PopMusicWorldWide

Announcement...

2007-05-19T13:48:00.000Z

Dearest all,

I just wanted to write this to let you know that I won’t be updating this blog anymore. Lately I have been dreadfully busy, and it’s very unlikely that things will change in the following months; I will be working all summer, and then next year I will have to devote all of my time to my studies. I simply wouldn’t be able to update as frequently as I’d like to, and probably the quality of my posts would also suffer because of all this. That’s why I’ve decided to stop… (OK, it’s also because I’m a lazy bastard and actually having to do more than what's strictly necessary makes me weep like a baby, but let's not go there! :-D)

HOWEVER, if there is anyone interested in continuing with it, please, I more than gladly invite you to take over, as I’d like this blog to go on. If not, never mind! I will leave everything as it is so that everyone can enjoy this music as much as I do.

Finally, I'd like to thank you all for coming, putting up with my nasty and incessant raping of the English grammar, my embarrassing typographic errors, my senseless rambling and my attempts at 'humour' ;-P. Sorry about that, guys! (the leaving and all the other crazy stuff)

Hope to see you around… If I can make enough time to get online! (the laziness creeping back again! Will I ever change?!?!?! ;-D )

Lots of love and my best wishes to you all,

Rakkas

The Mexican golden girl - Paulina Rubio

2007-05-12T07:44:00.000Z

It is impossible to talk about Thalía without mentioning her nemesis, Paulina Rubio. That's why I have written about her immediately after. Enjoy ;-). Allow me to begin by saying that, unlike Thalía, who is infinitely more popular but sells much less, Paulina Rubio is only second to Shakira in the Spanish speaking world when it comes down to sold units of her albums. Which has a lot of merit when you think that she is also one of the most widely disliked and ridiculed celebrities both in Spain and Latin America: someone whose fame is as sustained by her godawful 'singing' as it is by her relationships with washed up (and much older) pseudo-playboys, hitting paparazzi with anything at hand, keeping her fans waiting for hours before she feels in the mood to start singing and infuriating displays of overall imbecility - of which she is incredibly proud. In short, Paulina Rubio is the prototypical unprofessional, childish, rude, narcissistic, foul-mouthed and destructive rock star, but without the talent and no rock songs! Or else, she is a tabloid dream, and a train wreck waiting to happen.

Paulina was born into an extremely wealthy family in 1971. Her father is one of Mexico's most important television and cinema producers and her mother is well known telenovela 'actress', Susana Dosamantes. Educated in the Centro de Educación Artística, which has no prestige whatsoever, Paulina was selected at the age of ten to be part of the horrible group Timbiriche. She would rapidly become one of the group's most prominent members: in fact, she was the first creature out of it to land a stellar role in a massively successful telenovela. Soon enough, though, her alarming lack of talent was made apparent when her particularly atrocious acting was blamed for the debacle that was the soap opera Pobre Niña Rica/Poor Little Rich Girl. Something scary when you think that telenovela actors in general couldn't be any worse. Thus, Paulina received the distinction of being named the shittiest among the awfully bad. Wonderful start to a golden career!

Thus, Pau (as she likes to be called) saw that acting wasn't her thing, and decided to try her hand at (gulp!) croaking... No, I mean cracking... er, burping? Never mind. Unlike Thalía, whose producers and songwriters drew inspiration out of their arses in order to perpetrate her first horrible albums, Paulina did things properly: she hired renowned hit makers, actual producers (not her drug-addicted, 27-year-older boyfriend - that would come later) and shot nice videos. The results are quite nice, to be honest. Her first record La Chica Dorada/The Golden Girl (1992) was a massive success, as were her second and third, which have some really great songs. Sadly, Paulina became comfortable and produced a disastrous fourth album Planeta Paulina (1996), which is utter shit and could be single handedly responsible for the prohibition of house music.

During those years, Paulina had a relationship with the son of renowned architect Ricard Bofill (who is responsible for some of the most expensive hazard-ridden, crumbling buildings in history), and released nothing at all. A union made in drug and alcohol heaven, they provided endless hours of delightful entertainment with her increasingly bizarre displays of arrogance and his scary displays of unpredictable, psychotic behaviour (which gave Paulina a split forehead during a particularly nasty fight with a television crew - aaaawwww, the very stuff of romance!). After much ridicule and no work, Paulina was unceremoniously dumped by her record company, and started looking for a new music contract.

And that's when things began to look up! Becoming part of the Universal rooster, she hooked up with megastar producer Estéfano, who is mostly responsible for the massive success of her album Paulina (2000), which sold four million copies around the world and spawned seven massive hits. She wisely stayed with him, and even though her English language dull-a-thon début is mostly rubbish and her subsequent albums are very fun but have no substance whatsoever, she's kept being massively successful, constantly hitting the top spot of the Latin Billboard chart and every other Latin American country, as well as Spain, where she is massively popular.

Soon after becoming so successful, Paulina dumped Ricard Bofill Jr, started touring the world and made enemies everywhere thanks to her crazy antics (which include spending whole interviews refusing to talk to her interviewer, bopping up and down like a little girl while wiggling her bony behind and shouting incoherently whenever someone asks her something she doesn't like and, of course, publicly insulting Thalía and recalling how they used to punch each other on stage - classy). In fact, her behaviour is so freakingly weird that people have changed her official title, La Chica Dorada, for La Chica Drogada (The Drugged Up Girl), because the stupid cow is either crazy, mentally retarded or has a severe drug problem... If not all three things at once.

