Essential Polish Media

Hello everyone,

Can you all help me with this scenario. A friend of mine studying English (American) really wants to know about our media (music, movies, and children's songs & stories/lullabies/etc.). She asked me to tell her what are best five singers in American English music history and their best album and the best five movies as well.

I immediately told her "No problem!". There are a lot of good singers in the English language within the many genres of music in traditional music and the more modern music but if I had to choose only five songs that just about every native American English speakers knows, then I would recommend:

1. Micheal Jackson (best album: History: Past, Present and Future)
2. Bob Marley (best album: Legend - The Best Of Bob Marley And The Wailers)
3. James Brown (best album: 20 All-Time Greatest Hits!)
4. Frank Sinatra (best album: Very Best of)
5. Elvis (best album: Elv1s 30 #1 Hits)

And for movies, I would say:

1. The Godfather I & II
2. Forrest Gump
3. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
4. Disney’s Peter Pan & The Lion King (the original versions)
5. Star Wars

This got me to thinking,
1. what would be the definitive equivalent for the above two lists for the Polish language?? For the music, preferably traditional music since it is very hard to prove modern music is truly a classic if it has yet to prove it's worthiness over time.

american english? whaaaa?
Bob's a proper legend and all but his English was Jamaican not American:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_English

I never tell people to listen to older music/read older books as they'll end up learning terms & phrases that were popular at the time and aren't used now.

I die a little inside everytime I hear someone say "How do you do?"

For Polish though
You can't be Kaliber 44 and some reggae like Wawamuffin, try some Fisz too.
Couldn't tell you about movies, I've only ever seen two Polish movies, one was Sex Mission and I thought it was crap, the other was Kanal which was very good

but not that with Johnny Depp?

oh god I'd hope not, original is miles better.

for a Pole there are many classic polpular songs. It's just you who can't apprioprite it.

1. Czesław Niemen (was the biggest star of 60/70s, as a intresting trivia I can say that even Chemical Brothers seems to know him since they used a sample from his song in "The Test")

2. Kult/Kazik (is the biggest star of Polish political rock music)
3. Czerwone gitary (they were like The Beatles, even Rolling Stone Mag give them some award for song "Kwiaty we włosach")
4. Mieczysław Fogg (very popular among elders - he was almost like Frank Sinatra)
5. Paktofonika (legend of Polish hip-hop, intelligent, philosophical texts)

to name a few but I could add many more song performers and writers

Movies (oh that one is easy):
1. Seksmisja
2. Miś
3. Rewers
4. Cwał
5. Kanał
6. Dekalog
7. Nóż w wodzie
8. Sanatorium pod klepsydrą/Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie (even Quientin Tarantino is a fan of those movies!)

Children songs/lulabies/musical songs:
there was very famous Polish song writer who made many song for pre-war movies which became later famous lulabies/songs for children. One of the most famous is "Ach śpij kochanie" (commonly known as "Kotki dwa"). His name was Henryk Wars

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henryk_Wars



Other I would like to mention is forgotten but recently brought to live by Era commercial a tune for words of Jan Brzechwa - spooky and surrealistic "Rada puchaczy".



As for novels:
Akademia Pana Kleksa
Awantura o Basię
Sierotka Marysia i 7 krasnoludków

Poems of Jan Brzechwa and Julian Tuwim

Music:

1. Dżem (blues - legendary polish band)
2. Kazik/Kult (Rap/rock)
3. Big Cyc (punk rock)
4. Acid Drinkers (trash metal/punk/rock)
5. Behemot (black/death metal - probably best known polish band outside Poland)
6. Vader (same as Behemot)
7. Krzysztof Klenczon (revolutionist in polish rock '70s)
8. Czesław Niemen
9. O.N.A (rock/blues)
10. Hey (grunge/rock - star of '90s)

Movies:
1. Sami swoi
2. Miś
3. Seksmisja
4. Nóż w wodzie
5. Alternatywy 4
6. Rejs
7. Psy
8. Killer
9. Popiół i Diament
10. Rozmowy kontrolowane

TBH, almost every movie of Wajda, Chęciński, Bareja and Machulski can be added to this list.

haha. Rather mock rock...

I was referring to the original, of course. Lol!

@puella - Excellent reply!! Thank you very much for your detailed response! What I am doing right now is searching on Google for the best "greatest hits" albums of the five music artists you mentioned above. I hope I choose the right one since most of the best artists have multiple "greatest hits" albums.


Oh please list maybe 3 or 4 more if you don't mind! But only the best that everyone loves! I hope to one day sing Polish karaoke with my friends and to impress them with classic songs from their language. I think it would really make them happy!

I am going to purchase all of the movies you mentioned on DVD so I can chat with my friends about it.

Does Henryk Wars also have a "greatest hits" album that I can memorize and translate all Polish lullabies/children's songs from? Also, what about the "greatest hits" album of Jan Brzechwa?

