Why aren't Germans prouder of their music?

iPhones are great. You can download an app that allows you to listen to hundreds of German music stations using your 3G or WiFi connection. This is a great idea for getting into what I like to call "German mode" when doing university work for German, or doing German translations at work, like I do.

There is one flaw in this, however. I have yet to find one of these German radio stations playing music in German. I've heard Robbie Williams, Seal, Kelly Clarkson, Ed Sheeran, Cee Lo Green...you get the idea - only music in English.

Germans are naturally within their right to listen to music in English. After all, it's "cool" for the youth on the continent to speak in and listen to anything in English, but to the entire detriment of their own language?

As well as being one of the traditional heartlands of classical music and famous for its cabaret (more so in the Anglosphere thanks to Liza Minelli), Germany actually produces some excellent contemporary music, albeit influenced by British and American music.

Main genres to come out of Germany in the past few decades include:

• Schlager, similar to 80s style pop ballads (don't deny it - you sing along to "Heaven is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle whenever it comes on the radio)
• Neue Deutsche Welle [New German Wave], which derives from the British punk scene of the 70s and 80s
• Hamburger Schule [Hamburg School], experimental underground pop music,

These days, the German music scene is dominated by simple pop-rock music (my favourite band is Wir Sind Helden), heavier rock and metal music (I think Rammstein are still going) and punk music is also still active (such as Die Ärtze [The Doctors]) and I think most are familiar with the ambassador to German techno and electronic music: Kraftwerk.

Naturally, this kind of stuff isn't played on the radio in the UK because it's all in foreign. We already speak the world's lingua franca so there's no need for us to broadcast the music of other cultures. Whilst I resent this and naturally encourage Brits to learn more languages, I don't anticipate music in the language of our neighbours becoming popular any time soon. In fact, musicians of such countries seem to have to release music in English in order to make it in the world of music. David Guetta, Enrique Iglesias, ABBA...the list goes on.

But what shouldn't happen is that music by artists from a non English-speaking country sung in English becomes so popular in said country that it becomes impossible for an artist releasing music in that country's native language to make it. Otherwise, we are slowly destroying multiculturalism, uniqueness, diversity and everything else that is great about Planet Earth.