Finally, we come to the end of this heap of endless praise upon the great diva of our generation by doing the usual thing: go to buy her albums at Amazon and enjoy the selection, my dears!

Fire (Sexy Dance)

I love this song. In fact, it's my favourite from Paulina. It also happens to be one of the few decent tracks in her 2002 album Border Girl. Technically, this is a remix from a song from her previous album, but while the original had a more tropical feel to it (which didn't suit it at all) this is pure techno bliss. Whispery vocals that follow an almost inexistent melody are followed by distant echoes that delve into the lovely chorus, which is made out of endless layers of voices pressed together. The second chorus is particularly nice, with Paulina 'belting' a gorgeous melody. Wonderful song! Video.

Y Yo Sigo Aquí/And I'm Still Here

The second massive hit for her 2000 return to form, this very strange and cheerful song has one of the most unappealing melodies imaginable, and seems to have been put together from pieces of other far better songs. However, there's something completely irresistible about it. From the strange beginning, in which we hear a car engine along radio static sounds to the thumping beats and sing-along-ish chorus, this is a wonderful song that has nothing of wonderful about it. Maybe that's why it became so successful: it's like nothing anyone would expect. Video.

Ni Una Sola Palabra/Not Even A Single Word

This fast rocky ballad is simply lovely, and has been a huge hit for her latest album Ananda (2006). A delicate heartbreak song about a woman whose desperate efforts cannot rescue her failing relationship, it is simply great. The melody is gorgeous and the chorus is impossibly catchy - if you can avoid singing along to this, you're made of iron. Video.

Algo Tienes/You've Got Something

This infectious, bouncy song was the first single for Paulina's stupidly titled 2004 album Pau-Latina. A self-proclaimed incursion into pop/rock-folk, it is a rather enjoyable collection of pop confections that have as many pretensions of treascendence as they have hooks: many. It's a worthy album, for all the songs are extremely catchy and well-written (so much so, that Paulina can't ruin them in spite of trying very hard). With whispered, almost inexistent verses, a cheerful rise and explosive choruses, this is a summery that that will surely satisfy everyone. Video.

Nieva, Nieva/It's Snowing, It's Snowing

This is my favourite song from Paulina's first years. The first single and hit from her spectacular second album 24 Kilates/24 Karat Gold, this song is simply adorable, and even though it isn't exactly a ballad, it isn't a danceable either. Gracefully lying between both genres, it beautifully glides away with Paulina's croaky belting. Not strangely at for early Paulina, the lyrics are fantastic, and the melody gorgeous. There's not much more tosay about it, so I'll let you all enjoy it.

The mythical starlet of Mexico - Thalía

2007-05-10T14:08:00.000Z

Thalía is, arguably, Latin America’s most popular female singer. She also happens to be the official queen of telenovelas, and thanks to this her popularity in many parts of the world has been steadily increasing over the years. Philippines and Eastern Europe in particular, have rapidly warmed up to her, so much so that, in 1997, she released a CD specifically for the Philippine market, the massively successful Nandito Ako, and her sales in Poland, Hungary and Russia are impressively high. Thalía has also contributed to maintain her prominent position in the pecking order of the Latin world by becoming involved with a string of influential (and increasingly powerful) men throughout her life. Thanks to her ever more sophisticated public image and an apparently innocent and carefree demeanour in spite of her wealth, her legions of adoring fans can only be happy and admired at Thalía’s slow, but steady, climb to the top of the Spanish-speaking music world… especially when one has in count that she only had a severely limited talent to begin with, and isn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Born into an affluent family on August 26, 1971, Thalía belongs to a short, but very successful tradition of entertainers: her much older sister has been a very popular soap opera actress for decades, and her mother fancied herself a proficient pianist during her youth. Thus it’s normal that, in such an environment, she would start working on television from an early age. In 1984, aged thirteen, Thalía participated in a stage production of Grease along a few members of Timbiriche, then a massively popular (and awfully bad) teenage-oriented band. Thanks to this, she would become a part of the group’s line up, eventually overshadowing most of the other members. I’d like to mention that the people behind Timbiriche ought to be tried for crimes against humanity, since not only was their music shit, but some of the worst Latin pop singers ever have come out of it. By all means, do not buy any of their albums (I bought their greatest hits, and am still regretting it).

However, where does Thalía’s appeal lie? From the very first moment she set foot on a scenario with Timbiriche and started proffering wavering whines (which were often mimicked by her eternal rival and overt enemy, the disastrous, yet much more commercially successful Paulina Rubio), the public became enthralled by the same childish smile, shrill voice and air of Lolita-esque sexuality that she preserves to this day. As her determination to be taken seriously as an artist strengthened more and more, Thalía was seen making concise efforts to improve her hideous voice, to the point when nowadays she can sing live without inspiring laughter. It is thus in that combination of infantile traits, discipline and a certain vulgarity that she carefully injects in her speech and manners that Thalía’s enormous appeal resides. Simply put, she just appears like a salacious, populace-oriented and harmless version of the ideally white next-door-girl that many would like to marry.

