Most Common Adaption From English

Cast a quick net for more covers of Don't Dream It's Over and found it odd that the (currently) 6th most covered work of 1986 only has one adaption in a different "major" language (namely Italian). While I think I found some Spanish covers, wondered where is the French, German and other languages that I typically see on site for such a popular song.

This got me to further wonder what are the most common languages to which English works are translated? Certainly not scientific, but from personal experience I would guess Spanish, French and Italian, but noticeably fewer in German. Finnish, Dutch, Swedish and Czech may be more common than German, which seems closer in number to Portuguese. Hungarian and Polish seem more common than Romanian, which are rare on site.

Might be interesting to create some way to plug in a root language which would generate some numbers for the most common language translations. Once known, some guesses as to why may be interesting.

"De gustibus non est disputandum" is what my father used to say: it is all a matter of taste, is it not.

I just added the 30th Finnish cover of a French Christmas carol Entre le bœuf et l'âne gris of which we have only one French version on site................... And no other language versions. Why?

Of the 1947 US classic song Golden Earrings we have 138 covers on site, only four foreign adaptations, most of them in the Finnish version Kultaiset korvarenkaat: fifteen! Why is this song so popular there and not elsewhere apart from the US?

Another observation would be that modern pop songs do not get translated in other language as it was usual until the 1960s/1970s. English all over the place, so why a translation.

And as far as Don't Dream It's Over: no use for boring covers of a boring song!

Thom

I can understand the confusion, but I'm discussing the number of languages not the number of covers. For instance if an English song has been adapted to French #1 (one recording), French #2 (one recording), and one Dutch (10 recordings), the final tally would be the work was only translated to French and Dutch.

Why the Dutch fancied that particular song is an interesting and related question, but not the same. (I think it was the number of Finnish covers of "Greenback Dollar" that brought that song to my attention.)

Wouldn't it be interesting to discover that the Bulgarians are fanatics of Swedish works?

Why the hate for "Don't Dream"? Certainly 80s iconic....

This is an obvious and super cool idea, and it can work both ways:

1. English works are most commonly performed in.... French (8.547 performances), Italian (5.421) and Swedish 1.454)
2. English performances have their root work most commonly in... Italian (28.987 performances), Dutch (12.874) and Finnish (1.777).

Numbers fictitious. And of course, insert any language you like where I wrote "English".

This is the kind of trivia stat that people will probably enjoying discovering, I'm all for it!

Usually, I'm very excited about statistics, but here, I don't know... The reason why we have so many finnish covers is simply due to a very active editor and user (no offense to both). I miss Isa btw for her mostly french input and PG for all things Italian.

In general, I hate 80s music, with a few exceptions of course, "Don't Dream" is actually a decent song IMO.

Quote from walt

Usually, I'm very excited about statistics, but here, I don't know... The reason why we have so many finnish covers is simply due to a very active editor and user (no offense to both). I miss Isa btw for her mostly french input and PG for all things Italian.

This applies to all of our site statistics, for instance most covered by year, as things are materially affected by editor/contributor preferences and activity levels.

I've posted this observation elsewhere, but it seems that some nationals (e.g. Finns) are more likely to include original English sub-titles and writing credits in Discogs entries than other nationals (e.g. French), making adaptions easier to spot (by me at least), later confirm, and ultimately submit. If there are some applicable cultural differences here (e.g. the French can be notorious anglophobes), these could also account for disproportionate SHs entries by language.

As long as all site statistics include the appropriate disclaimers, I see no reason why we shouldn't allow leveraging SHS data for any reasonably anticipated inquiry. This is one of the reasons I'd like to see information commonly found in comments moved to dedicated fields, for instance:

https://secondhandsongs.com/topic/75553

Quote from VirileVagabond

Quote from walt

Usually, I'm very excited about statistics, but here, I don't know... The reason why we have so many finnish covers is simply due to a very active editor and user (no offense to both). I miss Isa btw for her mostly french input and PG for all things Italian.

I've posted this observation elsewhere, but it seems that some nationals (e.g. Finns) are more likely to include original English sub-titles and writing credits in Discogs entries than other nationals, making adaptions easier to spot (by me at least), later confirm, and ultimately submit. If there are some applicable cultural differences here (e.g. the French can be notorious anglophobes), these could also account for disproportionate SHs entries by language.

Walt & VV, you both know that I am the active editor for all things Finnish (and Swedish, and Croatian, and Spanish, and Greek and - recently Polish (see Kazik Staszewski 26 times!) and German, and if I feel like it, even Dutch!).

