7 Singers Who Released Albums in More Than One Language

Plenty of pop stars add a verse in another language to chase a new audience. Fewer commit to recording whole albums that way. That takes real effort, from pronunciation coaching to rewriting lyrics so they still sound natural.

The seven artists below have all released full . Their reasons differ, from career strategy to cultural pride to plain curiosity.

Shakira

Shakira began her career in Spanish. Albums like Pies Descalzos and Dónde Están los Ladrones? made her a major star across Latin America in the 1990s. In 2001 she released Laundry Service, her first album in English, to introduce herself to listeners in the United States and beyond.

She has moved between languages ever since. She issued Oral Fixation Vol. 2 in 2005, which was largely in English, and she put out Spanish and English versions of the same project around She Wolf in 2009. Her 2024 album Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran returned mostly to Spanish and showed that her biggest hits no longer depend on switching to English.

Celine Dion

Celine Dion grew up in Quebec and made her first records in French. Her early albums were released in French, and she later learned English to reach international audiences. Her English debut, Unison, arrived in 1990.

She never dropped French, though. D’eux, released in 1995 with songs by Jean-Jacques Goldman, is widely reported as the best selling French language album ever. She returned to French for Sans attendre in 2012, while albums such as Courage in 2019 continued her English language work.

Rosalía

Rosalía first drew attention with Los Ángeles in 2017, an album rooted in flamenco and sung in Spanish. El Mal Querer followed in 2018, and Motomami in 2022 pushed her sound toward reggaeton and experimental pop. She is also from Catalonia and has sung in Catalan, notably on songs from her earlier projects.

Her 2025 album Lux took the multilingual idea much further. It features lyrics in a wide range of languages, including Spanish, English, Catalan, French, Italian, German and others. It stands out as a rare major pop release built around language variety rather than just one or two.

Hikaru Utada

Hikaru Utada became a sensation in Japan in 1999 with First Love, one of the best selling albums in Japanese history. Utada was born in New York and is comfortable in both English and Japanese. That background shaped a career split across two markets.

Utada released the English album Exodus in 2004 and followed it with This Is the One in 2009. Later projects returned to Japanese, including Bad Mode in 2022. The artist has also talked about moving between languages as a natural part of writing, not as a marketing choice.

Ricky Martin

Ricky Martin started as a member of the group Menudo and then built a solo career in Spanish. Albums like A Medio Vivir and Vuelve made him a major Latin pop name in the 1990s. His self titled 1999 album, mostly in English, brought the song Livin’ la Vida Loca to a worldwide audience.

He has kept going in both languages over the decades. Music from the Sound of Life and Música + Alma + Sexo included English material, while A Quien Quiera Escuchar in 2015 was a Spanish language record. In more recent years he has leaned on Spanish and Latin rhythms for newer releases.

Charles Aznavour

Charles Aznavour was one of the great French chanson singers, with a career lasting more than seven decades. He also recorded songs in English, Italian, Spanish and German so that his work could travel. His songs were often rerecorded in other languages with adapted lyrics.

That habit helped him build an audience far beyond France. He kept recording and performing until late in life, and he died in 2018 at the age of 94. His multilingual catalog remains a model for artists who want to cross borders without leaving their own style behind.

Nana Mouskouri

Nana Mouskouri was born in Greece and became famous for recordings in Greek, French, English and German. She went on to record in many other languages as well. Her calm delivery and recognizable glasses made her a familiar figure on European television.

She treated language as part of the craft. Whole albums were made for individual markets, so listeners in Germany or France could hear her in their own tongue. Few singers have recorded as broadly across so many countries, and her catalog is often cited as a reference point for multilingual pop.