Anyway, in 1990 Thalía was popular and well-known enough as to be able to afford leaving the band, which she promptly did to pursue a career as both an actress and singer. While her participating in telenovelas is excusable up to a certain point (let’s face it, they aren’t exactly examples of sublime artistry), her first three albums are simply dismal: I never thought it was possible to find an album where all songs were rubbish, until I heard Thalía’s first ‘musical’ perpetrations. Still, they all became enormous hits. By 1992 she had already become the queen of soap operas (a crown that she hasn’t relinquished yet in spite of the fact that it’s been almost a decade since she last acted in a telenovela), and great changes took place. Her until then lover, producer and manager died (it is rumoured that he died of complications caused by his frequent overuse of drugs, but nothing has ever been clarified regarding this matter), and Thalía’s career took a turn for the better. She signed for EMI and started working with quasi-legendary producer Emilio Estefan, who gave her good material for a change!

From then onwards, Thalía has gone from strength to strength, releasing a string of increasingly good albums with even better singles, which came to an abrupt halt when she decided to cross over into the English-speaking market. Uneasy with the language and given the sort of lifeless songs that only a catatonic person would find exciting, Thalía gracelessly stumbled and fell flat on her face, not before making an embarrassment of herself in what has to be the tackiest and most pretentious wedding in history – from Tommy Mottola’s ridiculous overweight, washed up Il Padrino-styled looks to Thalía having to be held in place by her retinue due to the enormous weight of her absurdly large dress… with a 16 metre long veil (please, just please). Oh, and the wedding took place amidst a legion of screaming fans! That’s classy.

Well, I think that I’ve spoken enough about Thalía. However, I can’t finish this article without recommending you to buy her latest album El Sexto Sentido, which is a simply fabulous return to form, and feature’s Thalía’s best vocals ever. Well, here’s the selection I’ve made, which I hope you’ll like! Her albums are available almost everywhere, but Amazon is always the safest bet.

Mujer Latina/Latin Woman

This song was the biggest hit from Thalía's 1997 enormously successful album Amor A La Mexicana/Love Mexican Style. Far from the surprisingly dull rubbish that people like Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez and Thalía herself would release a few years later to try to break the American market (apparently, the concepts ‘good music’ and ‘crossover’ don’t go well together), this is a simply infectious song that shot to the top of the charts virtually everywhere, including the market which is most reluctant to warm up to Latin American artists, Spain. Evidently, this song did deserve the success it was given, and it is one of Thalía's few truly magical moments. Video.

Piel Morena/Dark Skin

This exceptionally beautiful cumbia is perfectly respectful of the canons set by the most traditional form of this glorious Colombian folk genre, which is surprisingly unpopular in its country of origin, but has found a new home in Central America and especially in Mexico, where it is loved by many. It is also Thalía's one and only classic, in spite of the fact that it has been one of her least successful singles in the Latin Billboard charts, only managing to reach the number 7 position. Still, all of her fans concur with the fact that it is her best effort ever, and it was voted 'best song ever' in a 2003 poll from vastly influential Spanish language channel Univision in the US. Video.

Tú Y Yo/You And Me

The first single for her eponymous 2001 Spanish language album (the second one with this title – be careful, do not buy the first one!!!!) this bouncy soft rock/pop song is one of Thalía’s most original tracks – combining cheerful, fast verses with a somewhat dark and repetitive piano-driven chorus. A truly interesting track (not to mention, incredibly fun to dance to) it’s my favourite from the album! It also happens to be one of Thalía’s most successful singles in the Latin Billboard charts. Video.

Reencarnación/Reincarnation

This spectacular dance song is one of the highlights of Thalía’s most successful album ever, the dramatically uneven Arrasando/Ravaging (2000). Full of spectacular dance numbers, it only contains two atrociously mediocre ballads, and the theme song from her last telenovela, 1999’s Rosalinda. This song in particular creates an oppressive, hazy atmosphere with distant chants and what sounds like whispery incantations, only to flood your speakers with a techno storm after a few seconds. From the booming brass section, the impossibly heavy and fast beat to the hook-saturated melody, everything about this song is perfect. It also has the originality of having two endings: a climatic explosion of trumpets and beats when the dance part of the song ends, and then distant tribal beats accompanying the echo of far away voices. Amazing song. Inexplicably, this wasn’t successful at all as a single. Could the atrocious video be to blame?

Un Sueño Para Dos/A Dream For Two

Finally, I’m offering you this impossibly catchy song from Thalía’s last album, the bizarre Kabbalah-meets-bubblegum-pop pastiche El Sexto Sentido/The Sixth Sense. In spite of the previous description, all I can say is that it is a WONDERFUL album full of impossibly catchy and fast pop-rock and dance songs, with the occasional ballad. This track in particular is a superb mid-tempo dance number with a sinuous melody that keeps playfully swirling around electronic bleeps, only to explode into a rock-tinged chorus. The end is lovely, with Thalía reaching her highest notes in years (although they are pushed to the background by a sea of harmonies). Excellent song.

Sezen Aksu remixes

2007-05-09T10:04:00.000Z

While preparing an overview of Sezen Aksu's thirty-three year long career, I have come across some rather interesting remixes that both attest to her versatility as a composer, and the creativity of the people she works with. While most of these songs have a very strong folk flavour in their original form, they easily become rousing dance anthems when stripped of their percussive ornaments, soaring trumpets and melancholic oud solos. At the heart of the melody, Sezen's genius for fusing traditional and modern, the old with the new, becomes more apparent than ever.

