Hi all, I am interested in listening to music for more countries around the world. Does anyone have some neat tunes they could recommend that come from their homeland? I prefer rockish and punkish music I guess (stuff with guitars, drums, etc., not too familiar with specific sub-genres)
For context, I have already got a bunch of suggestions from browsing different forums, Reddit, etc. These are some artists that have already been suggested, and could be a basis for what kind of music I like I guess. All of these are Central/Eastern European or Balkan (what can I say, they make great music): BTR and Ahat (Bulgarian), Kino (Russian), Myslovitz, Lady Pank, Kult, and Republika (Polish), Bi-2 (Belarussian), Vennaskond (Estonian), Emir & The Frozen Camels (Bosnian)
Female fronted Doom from Japan:
https://magdaleneju-nen.bandcamp.com/album/jingai-kitan
Female fronted stoner from Italy:
https://frayle.bandcamp.com/album/the-white-witch-ep
First nation’s Yolnu Surf-Rock from Australia (English and Yolnu matha):
https://kingstingray.bandcamp.com/album/king-stingray
Argentinian punk:
I made this “radio” for Brazilian punk, hardcore, crust and thrash, you can skip and download songs there https://brpunkplayer.neocities.org/
海闊天空 - The most popular Cantopop song, I think almost every Cantonese speaker knows it.
Beyond (Hong Kong Band) also has a lot of other cool songs
Alien weaponry is a metal band from New Zealand that has a lot of songs at least partially in Maori
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From Germany Die Ärzte are great and their hit from the 80s or 90s Schrei nach Liebe is pretty much on topic.
Die Toten Hosen are their long time “rival”. Die Ärzte got a pretty good start when they were the first act at a Tote Hosen concert.
Check out the netlabel plainly named ‘Russian Post-punk’ for some of that genre from various post-Soviet countries.
Some more from Eastern Europe:
Russia:
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NOM, e.g. ‘Entertainers choir of the conductors reserve’ — 90s ironic punkish rock, often mocking popular kitsch and consumerism. Now doing some metal-y songs with commentary on current events.
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Nol — 80s-90s bayan folk-punk. Later Fyodor Chistyakov recorded some moody interpretations of classical music on bayan, and currently lives in the US and has released English versions of his old songs (but they suck, because he’s old now and because the songs don’t translate well).
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Mango-Mango — 90s comedy-rock with splendid ska-ish instrumentation
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Nogu Svelo — 90s absurdist rock
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Boney Nem: e.g. ‘Heavy Nagila’ and ‘Chito-grito-margalito’ — mostly parodying cheesy Russian pop music in thrash and death metal. The 2003 album ‘День Победы’ (‘Day of Victory’) is full of bangers.
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Lemonday — acoustic-ish low-fi somewhat absurdist anti-folk. Their best stuff is these old videos on YouTube.
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Inturist — jazz/post-punk fusion
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toska po domu — electronic post-punk (Russian, based in Tel-Aviv)
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My friend tape recorder — very danceable post-punk, oddly lyrical
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margenrot — post-punk/post-industrial with some Arabic motifs
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Beskultura - noise-rock
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Megapolis — retro rock (the linked song is actually a cover of a 1958 song, but with different lyrics)
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Egor Letov / Grazhdanskaya Oborona — 90s psychedelic punk (fun fact: Egor’s brother Sergei Letov is a jazz saxophonist, famously having played in Sergei Kuryokhin’s band)
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Straw Raccoons — 90s absurdist noise-rock/punk
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Zemfira — 2000s inscrutable Russian alt-rock with pretty good instrumentation, afaik all written by the titular lead singer and leader of her band
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Anatoly Nikulin’s ‘Russian Music’ is a bunch of prog-rock/electronic covers of early-20th-century classical music that was influenced by the folk tradition back then
5’nizza — 90s Ukrainian reggae-rock
Воплі Відоплясова — Ukrainian folk-rock
The Hypnotunez — Ukrainian, playing some kinda Balkan-ska/swing
Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra — a rather obvious recommendation for Serbian/Balkan folk-rock
Zdob și Zdub — Moldovan, playing Balkan folk-rock
Đorđe Marjanović was a popular Serbian/Yugoslav singer of the 1960s with rock’n’roll songs among other stuff
Demolition Group — Slovenian post-punkish rock, known for inclusion on the ‘Trans Slovenia Express’ tribute compilation by Laibach
the VAPE (Petr Válek) — hilarious Czech noise
A Hawk & A Hacksaw — USian, but mixing Balkan, Jewish and Turkish music
Elsewhere:
Die Toten Hosen — German bar-punk
Sexy Sushi — French electroclash / synth-punk (picks up with the forth track in particular)
Hedningarna and Värttinä — Nordic folk-rock
Garmarna — Swedish folk-rock
Ulver’s ‘Kveldssanger’ is an acoustic album of sorta Norwegian folk-rock, made between two raw-black-metal albums
Tappi Tíkarrass and Kukl — Icelandic, punk/post-punk bands in which Björk was before The Sugarcubes
(Perhaps check out the 1982 concert/documentary film ‘Rokk í Reykjavík’, from which the Tappi Tíkarrass footage is taken, for more Icelandic post-punk/new-wave bands.)