I will pass on the novels for now since I am but only a beginner in the Polish language. I will never get to the poetry though since I am not a fan of it even in English. :P

Again, thank you very much, puella!! This is just what I was looking for and it should keep me busy until I translate/memorize all of the lyrics of each of the songs. :D

Oh, hold a minute. I was trying to give you a wide range of genres from newest things to the oldests. Maybe read about those movies before you buy it.

What do you like more? Comedies or dramas?

1. Seksmisja - cult comedy of the 80s, about world without men
2. Miś - cult comedy of the 80s, about life under communism
3. Rewers - new movie, comedy about communism but not cult
4. Cwał - drama about times of early communism and horses, really good movie but not cult, you might like it
5. Kanał - very important movie in History of Polish Cinematography
6. Dekalog - critically aclaimed series of short movies, cult dramas
7. Nóż w wodzie - first movie of Polański
8. Sanatorium pod klepsydrą/Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie - surrealistic movies, cult but difficult

If you want more cult old polish comedies:
1. Kingsajz (the same director as in Seksmisja, surrealistic comedy about... dwarfs)
2. Rejs (cult but I'm afraid that foreigner won't find it funny)
3. Alternatywy 4 (serial about inhabitans of some block of flats...)
4. Sami swoi (comedy about Polish hicks... I'm not sure if foreigners will find it funny)
5. Jak rozpętałem II Wojnę Światową (comedy about clumsy soldier of World War II)


That's difficult if not impossible
I wanted to propose something about singing poetry but it's not good stuff for karaoke.

For karaoke good would be:

1.Dżem

2.Perfect



3.T.love

I do not like comedies unless they are in my native language, English. So between comedies and dramas, then I prefer drama by far. But the movies I enjoy the most are epics and suspense dramas/thrillers. Maybe you asked about comedies and drama since those are the only movie genres that ALL Polish know and love collectively...?

I'm not sure which movies I should buy since you posted that most of them are comedies... :( Foreign language comedies are not good for foreigners since comedies use almost only slang. Even after I learn Polish, comedies are the one area that will still be difficult to understand.

By the way, I am searching for the "greatest hits" album of the artists you wrote above but my Google searches are giving me much. How do I say "greatest hits" in the Polish language? For instance -> "Dżem - Greatest hits" ?

Jak rozpętałem II Wojnę Światową (comedy about clumsy soldier of World War II)
It's epic! Even my Norwegian friends who understand quat of nothing of Polish laughed hard :) (I rougly translated the important parts)

In Poland there are 3 categories of cult movies:

1. COMEDIES (most cult movies belongs to this category)
2. historical movies (Potop, Faraon, Krzyżacy, Ziemia Obiecana etc.)
3. critically acclaimed movies which titles probably every Pole knows but probably has never watched it (Człowiek z żelaza, Człowiek z marmuru, Kanał, Popół i diament, Amator, Dekalog, Trois couleurs trilogy, Nóż w wodzie, Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie, Sanatorium pod klepsydrą). You may check every movie on imdb under Polish name to see if it is intresting for you.

There was a Neorealism in Italy and Nouvelle Vague in France... Poland also had it's own movement in cinematography called - "Kino moralnego niepokoju" (Cinema of moral anxiety) and most of the movies I mentioned in 3rd category falls into that movement.

If I was to suggest you some movies I would give you names some less known movies which are not so arty. A good example is 'Cwał' - not cult movie but really good one and not so intelectual or 'Europa, Europa' by Agnieszka Holland. Earlier I suggested you a movie called 'Rewers' which was released in 2009 and was a kind of fresh air in Polish cinema.

But let's back to cult movies for a one more moment. There are also some cult tv series:
1. Stawka większa niż życie
2. Czterej pancerni i pies
3. Alternatywy 4
4. Zmiennicy

Check wiki; (links are in English)

As for Jan Brzechwa - he was a writer of children peoms not a perforemer of the song. The performer of the song was an actor Andrzej Stockinger. I believe that the group name was Czwórka Szacha but I'm not 100% sure of that. I don't know the name of the album and I doubt if you can buy it.


Certainly not dedicated one. Just look for "Piosenki starego kina", "Przedwojenne szlagiery", "Piosenki przedwojenne" (these are the titles that google has suggested ;). Or... you might find them on Youtube ;)


The best of ,

There is some compilation of Dżem hits called "Złota kolekcja" (but look for 2 cd edition)

That's funny that "greatest hits" translates to "the best of" in Polish. lol!

Thank you for all the assistance, I have plenty to keep me busy translating/memorizing for a while! :)

yeah, in most cases it will be "the best of" but there is no one word reserved for such compilation. So the names of the abums can differ very much.

"Kolekcja" (collection) can be a key word here as well. "Przeboje" (hits) can be useful.

Złota kolekcja = Golden collection
Najlepsze przeboje = The best hits

If you are looking for "the best of t.love" the official compilation of their best songs is named "BesT.love"

If you like I can look for the best albums for you. Just tell me what Internet stores you take orders in.