As I've said in my previous post about her, Sezen has always been extremely careful at the moment of crafting songs, giving equal importance to both tradition and modernity, in fusion the old with the new. Her early to late nineties work is particularly interesting, as she travelled across the world several times with each new album! Thus, in amassing this impressive body of work (not to mention, the exceptional task that must have been the research to find each different folk genre), Sezen made Turkish pop one of the most sophisticated movements of the late 20th Century.

The first song I'm presenting you with was my favourite of Sezen's for many years, and is also become my user name! Rakkas is a trumpet, oboe, flutes, tambourines and cymbals whirlwind that enters your body through your ears, and doesn't stop shaking it until the very end of the song, which has one of the coolest instrumental breaks I've ever heard. Not happy with the spectacular original, Sezen comissioned three remixes - two appeared in her 1996 album Düş Bahçeleri/Gardens Of Dream. The first one is a disco-fied techno track that respects the folk roots of the song while giving a club friendly make over to it. The second remix is far more aggressive, combining thumping pre-programmed beats with ever changing tempos and cadences. The final and most recent remix is a mainly instrumental house track that distorts the song's original vocals and instrumentation to suit the frenzied rhythm.

Rakkas/Dancer

Rakkas (Düş Bahçeleri remix 1)

Rakkas (Düş Bahçeleri remix 2)

Rakkas (DJ Onur vs Mezdeke)

The second song and remix are far more recent, from the album Deliveren/Crazy Maker (2000). The original song version of Kahpe Kader starts as a sorroful ballad, only to rapidly morph into a fast, cheerful acoustic folk/rock number that creates a strong contrast with the song's very sad lyrics. The remix is AWESOME! Dressed in grieving chants, distorted vocals and an ever changing spiral of electronic effects set to an earth-shattering dance beat, it simply turns the song into a club jewel!

Kahpe Kader/Perfidious Fate

Kahpe Kader (Dance remix)

Next comes the very special remix of one of the most beautiful and comtemplative tracks fromt he album that made me discover Sezen - 2002's Şarkı Söylemek Lazım/The Songs Must be Sung. Dansöz Dünya is, in its original form, a very slow oud-driven ballad with a few fast spots, something that this remix respects. The beginning is relaxed, with Sezen almost speaking the lyrics. Then, all of a sudden, warbling sounds emerge from nowhere, and a dance beat that becomes increasingly aggressive kicks in. Great song!

Dansöz Dünya/Dancing World (Dance Mix)

Finally, I'd like to offer you a few songs from Sezen's latest proper studio album, 2005's Bahane/Excuse. The first remix is relatively faithful to the original song Şanıma İnanma, but instead of a vertiginously fast Summery pop song, it becomes an R&B-tinged tracks that keeps constantly changing - every single part of the song is different from the rest, yet it all merges into a cohesive unit. Quite special. The three remixes that follow are from the bossa nova and jazz fusion İkili Delilik, a huge hit in late 2005. I personally don't like the original that much, but I do love these remixes. The first one is just a myriad of electronic effects plastered over the song, but the second is far more effective, mainly because it actually merges with the melody.

Şanıma İnanma/Faith In My Own Glory (Kıvanç K Mix)

İkili Delilik/Double Madness (Dance remix)

İkili Delilik (DJ SeO vs Sezen Aksu - Club Mix)

As always, i have to remind you to buy Sezen's albums. Tulumba is a great choice, as is Amazon.

The Hungarian time travellers - Nox

2007-05-07T14:53:00.000Z

Nox are one of Hungary’s most successful groups, and one of the brightest promises of the pop-folk genre – not to mention an extremely special musical venture that has turned the fusion of dance and music into a unique art. Even though their songs are truly excellent and can more than stand on their own without the need of props and distractions, the truly wonderful thing about Nox is that they create an entire spectacle around every single piece of music they make, the purpose of which is to illustrate and expand the message that each song conveys. Thus, everything they do becomes a spectacle in which the human body reflects and deepens the meaning of every spoken word through the exaggerate theatricality of dance. A musical mime show would be the best way to describe what Nox do, even though this definition isn’t complete enough; in fact, it’s quite inaccurate. Let’s just say that their very particular form of art comes from the desire of articulating two very different, rapidly evolving messages into a single body of movement.

The group only has two permanent members: dancer/choreographer Tamás Nagy and singer-cum-occasional dancer Szilvia Peter Szabó. The rest of the musicians and dancers change with relative frequency. However, Nox has a third member of sorts: producer László Rácz, who had the original idea for the group, and not only brought Tamás and Szilvia together, but created the very peculiar fusion of techno, rock and folk that has made them so successful. But let me give you a bit of background information. Tamás is a graduate from Magyar Táncmũvészeti Föiskolára, apparently the most prestigious performing arts school in Hungary. After he graduated, he went on to become a member of the renowned Duna Artist Group of the Ministry of Home Affairs – that is, until Rácz convinced him to leave his job in 2003, to become part of his project.

