While scrolling down on my suggested videos on YouTube, I came across Ville Valo’s “Loud Legacy” documentary by Loudwire. I was intrigued by the video, mostly because Ville Valo is someone who changed the music world for me. Ville Valo is the frontman for the Finnish band, His Infernal Majesty (or HIM for short). It is a rock band, and as fate had it, the first rock band that I was introduced to and fell in love with. Five years later, HIM has somehow moved to the background of my mind with just enough occasional nostalgic episodes to keep them dear to my heart.
As I watched the documentary (which was more of an interview based on his career), I saw that in my suggested videos section there was another LoudWire interview with Valo. I paused the documentary, opened a new tab and then searched for the video. During the interview, it was revealed that Valo did the voice acting for Moto Moto of Madagascar 2, although it was in Finnish. For some odd reason it struck a chord with me. While I was always aware that HIM was Finnish, all their songs were in English. Then, it occurred to me that I had never heard him speak or sing in Finnish. This came as a surprise, because who wouldn’t want to listen to their favorite singers in their native tongue? So intrigued I was that I actually searched for songs by Valo in Finnish. Turns out, he has the same, if not a more, beautiful voice when he sings in his native language. His voice, already deep and smooth, somehow was enhanced when I heard him in a different language.
I have always had a thing for different languages and I had always liked hearing other people speak it. There was a certain kind of wonder in the sounds they made, so unfamiliar to me yet so very exotic. This led me to think about whether or not I would have liked HIM’s music if it was in Finnish. In the present, I would say of course! I listen to k-pop and j-rock and those are languages completely different from my own. However, at the time I discovered HIM I didn’t know of other languages, which is probably why I never bothered to hear Valo sing in Finnish. At that time, I probably wouldn’t have liked it because it was different, too different and I wouldn’t have understood anything they were saying. Back then, that would have been a deal breaker, but today, it is more acceptable to me.
Having these thoughts further emphasized how wonderful language is to me. I fell in love with reading because even though I understood the language, it was the way they were using that made it different and beautiful. I may not know any Korean, Japanese, or Finnish but the sound is just so aesthetically pleasing, that I can’t get over it. I have found myself obsessing over a single phrase or word that because of the way it sounds, is sung, or just feels on the tongue.
This is yet another way that music influences the world: it breaks language barriers that were not needed in the first place. Language when mixed with music or vice versa is so painfully beautiful and we don’t even realize it. We want to understand the lyrics because lyrics are the foundation of the song. But whatever happened to that one high note that is absolutely impossible to reach yet the singer sings it flawlessly? Or that one guitar solo that makes you just want to rock out and play air guitar? That bass? Those drums? That harmony? There is so much more than what initially meets the ear.
There is an entire world of music, language, culture out there that we are not enjoying because we don’t like what we don't understand. However, it’s important to keep an open mind, you never know what you could have missed out on.
