Foreign (Language) Affairs

What language is Rock ’n’ Roll?

While Rock, as a genre, was born in America, the Hall seems to have followed the pattern of the British Empire when choosing its inductees. Which is to say, they are almost all from English-speaking places.

The British Empire spread the English language far and wide. At least 60 countries, when listing their “official languages,” include English. These nations range from the US and Canada in the Western Hemisphere to the UK and Australia in the Eastern one.

And, with the exception of ABBA (who sing in English), that’s who is in the Hall, too: acts from English-speaking countries. The inductees from Jamaica— Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff— also sing in English; Jackson Browne was born in Germany, but sings in English.

Glancing at the list of all the inductees, I see Richie Valens as having a hit in a non-English language: the Spanish “La Bamba.”

Some bands who are in have songs with a line or verse in French: The Beatles’ “Michelle,” Billy Joel’s “You Are the One,” Peter Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers,” ELO’s “Hold on Tight.”

But an act whose primary language is not English? I don’t see any, among the 300+ inductees. Do you?

One could argue that major acts from non-English-speaking places don’t have the same reach and impact as ones that do. But isn’t that a circular argument, a Catch-22?

And is it even true? Half a billion people speak Spanish on Earth. Another 270 million speak French, and some 200 million speak German. They must be listening to some rock music— even if we don’t hear it in the US or UK— that may have gone platinum there? Doesn’t that count?

Forget trees falling in forests; if rock isn’t in English, does it still make a sound?

And sure, one and a half billion people speak English. But there are more than seven billion people in the world.

And yeah, Asian music is based on very different principles and modes than Western music, so rock’s roots aren’t necessarily that deep for a lot of the world. But… they do love rock everywhere, even in Asia; how many albums have the words “at Budokan” in their titles? (It’s a Japanese concert hall).

Yes, we R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. But also, we “keep on rockin’ in the free world.” And rock music has the power to chip away at regimes in other less-free places, too, from Russia to Iran. Look at the history of rock vs. the Berlin Wall or vs. apartheid, for just some examples.

So it would be a powerful statement to induct an act or two (at least) whose main language was not English. It would send several messages: that rock is a global cultural force, that rock is an international “language” beyond words— and that when we rock over here… they echo our sounds right back at us from over there.

And when they do, we listen.

https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2020/03/remember-the-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-japan-thats-ok-no-one-else-does.html

Update: Kraftwerk, born and bred in Germany, was Inducted in 2021; while they debuted within the Rock Era, they were considered an Early Influence on a later genre: electronic music.