Szilvia’s case is different. A musical enthusiast, she has had an unconventional upbringing. As far as I’ve been able to understand, she went to a Montessori style school, where she avidly participated in everything that had to do with physical expression, and played handball (her favourite sport). She didn’t seriously contemplate the possibility of becoming a professional singer until she the age of sixteen, when she became the lead vocalist of a band in her native town, the millenary city of Szeged. After completing her baccalaureate studies, she went to Budapest to try her luck, where she was soon after selected to become the vocal part of Nox due to the fact that her voice was ‘pure’, in the sense that it hasn’t been tamed by any formal training. A few months after the group achieved massive success, rumours appeared that Szilvia and Laci Rácz had a relationship, something that they rapidly confirmed… And that’s about the most dramatic thing that can be said about it all! :-S

As you can see, the fact that the two faces of Nox come from such different environments only contributes to make their work more exciting, because it preserves the spontaneity required to inject enthusiasm into their music while maintaining a sense of discipline and calculated showmanship that makes their presentation visually striking. In short, Nox is an intelligently designed product that has commercial appeal and imagination in equal measure. This, however, didn’t help them much when they participated in Eurovision with the superb song Forogj, Világ!, which only achieved a miserable 12th position in the final.

And here’s where we finally reach today’s selection, which I’m sure you will indubitably like. Before anything, though, I have to remind you to buy Nox’s albums! As usual, you can find them in eBay . By the way, as usual, I can’t provide translation for the songs’ titles. Sorry! Any assistance will be appreciated, as always!

Csák Jatssz!

This is one of the best songs from Nox’s fourth album Ragyogás. Driven by a fast, jumping beat and beautiful traditional violin instrumentation, it springs out from a cloud of hushed noises into a catchy, delicate pop song that preserves its energy thanks to aggressive electric guitar touches and an anthemic chorus, the power of which is magnified by the contrast between Szilvia’s very peculiar voice with deep, heavy male voice harmonies. It particularly like the addition of flutes in the middle of the song. Video.

Ébredj Fel!

This aggressive dance track constantly bounces back and forth between styles – it’s almost like a homage to the táncház roots revival movement, set to a stomping dance beat. Running through a maze of instruments that keep popping up again and again once you through that the song had no use for them, the song explodes into a choral type-chorus that’s more reminiscent of an old town ball orchestra than a proper pop song. This lends an enormous freshness to the song, which is simply delightful and oozes cheer! The video is quite interesting, too. It comes from Nox’s second (and most successful album so far) 2003’s Bũvölet.

Túl A Varázshegyen

This extremely sweet and melancholic ballad only has very light touches of folk, which is positive – the light flute instrumentation that appears from time to time, only heightens the beauty of the song as a whole. Conversely, everything is concentrated on creating an ominous atmosphere thanks to the contrast between the heavy, airless rock instrumentation and the light, soft melody, which is sublimated into an ethereal chorus that seems to have difficulty dispersing through the air; so heavy with sadness it seems to be. It’s simply lovely – if you really can’t feel sad with this song, you really, really need to check whether you have a heart at all. Video.

Szállhatsz A Dallal

This is the opening track for Nox’s latest album Örömvölgy (2006). I don’t particularly like it, as it focuses far too much on rock and leaves the electronic overflows that made the group so successful in the past for only a couple of tracks, which aren’t that memorable, really. However, this track is quite interesting, as it seems to have a very strong Irish folk flavour (which came out of fashion at least ten years ago, I know). It is more like something that you would hear in one of the first albums by The Corrs, only far removed from that group’s particular type of bittersweet blandness. It is certainly an interesting track, especially because Szilvia doesn’t rely on harmonies to carry on the choruses, but demonstrates that she can hold her own without being drowned by the orchestra. By the way, it has a very long introduction – the song is just a recording of the falling rain until 30 seconds into it. Then it morphs into a solid rocker. Enjoy!

Hej, Dunárol… (DJ Yano Euro Mix)

This was Nox’s first single, and big hit, from their début album Örökség (2003). As far as I’ve been able to understand, it is a traditional Hungarian song that’s just been set to a dance beat. Which would be nice, were it not for the fact that the melody (which is, indubitably, very beautiful) is always the same, and they just repeat it over and over again. You can listen to the original version in the video, which has, byt he way, a spectacular choreography. I personally prefer this remix, which is simply delightful and extends the song with plenty of instrumental breaks! Great!

Forogj, Világ! (Original Version)

This is the longer original version of the song with which Nox wasted their time and talent in the Eurovision Dumpster Farce. As I’ve already said, they only achieved a laughable twelfth place, which is so outrageous when you think that it was one of that year’s few decent songs along Shiri Maimon’s Ha-Sheket She Nisha’ar (who was robbed of the first place she deserved, without a single doubt). Well, I’ve ranted enough. It is just a fabulous dance/rock song that just explodes with energy and enthusiasm. I particularly like the beginning, which seems to be directly taken from a Mediaeval troubadour’s songbook, only to soar a few moments later thanks to aggressive percussions that overlap in a rapidly changing landscape. Video.

The Portuguese musical alchemist - Dulce Pontes

2007-05-04T10:56:00.000Z

Dulce Pontes is Portugal’s most popular singer, and its most promising star. Comfortably sat in the plush throne that lies at the top of the country’s neo-folk/classical hierarchy, Dulce has sparkled, dazzled, shone and charmed her way into the hearts of thousands of people around the world with her crystal-shattering voice and alluring presence. Either modestly clad in flowing tunics or elaborately wrapped in corsets, veils and panniers like a gigantic gift, La Pontes travels across the world by jumping from scenario to scenario, where she wails about lost loves, fallen empires and the boundless pain of existence with both delicate vulnerability and unstoppable conviction. Dulce Pontes is one hell of a terrific musician, to be clearer.