‘Saigon Rock & Soul: Vietnamese Classic Tracks 1968–1974’ and ‘Cambodian Rocks’ — brilliant compilations of garage-ish rock of Vietnam and Cambodia from back in the day
Pungo — Japanese jazzy post-punk/folk (see ‘Waltz’ in particular)
Garage Chanson Show — Japanese dark-cabaret
Melt-Banana — Japanese noise-rock
Ruins — Japanese prog/noise-rock
Faye Wong — Hong-Kong pop, check out the cover of ‘Dreams’ from the film ‘Chungking Express’
Mammals — Chinese noise/math-rock
Mimilocos — most probably Argentinian, coldwave
Molotov — Mexican rap/alt-rock
You are absolutely incredible. Thank you.
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From the Netherlands: HANGYOUTH . One of their big hits is translated as “You don’t hate mondays, you hate capitalism”.
Leg de Zuidas in de as! 😈
For German you may also want to check out !linkemusik@feddit.org
Swedish punk:
- Björnarna
- De Lyckliga Kompisarna
- Mimikry
- Västerbron
- Asta Kask
- Ebba Grön
- Charta 77
- Lastkaj 14
Forgetting a bunch because it’s 05:00 here and I’m tired, but these are the ones that first come to mind.
Man, listened to a few of these and they are great. I’m not the OP, but i appreciate these recommendations, thanks!
Links to some songs, by no means an exhaustive list, just songs that I enjoy and quickly find on YT.
Ebba Grön:
- Staten Och Kapitalet https://youtu.be/Jy2Ce1Wpl-4
- 800 Grader https://youtu.be/a3UC7dWBDvg
- Die Mauer https://youtu.be/8vI56ZaAr4M
- Alla Visa Män https://youtu.be/MapMGmQQr2s
- Heroinister & Kontorister https://youtu.be/PuwWUrp8ya4
De Lyckliga Kompisarna:
- Ishockeyfrisyr https://youtu.be/oKlyamsftHQ
Docenterna:
- Solgasögon https://youtu.be/fMzqUyb6fnk
German here. I once made a playlist of my favorite german punk songs, 'cuz it’s my main genre. The playlist isn’t up to date anymore because I quit using Spotify, but maybe you can find some cool songs from there!
From Canada, in fact from my city, The Dreadnoughts! Their first three albums are punk gold. (Later stuff, they started having fun and doing polka etc. But whenever I see them in concert, they mostly rock from the first 3.)
If you’re only going to listen to one, Polka’s Not Dead would be my recommendation.
(Full credit to the Real McKenzies for paving the way, Chip would be their most famous song.)
SNFU and Propagandhi.
Kind of fitting the punk attitude and rock-ish in sound is a Finnish band called Ursus Factory. I love them, seen them live a few times, such energy. And it’s just two blokes, nothing more. It’s so surprising they make it work live too, since in studio releases they tend to have some backing tracks, but it just somehow works.
Bio in eng: https://ursusfactory.net/ENG-Bio
Not sure if it’s as good if you can’t pick up the lyrics, but here’s a few of my favorites:
- Sadetakin pintaan: https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=Jrvlp6oSsvE
- Mitä luolassa on: https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=3vAxM_1XHW8
- Oletko siellä: https://lordag.ffm.to/oletkosiella
- Tuun tuun tuun: https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=E0B0mzOxcc4
- Mitä mies mitä äijä: https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=EcbO3SBrxbY
Seriously suggest checking out!
Edit: For tidal users, I made this playlist to quickly check those five out: https://tidal.com/playlist/545e800a-1f64-4a2d-a536-1de2267ec40f
punk scene in Ireland started up the north late 70s with bands like the Undertones, and Stuff Little Fingers In the 90s you’d have Ash (alt rock) and Therapy? (punk/metal crossover) The only current punkish one I can think now are Fontaines DC and Murder Capital
Here are some from France :
- the historical one, Bérurier Noir
- the currently biggest one, Tagada Jones (though those have accusations of misogyny in the people around them i believe, notably their manager or something like that)
- one of my current favorite, POÉSIE ZÉRO
I see Belgium is missing, let me add a few bands / songs off the top of my head:
- The Kids (Fascist Cops)
- Belgian Asociality (Morregen)
- De Mens (En In Gent)
- Channel Zero (Black Fuel)
- SardoniS (Entering The Woods)