Your problem, VV, is you totally rely on Discogs and the reason why there are so many Finnish and Swedish covers on site is related to the countries' PROs: I relied heavily - for Finnish covers - on Suomen äänitearkisto (Database of The Finnish Institute of Recorded Sounds), which is not active anymore, now www.fono.fi and for Sweden SMDB

The advantage of these databases is that they not just give you the one Finnish cover of a foreign original, but all of them! So in one go you sometimes can enter five or even ten covers of a work. By five or even ten different artists. For Sweden it is easy to find the first recorded performance even if it is in 1927 and not available in Discogs or 45 Worlds - 78RPM.

But this does not work for Germany (GEMA), ISWC (the whole world?), SGAE (Spain) and the situation in The Netherlands, Italy, Norway and Denmark is totally hopeless as far as their PROs are concerned.

Walt, you can mourn the fact that Isa and PG are not very active anymore, but I have seen wonderful entries of French and Italian covers coming from our talented new group of editors

And yes, if I feel like doing some Greek submissions I know where to find the CC, who might provide them...............

And, Discogs, ach ja.................. I think I have another try at Don't Dream It's Over....

Thom

Quote from CarlDennis

Your problem, VV, is you totally rely on Discogs....

It's not a "problem", my observation was expressly related to Discogs and is a function of my work process.

A typical situation is I somehow stumble across a non-English adaption on YT/Discogs or find on site. After researching for my notes, I will scan the other Discogs entries and 45cat for any additional covers/adaptions of personal interest. The tracks with English sub-titles and writing credits are far more likely to be identified than those that do not. Now I am assuming that Finnish and French releases are entered on Discogs by Finns and Franks (sounds like a coastal hot dog stand) respectively, resulting in my conclusion that the Finns are far more likely to include sub-titles and credits than the French.

This also means that I likely have a disproportionate number of Finnish covers in my notes than French, resulting in a similar skew in submissions. Moreover, I will typically do a YT search of just the non-English work/performance title, so a disproportionate number of adaptions on site may get expanded with even more performances.

Returning to "Don't Dream" as an example, at the time I did my fresh look, there was only the one "main" language adaption on site. Searching for "Alta marea" yielded a number of missing Italian covers and (what I believe are) a number of Spanish covers (i.e. same title). Since I had no title in French, German or Dutch, I had nothing to search. Just from my efforts, after all the missing performances are submitted the disproportionate numbers get "worsened". A single French performance on site might have yielded five more. Who knows?

Geez, the Dutch need 6 adaptions of Fire?

Quote from VirileVagabond

Geez, the Dutch need 6 adaptions of Fire?

The 1978 The Pointer Sisters version was a huge hit in The Netherlands and #1 in the charts for four weeks.Does that explain it?

Quote from CarlDennis

Quote from VirileVagabond

Geez, the Dutch need 6 adaptions of Fire?

The 1978 The Pointer Sisters version was a huge hit in The Netherlands and #1 in the charts for four weeks.Does that explain it?

Maybe. Is the number of different Dutch adaptions normally a function of original chart success? In other words, do all non-Dutch songs that were #1 for four weeks have 5-7 different Dutch adaptions? Doe this same trend apply in non-Dutch speaking areas?

"Fire" doesn't seem to have the most complicated lyrics, so there was likely no need for later translators to improve on earlier efforts. "Fire" does seem easy to parody, so perhaps some of those are not "straight" adaptions? Likely just an anomaly.

Quote from walt

Usually, I'm very excited about statistics, but here, I don't know... The reason why we have so many finish covers is simply due to a very active editor and user (no offense to both). I miss Isa btw for her mostly french input and PG for all things Italian.

That's true walt, there is a huge bias, but that was also the case 15 years ago when we published the "most covered artists"... and look where we are now

Also, I think it can add some more entertainment to our website, and maybe even motivate some users to submit some covers in underrepresented languages

Quote from VirileVagabond

As long as all site statistics include the appropriate disclaimers, I see no reason why we shouldn't allow leveraging SHS data for any reasonably anticipated inquiry.

I agree

Quote from VirileVagabond

Geez, the Dutch need 6 adaptions of Fire?

PLEASE! You're lumping together the Dutch and the Flemish! Apologies expected....

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Quote from Bastien

Quote from VirileVagabond

Geez, the Dutch need 6 adaptions of Fire?

PLEASE! You're lumping together the Dutch and the Flemish! Apologies expected....

Tsk Tsk.