Born in 1969 to a pharmacist and a homemaker, Dulce lived all her childhood in the tiny town of Montijo, just a few kilometres away from Lisbon. The fact that her town is so close to the capital meant that there were no restrictions to what she could have access to, so at five she was enrolled at the Academia de Música de Santa Cecília, an extremely prestigious school known for the excellency of its integrated educational programme, which makes music an integral part of the students’ lives. There she obviously became a star pupil, noted for her outstanding abilities as a pianist. However, Dulce wasn’t all that happy with piano and, after finishing school, she refused to continue her musical studies. Instead, she became a dancer and actress, often appearing on television series in very secondary roles.

Things changed in 1991, when a 22-year-old Dulce earned the ’honour’ of representing Portugal in Eurovision with the soporific ballad Lusitana Paixão/Lusitanian Passion. Even though she came out eighth (the Eurovision public was VERY generous that day), the song became a huge hit in Portugal for some inexplicable reason, and her musical career started. She first released the album Lusitana, which shouldn’t be included in her discography because it’s simply shit – they couldn’t have gotten so many unbelievably bad and impossibly boring songs even if they had actually gone to hell to find them.

Understandably dissatisfied with the way her career was going, she decided to take matters in her own hands and, after a very successful tour, she released the super album Lágrimas/Tears in 1993. Oh Lord, is it GREAT! If you’re like me and like grandiloquent techno and folk/pop fusions with far too many pretensions of seriousness, you’re gonna love it. If you just happen to like impossibly beautiful music, you’re gonna be crazy about it! The first single to be taken from the album, Canção Do Mar, became a huge World Music hit and was even included in the soundtrack of the blah Richard Gere thriller 'Primal Fear'.

Instead of keeping things as they were, Dulce decided to continue challenging her public by releasing modernized versions of fado classics, going on a trip all around Portugal with a tape recorder to register the many musical traditions within the country and draw inspiration for her 1999 work of art O Primeiro Canto/The First Chant (her best album, without a single doubt), and then going on to become über-musical genius Ennio Morricone’s muse – her latest studio album, 2003’s Focus, was entirely composed of songs written by Ennio, especially adapted to suit her style! Needless to say, everything that Dulce has ever done is simply awesome and ought to be massively popular. Thanks to the quality of her music and voice, she is revered in Portugal and has a very devoted following both in Spain and many European countries.

Finally, after I ask you to go to Amazon and buy her albums, I’d like to talk a little about the comparisons that have been drawn between Dulce and the immortal goddess, the perfect Amália Rodrígues. Dulce has an amazing voice and is incredibly good at what she does. She triumphs gloriously with anything she touches, especially when she sings semi-classical music. HOWEVER, there’s no one, not a single person in the whole world, who can even dream about daring to try and compare themselves to the one, the only, the unique Amália. She was the voice of fado and nobody can ever try to come close to what she was. Not a soul. After this little rant, let’s go with the selection for today, shall we?

Canção Do Mar/Song Of The Sea

The song that turned Dulce into a superstar, this World Music classic marked her first incursion into techno-fied folk. It’s nothing danceable, however. Everything is assembled in such a way that, even though it’s impossible not to notice a touch of technology in the song (there’s not a single live instrument), somehow it all manages to still feel very much traditional; like some sort of sorrowful chant for the electronic era. Which is positive – the song creates a cold, stormy atmosphere that suggests raging waves and freezing mornings under a grey sky. Something interesting is that this is, in reality, a very famous fado called Solidão/Loneliness, which was rescued from oblivion by Amália Rodrígues in the fifties. Unhappy with the sappy lyrics, Dulce changed the message and the structure of the song to create a monumental homage to both the dangers of maritime life and the sorrows of unrequited love and jealousy. Video.

O Infante/The Royal Prince

The first single for Dulce's second album Caminhos/Roads (1996), this delicate, hazy ballad softly waves through your mind like ripples on the surface of a lake. The music was written by Dulce herself, although the lyrics are actually a poem by celebrated writer João Pessoa. An ode to the creation of the world that manages to make reference in a few lines to the enormous importance that maritime expeditions had for the formation of the Portuguese empire, and its ultimate destruction (by a curse of the sea, says the poem) this is simply gorgeous and truly attests to Dulce’s musical sensibility and sophistication.

O’ Mare E Tu/The Sea And You (duet with Andrea Bocelli)

Sung in both Portuguese and Italian, this reposed, melancholic ballad has a very strong, earthy folk flavour, but it slowly builds into a majestic semi-classical monument that highlights the beautiful combination of Dulce’s metallic, watery soprano and Andrea Bocelli’s wavering tenor. The end of the song, when they start singing around each other, is simply awesome! Even though I personally hate Andrea Bocelli (I’ll never understand what it is that Pavarotti saw in him), I have to say that he is particularly effective here, providing a strong contrast in style with Dulce’s parts. Lovely. Here’s the video.

Ondéia (Água)/Undulate (Water)

This is my favourite song by Dulce; it closes her spectacular album O Primeiro Canto. It doesn’t really have any lyrics besides the occasional pronouncing of the word ondéia, but it is simply amazing. I wouldn’t call this song watery (yes, no more water metaphors! At last! ;-) ), but crepuscular. Whenever I hear this song, I like imagine an orange sun setting in the mountains after several days of rain – yes, crepuscular is the best way to describe it. However, there’s nothing sad about it; it’s just beautiful and relaxing, only interrupted by a spectacular display of vocal prowess and range in the mid-section of the song. Simply superb. Live performance.

