I think that poppy, happy music sounds better with stupid, poppy, happy lyrics. Listen the pop music and it’s clear that the industry seems to know this too.
When these lyrics are sung by non-native speakers, listeners can pretend the singers don’t know better, even when they almost certainly do. When the same lyrics are delivered by native speakers, it just seems pathetic.
I think all pop lyrics should be sung by non-native speakers.
Originally posted as a diary entry on Kuro5hin. Although Kuro5hin is now defunct, an archived copy of the post includes a series of comments from the Kuro5hin community.