The Most Translated Song from Every Country, Mapped

A few years ago, there was little escaping Taylor Swift’s megahit Blank Space—and its somewhat bizarre line referencing “all the lonely Starbucks lovers.”

As any self-respecting Swiftie will know, of course, the line’s actual lyrics (despite what most of the English-speaking world thought) were “got a long list of ex-lovers.” The “Starbucks lovers” misinterpretation is a mondegreen—a misheard word or phrase from something read or sung.

Misapprehensions like these are especially common in songs sung in unfamiliar languages. The French nursery rhyme Frère Jacques, for instance, is a frequent source of childhood mondegreens, with the line “Sonnez les matines” (“Ring the matins bells”) often mistakenly thought to have something to do with semolina. But if you’re at a loss to know what your favorite foreign-language singer is actually saying, you could always turn to an online translation—and now, a new analysis by language blog WordFinderX has sought to uncover the most translated artists and songs for every country (with available data) in the world.

The analysis’s authors used Lyrics Translate, an online library of song translations, as their starting point, and looked at 627,000 individual translations of over a quarter of a million individual tracks performed by more than 11,000 different artists. Next, they ranked the songs by the number of times they’ve been translated from their original language into a different language; individual artists were ranked by the number of tracks on which they appear (as either the main or a credited performer, on both live and studio tracks) that have been translated into languages other than the one in which it was originally recorded.

1. The Most-Translated Artists
2. The Most Translated Artist From Each Country
3. The Most Translated Songs

The Most-Translated Artists

The analysis showed that Taylor Swift is not only the source of an excellent English-language mondegreen, but is far and away the world’s most translated pop star, with a total of 4954 global language translations. Her fans’ love of her often Easter Egg-packed lyrics have seen no less than 365 of her songs translated into a total of 57 different languages worldwide.

Those stats put Taylor Swift quite some distance in front of her closest rivals, South Korean pop group BTS, who have 239 songs translated just over 4000 times into 59 languages. That makes them by far the world’s most-translated non-English language act, while putting them just ahead of artists like Lana Del Rey (3709 translations) and The Beatles (3156) overall.

The Most Translated Artist From Each Country

Ranking every artist in the analysis by their place of birth allowed the authors to discover who each country’s top pop star was. Swift took the top spot in the states, and worldwide, pop music royalty like Celine Dion, Sia, Rihanna, and Lorde came out on top as the most translated artists in Canada, Australia, Barbados, and New Zealand, respectively. Edith Piaf turned out to be France’s most translated artist. ABBA and Björk unsurprisingly topped the Swedish and Icelandic lists. Ricky Martin came out on top in Puerto Rico, and Enya beat U2 to the title of Ireland’s most translated pop star.

Other countries whose national artist has likewise enjoyed global success include Spain (Julio Iglesias), Colombia (Shakira), and Trinidad and Tobago (Nicki Minaj), while classic pop-reggae superstar Eddy Grant—who had smash hit with Electric Avenue back in 1983—was Guyana’s top artist.

The Most Translated Songs

Switching the data around, however, allowed the authors to see what the world’s most translated songs are—which for several countries turned out not to be the work of the country’s most popular artist. ABBA might be Sweden’s most translated artist, for instance, but it’s Avicii’s hit Wake Me Up that is the No. 1 translated track by a Swedish artist (with 66 different languages). Likewise, Hosier’s Take Me To Church (84 languages) warded off anything by Enya as Ireland’s most translated song, and even Taylor Swift was dethroned by Simon and Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence, which came out on top in the U.S. as the most translated track by an American artist with 97 languages.

Not every country turned out quite so surprisingly, though. The Beatles are the UK’s most translated act, and their classic track Yesterday is the UK’s most translated song (108 languages). Rihanna’s Diamonds topped the Barbadian list (72 languages), while Camila Cabello’s Havana came out on top in Cuba (31 languages), Bob Marley’s Could You Be Loved was Jamaica’s No. 1 (24 languages), and there are 84 different available translations of Sia’s breakout hit Chandelier, making it Australia’s most translated song.  

The most translated song in the world, however, is not an English-language hit at all, but a Brazilian Portuguese one: Michel Teló’s 2011 track Ai Se Eu Te Pego—a No. 1 hit in many countries—has currently been translated into a staggering 131 different languages, ranging from Afrikaans to Welsh.

For more statistics like these, and more information on how the study was conducted and compiled, head across to the WordFinderX blog here.

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