Φωτιά Και Χιόνι – Fotia Kai Chioni/Fire And Snow (duet with Eleftheria Arvanitaki)

To close this selection I’ve included this song, a duet with Greek elafra superstar Eleftheria Arvanitaki (I’m gonna post about her later in the month and I’ll talk about elafra then, don’t worry). An airy ballad that softly flows through the air in tiny sparkles, it is driven by two endless guitar solos that intertwine and separate constantly in the background of the voices. Dulce proves to be quite adept when singing in the mezzo range, and lends some intensity to Eleftheria’s creamy, soft natural tone. The end is simply gorgeous, and for some reason, makes me quite sad. It's taken from Eleftheria's 2001 album Ekpombi/Emission.

The Bulgarian illusionist - Azis

2007-05-01T18:08:00.000Z

Azis' story is one of success against all odds. A dark-skinned, openly homosexual Gypsy in Eastern Europe, where ethnicity and sexual orientation are still seen as signifiers of race and gender-based social status for many, Azis was born to extreme poverty in 1978 in the medieval town of Sliven. In the beginning, no one could have imagined that, twenty eight years later, he would be declared the 21st greatest Bulgarian of all time on national television (the second living greatest Bulgarian after the unbelievably annoying, petulant and infantile wanker that is soccer player Hristo Stoichkov), and become a sex symbol adored by men and women alike. Azis is Bulgaria’s greatest, brightest, highest-selling musical star, and is largely responsible for the massive popularity of chalga. A genre that was, until before he adopted it, regarded as some sort of cultural aberration – greatly so because it was dominated by clothes-averse pop tarts who, tired of being unable to eat by singing full on folk, tried to break into the mainstream by blending it with techno and dance. Thanks to Azis, chalga has also incorporated hip hop and R&B to its very long list of influences. Needless to say, chalga is a fabulous genre and all its singers have good voices! How could things get any better?!

Azis’ life has been a constant journey in pursuit of a better future, and he came across fame in a somewhat accidental fashion, even if his rise to the top has been vertiginously fast. As a child, his family travelled constantly, finally settling in the town of Kostinbrod, in the outskirts of the Bulgarian capital Sofia. Sadly, sedentary life didn’t bring them any joys and when Azis was eleven, their finances were so precarious that their only option to survive was to move to Germany – apparently, they were forced to travel by cart because they couldn’t afford to even rent a vehicle. Life in Germany was very important for Azis, who began to openly express his fascination with femininity and developed a particularly strong bond with his little sister Matilda, his only companion during the seven years the Boyanovs lived there - his parents, practically illiterate Roma people, had to work all day long to be able to sustain the family and were never home. Free to do as he wished and with the complicity of his sister, Azis (who then still went by his given name Vasil) explored his mother’s wardrobe in endless hours of games, which would eventually provide him with the inspiration needed to become a legend.

At nineteen, Azis returned to Bulgaria and started working in restaurants as an ordinary folk singer. He soon got a record contract, but his everyman image didn’t appeal to audiences, and he pretty much went unnoticed for the next five years. Tired of not going anywhere with his career and having to constantly hide his homosexuality, Azis decided to make a drastic change and give in to his love for outrageous clothes by defiantly adopting an ellaborate and carefully studied gender-bending image – he started wearing wigs, heavy make up and high-heeled boots; changed his sober vocal style for a more melodramatic Middle Eastern wail and openly embraced chalga. Needless to say, people loved it, and he soon became a promising star. After he released the album Tseluvaj Me in 2003, he simply exploded into mega stardom, and hasn’t looked back since. The stocky, brooding man of his early records was substituted by a crazy, outrageously vulgar and completely careless character who says whatever comes to his mind and is as likely to discuss the most embarrassing aspects of his personal life as he is to denounce corruption, racism and discrimination against minorities. Azis is, simply put, larger than life.

When Azis became the blinding star he indubitably is, public reaction was extreme. Many were outraged by his flamboyance and for the fact that a Gypsy would be so outspoken. In fact, to this day, the words peder and pedal (‘faggot’ and a derogatory term to refer to Gypsies) are often mentioned by many of his detractors when they talk about him. However, many others welcomed Azis with open arms, and women in particular became fascinated by him, his wildly dramatic and tacky videos and his very healthy obsession with bodybuilders (HOW could such a thing be unhealthy?! ;-P). In his wake, Azis not only became a public face for the gay and the Roma community, but also gave women, who felt isolated from contemporary culture in Bulgaria, the opportunity to claim chalga as their own voice. Still, Azis has always refused to claim exclusivity for anything, saying that his art is there for everyone to enjoy, and anyone can participate in it – that’s why many men have also welcomed him, and follow his next move with bated breath. Not to mention that many chalga singers have risen to stardom thanks to him. In short, Azis is a pretty fucking great individual.

However, Azis has had to face his fair share of controversy. From being verbally attacked by the homophobes and racists to being accused of exploiting and distorting homosexual identity, being labelled a cultural corruptor because of his singing chalga (which is, in the opinion of Bulgar nationalists, ‘foreign’ music) and being scolded by the government for disrespecting the image of Vasil Levski (the most revered historical figure in Bulgaria – so much so, he was nicknamed “The Apostle Of Freedom”) by building a stage on top of it for a public performance, Azis has had to fend off quite a lot of attacks, but has always managed to come on top in spite of it all. Still, not happy with that, in 2005 he decided to launch his political career with the underrepresented Euro Roma party, but was unanimously ridiculed by everyone when it was discovered that he had no electoral program and wasn’t really concerned about anything besides advocating in favour of gay marriage and settlement rights, as well as subventions, for the Roma people. Since he received a minimal amount of votes during the elections due to the negative publicity generated, he decided to retaliate by travelling to Germany (he has double nationality) to marry his partner, events promoter and fellow Gypsy Niki Kitaetsa – his answer to the scandal that followed was to repeat the ceremony two days later in Bulgaria, on live television! Then he went on to publicly declare that he had undergone penis enlargement surgery and injected collagen into his lips to improve his sex life… What can I say? He knows what his fans expect of him, and gloriously delivers!

