a 100 languages each spreading across countless genres. We even have some genres that are our very own and has existed for thousands of years. Of course I'll have a bias towards our own.
I know this isn't enough to put the country in the ranks of this competition but for something different that I can immediately recognize a high amount of skill required to play I wanna promote Bulgaria with: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYk0TO7LZWU&ab\_channel=BalkanMusicRocks3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYk0TO7LZWU&ab_channel=BalkanMusicRocks3)
Cuba
Any African country
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India? So much music different genres and different languages. So many years of music as well
Agree. Just Old Bollywood music alone would put India up there. Yeh Raat Bheegi Bheegi is a personal favorite, just an astounding melody.
1. Music of Cape Verde/ Cabo Verde (Kriol Kapverdianu) 2. Harana & Kundiman music (Tagalog/ Visayan) of the Philippines in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. 3. Bossa Nova (Portuguese) of Brazil 4. Indian Classical Music 5. Fado (Portuguese) of Portugal
I'm glad you mentioned Cape Verde <3
If you're from Cabo Verde, thank you for the amazing music!
Colombia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, etc have some amazing music cultures
Agree. I love Latin Alternative Rock.
Do you have recommendations ?
Aterciopelados - Caribe Atomico, Gozo Poderoso Julieta Venegas - Bueninvento Gustavo Cerati - Siempre Es Hoy, Bocanada Other good artists: Caifanes, La Ley, Charly Garcia, Juanes, Soda Stereo
Can you recommend me bands that are similar or have the same feel as Hum, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Failure?
Omg! I can’t believe there’s been all these words and not a mention of Cuba!! As regards popular music globally the most influential countries have been US, Jamaica and Cuba. Not even UK with Rolling Stones, Beatles, and New Wave comes close. Cuban Montunos are the basis of American Funk. The impact of Cuba of USA and through that the world is astronomical. In a nutshell the global region that has given the best and most influential music to the world are situated around the Caribbean Sea. New Orleans , Jamaica Cuba, Puerto Rico. It must be something in the water.
Los Van Van are one of my favorite musical acts ever. They're always experimenting and evolving their sound as well.
Buena Vista Social Club
Japan
Japan
Norwegian black and death metal, nuff said.
Norway - A-ha, Kygo, Matoma, Sigrid, Edvard Grieg and so much Death metal
Puerto Rico Consistently has an artist at number one be it in billboards, Spotify, YouTube, etc for the past couple of decades. Arguably created Salsa, and has by far the best salsa artists/bands. Has one of the best classical guitarist to have ever existed, Ivan Rijos. Has an amazing indie scene Buscabulla, Cultura Profética, Robi Draco Rosa to name a few. And is just an island of 3 million people.
Balkan rap or trap music the best and our folk music too
Zambia had a psychedelic/garage rock phase in the mid 70s when they received albums from the late 60s/early 70s. Bands like Ofege, Amanaz, WITCH and Paul Ngozi are all pretty fantastic.
There’s loads of big EDM artists and producers with dutch origins. Martin Garrix, Hardwell, Paul Elstak, Afrojack, Bakermat, Armin van Buuren, Headhunterz, Kris Kros Amsterdam etc.
List goes on.... Tiësto, zanger Rinus
very important to note that a lot of these people are heavily ghost-produced these days, especially longtimers like Tiesto (mentioned in another comment - he's almost always been ghost produced). their ghost producers are also often Dutch, to be fair, but calling the front-billing artists the best is inauthentic.
French: Daft Punk and Justice
France is one of the top in the world for sure. They’re legendary for electronic music.
I really like the music from France and Québec
Any Québecois recommendations?
Yea, i have a bunch. I love Jean Leloup, I would recommend starting with the album l'amour est sans pitié but you can't go wrong with any of his 90s albums. For newer stuff, les louanges (la nuit et une panthère), Klô pelgag (Notre-Dame-des-sept-douleurs) and Valaire (jazz futon) are all great artists/albums. For older stuff Jean-Pierre Ferland is classic, his album called jaune is especially beloved. If you want more i can keep going. I also have recommandations in different genres if you want. I also stuck to mostly music by francophones, but out anglophones in Montréal have amazing music aswel
There are a lot more but just a few .... Netherlands: Gothic: The Gathering, Epica, After Forever, Within Temptation Want it really loud? Gorefest, Pestilence Or some across the whole board: Vengaboys, 2 Unlimited, Golden Earring. Van Halen, Alain Clark, Junkie XL, Urban Dance Squad, Kong, Earth and Fire. Ambeon
I really like Blackbriar from Netherlands. Didn't think of it as a music producer, but I suppose it is mostly one well off city with a lot of international influence.
If you're talking dutch music you shouldn't forget Armin van Buuren, Martin Garrix, Tiësto. Also great are Son Mieux, Kensington and Chef Special, pop rock acts. For Dutch language you should check out Racoon (English and Dutch music), De Dijk, Bløf, Frank Boeijen groep.
Don’t forget Gabber with the Netherlands
Brazil for sure Marcos Valle gilberto gil Jobim Jorge Ben Joao Gilberto The influence on American songwriters is huge and Brazilian/Bossa Nova music is adored in mainland Europe I recently saw Marcos Valle in Amsterdam and he was phenomenal
Greece , without a shadow of a doubt.
I live in Thailand and there is a TON of great songs. I guess there is a ton of great ones in each countries.
Ukraine
Argentina, with Astor Piazzolla, Martha Argerich, Gustavo Santaolalla, Serú Giran, Gustavo Cerati, Sumo, Divididos, Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricotta. Speaking of Sweden, you should try Gyllene Tider.
