Ask Lemmy

Tunak Tunak Tun!

https://youtu.be/92ydUdqWE1g

Prisencolinensinainciusol

https://youtu.be/RObuKTeHoxo

Or

The Hu - Wolf Totem

https://youtu.be/jM8dCGIm6yc

Nena 99 Luftbaloons

Manu Chao, Clandestino. The entire album rocks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHBxJdXzVS0

Baba Yetu - Theme for Civilization IV and also the Lord's Prayer in Swahili.

Beethoven's 9th

A little old

Der Kommissar by Falco

Way too much German industrial/goth/IDM/whatever to mention.

人間椅子 (Ningen Isu) - 無情のスキャット (Heartless Scat) -- one I listen to somewhat frequently.

Linda Linda by the Blue Hearts is another.

千本桜 by 和楽器バンド (senbonzakura by wagakibando) is another I like because of the mix of traditional Japanese instruments and style along with modern ones.

Numa numa song aka Dragostea din tei

It's hard to pick just one, so here's some of my top:

• Задушу - Вера Брежнева
• Dødsrå - CC Cowboys
• Iubire - 3rei Sud Est
• Die Schlinge - OOMPH!
• Беги - Роёт
• Meine Gang - Cro
• Papaoutai - Stromae

I could keep going this is just what I thought of immediately.

Bésame Mucho

truly a special and wonderful song when sang with passion

Bloodywood - Gaddaar because it absolutely slaps, or maybe Sardaar Ji because I can't hear it without thinking of this Bhangra group and they make me smile.

Lots of Central / Latin American modern stuff as well like Donde Nací by Orishas, which is also a feel good kind of sound.

Krigsgaldr by Heilung. It's in proto-Germanic if I am not mistaken.

(edit: spelling - my proto-Germanic is a bit rusty)

Recently, anything by Babymetal. They are fucking boss.

Probably Kingslayer

Song 3 by Babymetal and Slaughter to Prevail

We No Speak Americano

99 luftbaloon

Probably several songs from the Katamari series. Hard to pick just one.

"Tequila" performed by The Champs.

Tough question, but the first one that comes to mind is the Carmina Burana by Carl Orff.

Huelga en General - Los Lobos

Also since we're on the topic, shameless plug for !leftymusic@lemmy.world

Basshunter - Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA

Freundeskreis - Esperanto

Japanese: Last regrets (imoutoid's First regrets remix) (2006)
Russian: Murat Nasyrov - Мальчик хочет в Тамбов (1997)
German: Kraftwerk - Computerwelt (1981)
Italian: Giuseppe Verdi, Mario del Monaco - Esultate! (1887, 1954)
French: Joe Dassin - Et si tu n'existais pas (1975)
Spanish: Celia Cruz - Mi Soncito (1956)
Chinese: Zhōu Xuán - Hua yang de nian hua (1947)

I think I have four that are top of my current most played songs that aren't English:

Kaval Sviri, a Bulgarian folk song. Specifically the version performed by KSS, a women's choir in Oslo. It's a cappella, and has some great resolving dissonance. Really a fantastic performance.

Next would be Ka Bohaleng performed by Abel Selaocoe. It has some cool string effects and I like the throat singing technique he uses in this song in particular.

Presidente by Goran Bregović (featuring Gipsy Kings) is a fun upbeat celebratory song.

Altay by Ummet Ozcan, featuring vocals from Otyken is a great song that feels like... Mongolian cyberpunk? If that's a thing. If you can't tell I'm really feeling throat singing multiphonics right now 😆

Mercan Dede - 800

Turkish DJ, with Ceza, a Turkish rapper

https://tidal.com/track/10177936/u

I saw him perform between the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.

