German: Frida Gold - 'Liebe ist meine Rebellion'

Title: 'Love Is My Rebellion'. Frida Gold's only top ten hit includes a sample from Gala's 'Freed From Desire' from 1997.

German: Andreas Bourani - 'Auf anderen Wegen'

Title: 'On Different Paths'. This is Andreas Bourani's second single from his second studio album.

German: Maxim - 'Alles versucht'

Title: 'Tried Everything'. This is from Maxim's fourth album. His early work was reggae inspired.

German: Philipp Dittberner - 'Das ist dein Leben'

Title: 'This Is Your Life'. This is Berliner Philipp Dittberner's second single from his album 2:33.

German: Silbermond - 'Leichtes Gepäck'

Title: 'Light Luggage'. This is Silbermond's first single from their fifth studo album, of the same name:

German: Xavier Naidoo - 'Alles kann besser werden'

Title: 'Everything Can Get Better'. Xavier Naidoo is one of Germany's most successful singers, with 8 albums and several awards to his name. He's already been selected to sing for Germany at 2016's Eurovision Song Contest. Hopefully the German public will pick him a song in German rather than English. UPDATE: German broadcaster NDR has changed its mind and said that Naidoo will not now be going to Eurovision. This seems to be based on people misinterpreting a couple of lines from two of his songs and pretending to be outraged at it when they probably haven't actually listened to the songs in question. Here's one of his biggest hits, from 2009:

German: Silbermond: 'Ja'

Title: 'Yes'. Silbermond formed in Saxony in 2000 and have always sung in the German language. This from 2012 was their sixteenth chart hit:

German: Sarah Connor - 'Bedingungslos'

Title: 'Unconditional'. Sarah Connor was the first artist to have four consecutive singles all reach number one in Germany. She has one of those voices that really brings out the beauty of the German language.

German: Gestört aber GeiL feat. Sebastian Hämer - 'Ich & Du'

Title: 'Me & You'. Sebastian Hämer had three solo hits in 2006 and 2007. This collaboration with Gestört Aber Geil is his big comeback:

German: Gestört aber Geil & Koby Funk feat. Wincent Weiss - 'Unter Meiner Haut'

Title: 'Under My Skin'. Gestört Aber Geil are two DJs from Saxony-Anhalt, who have been producing hits for over five years.

German: MoTrip featuring Lary - 'So wie Du bist'

Title: 'The Way You Are'. MoTrip was born in Lebanon but his parents came to Germany as refugees when he was still a baby. He's had two albums of his own so far and also writes for other German rappers.

German: Glasperlenspiel - 'Geiles Leben'

Title: 'Horny Life'. This is an upbeat, feel good splitting up song. Glasperlenspiel have released three albums since 2011.

German: SDP featuring Adel Tawil - 'Ich will nur dass Du weisst'

Title: 'I Just Want You To Know'. Adel Tawil has a string of hits to his name. He was born in Germany to parents from Egypt and Tunisia. This is his most recent single:

German: Sido featuring Andreas Bourani - 'Astronaut'

Here's the current German number one single, the title of which means, er, 'Astronaut'. Sido is one of the most successful rappers to come out of Germany. He grew up in East Berlin, before his family fled to West Berlin in 1988, when he was just eight years old.

German: Glasperlenspiel - 'Nie Vergessen'

Title: 'Never Forget'. Glasperlenspiel are named after a famous German novel. In 2014 they were invited to re-sing the theme tune to Germany's most popular daily soap opera.

German: Andreas Bourani - 'Auf uns'

Title: 'To Us'. Andreas Bourani has been at the heart of the current wave of successful German language pop music. This got to number one in Germany and Austria in 2014:

German: Sarah Connor - 'Wie schön Du bist'

Title: 'How Beautiful You Are'. Sarah Connor had already had several years of success singing in English when in 2015 she shocked Germany by singing in her mother tongue. Her German language songs have also done extremely well in German speaking countries and of course qualify her for inclusion here at Melody Shoe!

German: Revolverheld - 'Lass Uns Gehen'

The title translates as 'Let's Go'. Revolverheld were once called 'Tsunamikiller' but changed their name after the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004.

German: Helene Fischer - 'Atemlos Durch Die Nacht'

Here's the most downloaded German song of all time! The title translates as 'Breathless Through the Night'. Helene Fischer was born in Russia but her family moved to Germany when she was 4. She has many high-profile music awards to her name including 2 Bambis and 9 Echo awards.

Pilot episode

I love listening to music in various languages, but it's often difficult to know where to look for new music in languages other than English, especially here in the UK where the mainstream media pretends that other languages simply don't exist.

So I've started this blog to give an accessible English language gateway to music in other, mainly European, languages.

It's mainly going to be about the music, so let's start with a sample from across the continent, starting with the great Unheilig from Germany, singing 'Wir sind alle wie eins' (We are all as one) of course in German:

Can you believe the great German public turned down the opportunity to send that to Eurovision? Schockierend! The Eurovision Song Contest and its various national selection processes are a big source of my foreign language music.

Let's go to Sweden, home of mighty Melodifestivalen, arguably bigger than Eurovision itself! Here's living legend Linda Bengtzing singing 'Ta Mig' (Take Me) live at Melfest Semifinal 4 in 2014:

Melodifestivalen is incidentally what inspired the name of this blog. In 2015 there were 7 songs per semi final, with the most hotly tipped song appearing as 'song number 7', which when said in Swedish sounds a bit like 'Melody Shoe'.

To France now, with Black M's huge hit from last year, 'Sur Ma Route' (On My Way):

To round of this first post, here with helpful English subtitles is the Netherlands' Ruth Jacott with 'Vrede' (Peace):

I welcome your comments and suggestions for songs and languages you'd like to see me feature. E-mail me on sotonbus@googlemail.com

Thanks for watching!