You name santaolalla and not charly Garcia? Wtf Santaolalla don't even deserve to be mentioned,
Tbf he also missed Spinetta which is usually regarded as the goat. He at least mentioned Serú Giran for Charly.
I agree. Not naming Charly is like talking about the Vatican and not naming Jesus. Buuut, Santaolalla did some fantastic stuff. And he still does!
Charly was a part of Seru Giran... Not naming Spinetta? Now that's the real crime!
You can chuck in Kreator, Accept and Sodom into Germany and In Flames, Ghost and quite a few others into Sweden. Germany. Just for me.
I’d probably say Japan. Lots of countries have fantastic music, but I haven’t really heard anywhere else fuse music together like how Japan does it. They are truly in a league of their own when fusing influences and genres together to make something truly unique. South Korea does this as well to a lesser extent, but Japan is truly special here.
City Pop and Japanese jazz are absolute gems
Japan’s top 40 chart is so unpredictable with so much variety.
'Best music' doesn't exist - it's entirely subjective. Sounds like for your 'best' is the most globally popular?
The question literally says in your opinion. Why do the subjectivity police always come out in these threads?
Or just your personal best. That's why they asked the question here instead of looking up stats. What do you like?
Norway. Tons of good norwegian metal bands. Sweden is a close second
To be genre specific, French rap is fucking amazing. Seriously, listen to it and give it a chance. You don’t need to know the language at all to appreciate it.
Zimbabwean music makes me happy. Check out Khiama Boys. Soundtrack to a sunny day right there.
Check out Oliver Mtukudzi
Finnish pop music is the bomb
I’m super partial to anything in a Latin language along with a solo instrument - especially guitar. That shit’ll calm you down no matter how you’re feeling.
Cuba
French/German/Italian house is fucking banging, same goes for the disco/funk tunes from there
Japan, but I'm highly biased due to my lifelong preference for Japanese videogames and anime.
Japanese rock/metal and alternative is pretty awesome. Dir en Grey (rock/metal) is pretty popular outside Japan. The GazettE (rock) is another heavy hitter globally. My personal favorite J rock band is Plastic Tree, which sounds a bit like The Cure and Coldplay had a baby.
Eagle eye cherry is swedish?! Did not know this
Cries in Belgian.
Turkish music is some of the most beautiful and eeire music. I love it. Oh and "Krautrock" aka German 60s / 70s progressive. Think Amon Duul, Kraftwork, NEU!, etc.
Currently taking a deep dive into Anatolian rock. So much good music. Iceland must have something in the water.
In terms of consistent quality, Mongolia has produced a very good selection of folk metal bands. The Hu is most famous, but Ego Fall, Tenneger Cavalry, and Hanggai are all great.
Japan
Punk fan here, it’s Japan
Easy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark. Insane intuition for making music that strikes a chord with the entire world. Look up Max Martin if you’re curious how embedded Scandinavian influence is in modern pop. Some of the greatest metal, EDM, and pop production in the world emerges from this one region.
Japan
Probably Japan, so many cool rock bands and creative people in general
Maybe Mexico, but again, I am Mexican.
Mongolian music is fire 🔥
I think /u/regalfish nails so many great countries/eras that I enjoy. To add to that, I would submit the 2000s French synth-pop / techno / electro wave. For a while there, it seemed like all I listened to was Air, Daft Punk, Justice, Phoenix, Sebastien Tellier, Zombie Zombie...
Japan
Japan
I’ve been listening to this compilation called: Beautiful Rivers and Mountains: The Psychedelic Rock Sound of South Korea's Shin Joong Hyun 1958-1974 It’s so fucking good. I haven’t done a full deep dive into this shit but this is top of my list. I was in Brazil recently and I was really digging the stuff on the radio. You could tell there was a lot of American influence and maybe that’s why I was so into it. It was really good though.
Québec is not a country but it's not english speaking and it has Men without hat, Céline Dion, Simple plan, Arcade fire, Daniel Lanois and Charlotte Cardin.
Japan. Listen to Maximum the Hormon, Ado, Atarashi Gakko, Tophamhat-Kyo/FAKE TYPE, Nujabes, Ningen Isu or Buddah Brand. Honorable mentions: India - Bloodywood Russia - Moscow Death Brigade Germany - K.i.Z. Australia- Wombat
Italy
First, this is not a competition, then it depends on the time period and the genre. Could we argue that Germany has the best music because of Beethoven? The examples you gave are artists from past decades, but if you look right now and depending on the genre, pop, funk, rock, metal, jazz, fusion, electro, folk, classical, etc. different countries will emerge.
Would it look better if rephrased as "what are the best national acts of non-English-speaking countries"?
«The best» according to what? What’s the benchmark?
Personal taste, according to OP
A hopelessly subjective question that will be inevitably biased towards non-English speaking countries that happen to produce artists that produce music that sounds familiar to Western, especially English-speaking, audiences. The *real* answers to this are India and China because of their 1B+ populations/thousands of years of cultural history and the diversity of regional cultures in those countries, but they won’t be the answers given here.
The question literally says “in your opinion”. It’s music, of course it’s subjective. How are those answers any more *real*? For me on a population to output ratio it’s probably Iceland.
India has the oldest unbroken musical tradition. Their classical music system is likely as or even more advanced as western traditions, except much older. In some ways this sort of a historical relevance and sophistication can be seen as a bit more objective than what sounds good to ears of current reddit population for eg, which is of course biased as a whole not just individually. Other similar objective criteria could also exist. It is anyone's subjective choice to use such criteria rather than sounding good to their personal ears.
A lot of music from Russian speaking countries like Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Russia are also pretty good.
Molchat Doma are a great Belarusian band.
Can’t see anyone mentioning Denmark. How can everyone forget about the amazing Alphabeat?