Lot of Seegar, oops. Guatanamara is beautiful, and Cielito Lindo. Makes me ashamed of being a filthy one-language-knower.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=41N8EHzZL78. (Cielito Lindo)

The international and Öde an die Freude

I have not a single one, so my apologies for the longish reply ;)

A few of my all time favorites non-English are from French (like me) singers. Older ones, like me: people like Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens, Serge Gainsbourg, Edith Piaf,... And so many more. I'm nearing my 60s and I've been listening to some of them since I was a very young boy, aged 7 or 8, on my parent's HiFi (who also introduced me to classical music, my absolute favorite type of music).

What follow is anything but a full list of my favorites. It's a very limited selection among those I consider my lifelong companions:

• A few from Jacques Brel: Rosa about kids and school and about learning Latin (back then kids used to learn Latin in schools, lyrics are absolutely filled with French word plays so if you're not fluent you probably won't get it but it's a real smart song). Another one Amsterdam of which David Bowie made an excellent English version. Ne me quitte pas, Quand on a que l'amour... but this is merely scratching the surface as he wrote countless amazing songs, funny ones, deep, sad and even absurd ones like, say, Vesoul. One I deeply disliked when I was a kid/young teen and now consider one of his greatest song: Les marquises.
• Brassens: La mauvaise réputation, his Chanson pour l'auvergnat ou encore Le temps ne fait rien à l'affaire (about being a moron, at any age ;) or (probably considered NSFW in our so modern days) Le gorille. To be honest, I don't know many of his songs I'm not a fan of.
• Gainsbourg: Je suis venu te dire que je m'en vais, La chason de Prévert, or (NSFW) Je t'aime, moi non plus (a huge slap in the face the first time I listened to it, and still an amazing song all those years later imho).
• A few other French singers in no order: Barbara L'aigle noir, Yves Simon, whose best know song was probably the title song for the eponymous movie Diabolo menthe but he wrote quite a few popular songs like say, Au pays des merveilles, Juliette. William Sheller Un homme heureux or his Je cours tout seul (Sheller is an incredible song writer), Alain Souchon J'ai 10 ans, Sous les jupes des filles. Niagara La ville dort or Je dois m'en aller. As a teen barely younger than the singer, Muriel Moreno, back then I was secretly (from my girlfriend at least) in love with her and I could not imagine nay one moving or looking at me more... sensually.
• And a last one but certainly not the least important singer: Gérard Manset: Il voyage en solitaire "Mais il est seul, un jour l'amour l'a quitté/s'en est allé faire un tour de l'autre côté/d'une vie où y avait pas de place pour se garer".
• There are so many more!

If anyone has managed to reach that point, listening to all the songs, and is wondering: yes, I also listen to much more contemporary French (and non French) artists. In many various genres.

French language always was and still is about telling a story, about playing with words and with sounds, exactly like poetry. Which is most I care about as a reader/listener. Contemporary French singers do understand that as well as their predecessors did. They just don’t use the same rhythms anymore and don’t share the exact same stories (well, fundamentals remain unchanged: love, hate, sadness, fun,... but how they express it changes), and they’re certainly not less talented! But no matter how much I appreciate the work of some of them, and I do, they are not the singers I grew old with so I would not call them my favorites ;)

... I would even less dare call them favorites in our over-chastised sad times, populated with countless self-entitled white knights always looking for an opportunity to tell everyone else what they should and should not do, what they should like and not like. Because what would those people say of an almost 60 years old dude openly admitting he do enjoy listening to, say, the young (Belgian) singer Angèle? Bruxelles, je t'aime, J'entends or Tout oublier? A bit like, nearing my 60 I enjoy as much as I enjoyed it in my teens, if not more, listening to 16th century French music, or reading 15 and 16th century French poetry too.

De Musica Ligera or Mundo Paralelo.

80s rock vs Frente in Spanish. I can't decide

Patlamaya Devam is the first thing to come to mind for whatever reason.

Ukraine

Rien de Rien and Now We Are Free

Jesucristo García, by Extremoduro

Ca plane pour moi by Plastic Bertrand.

September by Mariya Takeuchi

Kai Tangata by Alien Weaponry