Why do so many Scandinavian bands sing in English?

Because there are so many more English speakers in the world than Scandinavian language speakers and thus a greater market for their music.

Probably because a large part of the world can understand and speak English; this gives them a bigger market.

Well, I want to say it is because even they can’t pronounce the words for the song in Scandanavian tongues, but I think @janbb and @mrentropy more likely have it right. :-)

Don’t forget Jose Gonzalez

@BarnacleBill I didn’t forget Shout Out Louds, but thank you. I have some listening to do…

I caught that on the second reading of the question. Sorry about that.

I think it’s because they think that most of the people in their most-likely markets speak English.

If their considerations were based strictly on the number of people speaking a specific language, then their primary releases would be in Chinese, because the total population of English-speaking countries is about 440 million, according to my brief perusal.

However, for all I know perhaps they do release a lot of their music in Chinese and/or Hindi, and English is used quite a lot in India.

@Brian1946

True, but most speakers of Chinese are in China. English speakers are all around the world and are probably more likely to buy music like that.

@DominicX

“English speakers are all around the world and are probably buy more music like that.”

I agree, hence my statement about what they perceive to be their most-likely markets.

Let’s not forget that most Scandinavians learn English and German in school from an early age, since nobody expects that people from bigger countries with whom they’ll be working one day will learn their language.

Even the street performers in Copenhagen do their performance in English because so many Northern Europeans are comfortable with the language.

That’s true for a lot of European bands, actually. It makes them more marketable.

I’ll add, though, that recently I’ve been listening to quite a bit of Vaartina, who sings all in Finnish. (Okay, it’s not technically Scandinavian, but still.)

What @janbb and the others have said, of course. Marketing wise is makes sense. But also:

Consider:

Little Darling
It’s been a long cold lonely winter
Little Darling
It’s been years since it’s been clear

Norwegian:

Little Darling
Det har vært en lang kald ensom vinter
Little Darling
Det har gått år siden det har vært klart

@zenele So maybe there was something to the answer I gave then dismissed, “because even they can’t pronounce the words for the song in Scandanavian”

@ETpro Even little 5 year old Chinese kids can pronounce Chinese; but go build a rhyme scheme for popular music. Ever listen to the 2013 year old man? Nugg Nugg Meckelen Metug, Farlucht matuch, metucht fartag. BeanS beans the musiCAL fruits, the more you eats the more you toots. Some languages just don’t, well, let’s try that again – some languages are best suited for opera and less for pop – German and Italian spring to mind. Arabic, for example, works well with their particular noise style of music and unique rythm and not much else.

The Scandinavian languages, even the more melodic Swedish (and I’ve listened to a lot of their music) isn’t what I’d call “commercially” wide-range pleasing to the ear.

All this is IMHO. That is, it’s scientific.

@zenele I take your point.