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Comment by kennend3 | Hacker News Reader

Almost every monday when the "discover weekly" is rebuilt i get new songs which are not in english.

I have no non-english songs in any of my playlists and when they show up on discover weekly i flag them.

I would think that recommending me Spanish/Russian music when my entire collection is english should flag a problem with the system?

Yet week after week at least one song on discover weekly is in some foreign language.

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I would argue for the vast majority of people language is not the primary indicator of what they consider good or bad music. I would assume it doesn't go into the algorithm at all and I certainly would not want it too. I have discovered some really cool music that I'm not even sure what language they are in this way.

I would wish you great success trying to frame an argument that the "vast majority" of people are not primary concerned with language.

It is a bit hard to listen to/enjoy music when you cant understand a single word.

Sure they had "gangnam style" but that was really a more a "one off".

> I certainly would not want it too.

I'd love to know if the majority feel this way.

given there are countless articles such as this: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/How-to-get-...

i would think most find this annoying?

Are you American by chance? Feel free not to answer, but living in the US I was surprised to learn friends in other countries commonly listen to music they can’t understand (most commonly English, sometimes German).

Put things in perspective for me - we really live in a bubble here. I guess Spotify could help reinforce that if that’s what the market wants.

Well i think the statistics are very strongly in my favour because English pop music is very popular all over the world and there are plenty of countries where the majority of people don't speak English (and still listen to English music).

When I was young we (in all the kids my age) listened to plenty of of English music even though we didn't understand anything. And let's not even talk about the plenty of examples of songs in English where even native speakers don't understand the majority of the lyrics.

I think it's likely you're right, although I haven't looked for any hard numbers.

But anecdotally, I only speak English and I listen to lots of Finnish, Swedish, German, and Norwegian music.

I don't know if Spotify just started recommending this stuff based on the few metal bands I knew from those places, but it started recommending other genres too and I really like lots of it. Not sure how I'd find this music otherwise, actually.

Why would you only listen to English songs?

i would think it would be obvious, but here goes - because i only speak/understand English?

For me the lyrics of songs are mostly irrelevant and it doesn't matter if I understand it or not. I usually don't pay attention to to it anyway.

That's exactly why I enjoy listening to foreign pop music: I cannot hear how vapid the lyrics are.

But besides that, great music does not need to spell it out to convey meaning and emotion.

If the appreciation of a foreign song keeps growing, I will eventually look up a few translations. Their mixed interpretation usually only enhances an already enjoyable experience.

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