that the reason the Beatrix Potter museum in the Lake District is so popular with Japanese tourists is because many of them begin to learn the english language by reading her books.

It also explains why Liverpool is so popular with tourists from Japan and the rest of the world. It's from the music of this city that they learned how to sing in english.

It was my ambition to go to a karaoke bar in Tokyo to hear them singing in english and be able to join in with a (sort of) advantage. Sadly the lure of Mickey Mouse kept me away from the bright lights of such pleasures. One day..."We are the champions...of the world" Queen; big in Japan.

rocks like mad, and is sung in Kobaïan, of course, a language actually designed for Rock.

Been having this argument for Years.Same with Catalan
Rock in Catalan is quite simply the worst thing you've ever heard. Really bad Pop Rock in a Language with tooo many hard consonant sounds at the end of words. The locals will not accept this and listen to stuff you would not believe.
But Rap in french sounds ok. Heavy Metal in German ?
How about the Catalan version of Rage against the Machine then ?
Sorry for ruining your weekend

...recorded German language songs/albums.

(Monty Python also produced two special German-language Flying Circus episodes but that's not really relevant)

This is even weirder than his current insurance ad...

I agree the Scouse accent has encouraged people in overseas countries to learn to speak English largely as a result of the Beatles popularity but a broad Scouse accent is unintelligible to many people from these shores let alone anyone to whome English is a foreign language. Mind you Jan Molby developed a perfect Scouse accent.

We are being a bit western here but putting aside the 1000's of India and chinese pop records made each year it's strange your Danish friends where putting down there local tongues.
I have got into a number of Scandanavia groups over last few years admitly many are sung in english adn based on brtiish indie sound. But the songs in their own languages have a powerful lyrical musicality which has grown on me. So after English and I would say Spanish I think the scandnavian get a bronze medal for pop language!

I think us ethinc northerners have the advantage when it comes to poetry and lyricism. Firstly rounder softer vowels sound better, the tortured long vowels of your average southerner is just unpleasant.
secondly we have wider variety of vocab for every standard english noun or verb there's at least one more in Yorkshire or Lancanshire dialect. I mean in London an alley is an alley where as in the north it could be a ginnel, snicket , ten foot,etc. I sometimes wonder how the average resident of Guildford gets through the day with their couple of dozen range of words!
so inconlusion nicer to listen to with more ways to say same thing.

Thought not.

Music is music - you can't seriously argue one language is better than the other. Otherwise surely Italy would be the home of rock and roll!

Opera seems to work best in languages other than English. It's often a thin line between Opera and Lloyd-Webber when English is used. Opera can tug at the heartstrings and draw an emotional response without the listener necessarily knowing what the words mean.

English is the language of Rock & Roll and has a better chance of bringing out euphoria, rather than melancholy. Perhaps it is the relatively short, simple words. The Eurovision Song Contest had to make a special rule to stop countries singing in English (which most of them preferred to do).

Maybe it's down to the standard of English too, most Swedish are fluent in English and don't have a strong accent like the French or Spanish so it comes over well in lyrics.

Most Swedish rock and indie bands sing in English, Soundtrack of Our Lives, Cardigans, Hives, International Noise Conspiracy - even successful singer songwriters such as Nicolai Dunger and Mattias Hellberg sing in English.

I don't think it is just a commercial decision to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, maybe for a country steeped in rock music it just seems more natural.

Is it not merely that there is not a tradition of rock in other than english? I have many songs in languages as varied as spanish, gaelic and israeli, true, perhaps often identifiable as having a broad ethnic folk injection to their guitar, bass and drums, arguably the bottom line of "rock". A lot of Tex-Mex music is straightforward R'n'R,merely with spanish vocals and, if you're lucky, an accordeon, viz the Texas Tornadoes. Or, admittedly cod french, surely one of the most joyous songs in the world is thsi one by Belgiums finest son:

I dare you not to smile with fond recognition.