Scandinavia is perhaps the most Anglicized region in the world, you know, apart from Great Britain, the US and other Anglo-originals. It’s history, but when it comes to music it raises a question relevant to any Scandinavian band when forming: Should lyrics be in English or the native tongue? Eduardo Alonso from Glue takes a look at the pros and especially cons of either in a Finnish perspective.

Novels are translated and films have subtitles, but songs are widely spread in their original language, even though the listener might not understand a single word of the lyrics. A few weeks ago, I saw Finnish songwriter Janne Westerlund, singer in folk rock band Plain Ride, playing a solo-and-acoustic type of show, and while it was pretty entertaining I must admit that it felt a bit strange to hear that stripped-down reading of songs in English directed at a Finnish audience. I am sure that a big part of the audience did not follow the lyrics and caught its meaning, so the essence of the songs and the show seemed to vanish into thin air.

Anglicisms or English language contamination are worrying trends in the Finnish language. It is pretty common to hear words like ”alright”, ”about” or ”just” in everyday Finnish. Therefore, it is not a surprise that most new bands prefer to sing in English. Yes, we can agree that English is a very musical language and that it fits popular music, but still I cannot help thinking that the capabilities of many songwriters are limited because of the use of a secondary language while the audience will likely miss the meaning of the song. Music becomes superficial and the connection between audience and artists lacks honesty.

Like in any other non-English speaking country, there are two types of artists in Finland; those who sing in English and those doing it in Finnish. Most of the artists pick up their favorite language at the beginning of their career and they hardly ever shift from one to the other. Those who choose to sing in Finnish have more chances of making good sales in Finland as charts are topped by Finnish singing bands, but obviously their chances of exporting their music are clearly diminished.

Sometimes record labels might push artists to sing in Finnish in order to become a profitable product locally. Recently, singer Astrid Swan admitted that she would probably have had better chances of getting a contract earlier in her career if she would have sung in Finnish. Her record sales would have been better, too.

There is just a handful of artists that compose in both languages. One of them is Samae Koskinen who writes in English for his band Sister Flo, but chooses Finnish for his most personal projects and solo albums. He admits that writing in Finnish feels more honest, and indeed his status as a songwriter has clearly been elevated by his albums in Finnish.

The success of a band cannot be translated either. Like movie remakes, translations in music are usually a big failure. Tehosekoitin was one of the most popular bands in Finland during the nineties and early 2000s, but when they translated their songs into English it did not work and that release became just a footnote on their career. A similar thing happened with Apulanta, another big hit in Finland. The punk rock trio pulls huge crowds in Finland, but their efforts in English were not relevant at all. After all, who wants to listen to Finnish music with a strange English accent?

Starting bands must live with this paradox. Finnish will clearly give them chances of good local sales, but it would clearly chop their projection abroad. On the other hand, English would make their music more accessible to foreign audiences, but limiting their writing tools. Is it time to push some language protectionism? Or maybe it would be better to give up and pay for some more English lessons? And does language even matter, when it comes to music?

Let us know what you think…