Well, enough of my ramblings! This has to be the longest post I’ve ever made and we haven’t even reached the songs! Well, you know the deal, go get his albums before anything. I’ve been able to find the majority of them on eBay. As usually, I've not included the translations because I've no idea of Bulgarian - I will also keep my comments on each song short. I think I must have reached everyone's saturation point by now.

Обичам Те – Obicham Te (DJ BeBo & B-boy-D remix)

I am not sure whether this is a Kazakh folk song or an original composition by Turkish superstar Serdar Ortaç (people have told me very different things), but it’s a beautiful song. Serdar’s version is a wild house number, whereas the one made by Azis (who is very prone to borrow hits from Turkish and Greek singers) is a fast ballad. I very much prefer this remix, which is simply terrific! It incorporates a fabulous bass line and lots of percussion to the original, giving a sense of urgency that invites you to dance while respecting what I presume is the sad message of the ballad. Awesome song, and immensely funny to dance to. Video for the original version.

Ледена Кралица – Ledena Kralitsa (R&B Version)

This song could very well be an international hit. It has a delicate melody that runs at a slower tempo than the very heavy bass line, and suddenly breaks into an explosive chorus that will make you shake your body around. It’s fantastic. Well, I promised I’d keep things short, so here’s the outrageous video.

Искам, Искам – Iskam, Iskam (duet with Malina)

This hip hoppish track is both indescribably and incredibly good – I hate hip hop, but when I heard this, I was hooked! Maybe the fact that it constantly whirls in a hypnotic kaleidoscope of electronic effects and trumpet solos that fill your mind like a curtain of smoke, has something to do with it. The melody is ripe with hooks, and it has one of the best instrumental breaks I’ve ever heard. Azis and superstar Malina’s voices blend fantastically, and I really like the repetitive, slow chorus. The video is a chav’s dream come true!

Не Казвам Ти Стига – Ne Kazvam Ti Stiga

If you saw my previous post on Azis, you have already watched the video for this song. Still, it’s an amazing track – definitely something you’ll like to dance to. Let me remind you to go to watch the video once again. Oh Lord, is it amazing...

Никой Не Може – Nikoj Ne Mozhe (DJ OeM Club Mix)

The original version of this song is a slow, sad ballad led by the cheesiest synthesizer saxophone imaginable, but once you pass that you’ll find a beautiful melody and one of the catchiest choruses imaginable – which is only highlighted by the dance beat of this remix. Oh, and you have to watch the video! It’s the craziest soap opera imaginable, compressed in five plus minutes!

Черните Очи – Chernite Ochi (duet with Malina)

I love this song! It’s pure chalga, with endless layers of percussion, violins and all sorts of techno little touches, even though it’s also a sad ballad. The video is tacky and tawdry enough as to be borderline pornography but, then again, that's who both Malina and Azis are. Nevertheless, I can’t praise this song enough! It has an exceptionally beautiful melody and Azis goes into chromatic-scale wailing overdrive several times! Amazing!

Month's Heading: May, the Celts are on fire while a god is born

2007-05-01T18:05:00.000Z

May is the month in which life is in full blossom, the paralysis of winter is only a vague memory and the fires of summer start to insinuate themselves. Still, the abundant rains feed life’s vibrant flames of green, that constantly rise with their multi-coloured flowery sparkles (yes, I write these things on purpose xD). No, seriously, May is the last month to be well within spring, and it’s one of the most enjoyable parts of the year. The weather is simply wonderful, everything’s green, the air is humid and you just have to feel young! I wish it could be spring half of the year, and then it’d be autumn and everything would be just perfect! (God, I really think I should moderate my alcohol intake – I’m rambling incoherently… Oh wait, it’s not like that’s something strange for me, is it? ;-) ).

In theory, the word may comes from the Greek goddess Maia, a very minor divinity who was deliberately pushed to the background in Hesiod’s registry of the artificial unifying religion, the Theogony. She was one of the seven Pleiades, daughters of the gigantic Titan Atlas and the matronly divinity Pleione – some of the most prominent member’s of Artemis’s terrifying court of evasive nymphs and vengeful virgin hunters. Maia, who was the most beautiful, intelligent and virtuous of the seven sisters, was raped by Zeus in mount Cyllene, which oversees the city of Thesaly. She soon gave birth to a baby while hiding in a grotto, and when to sleep. As soon as she closed her eyes, the baby became a grown man and went on a stealing rampage, but he soon got bored, so he invented the lyre! Thus Hermes, the god of diplomacy, business, politics and thieves (I know what you’re all thinking and no, it’s not irony: it’s only the truth) came to be.

The Romans shaped her into Ops, Maia Maiestas, an earth/spring goddess in whose honour a festival was celebrated on the 1st of May. However, not everyone celebrated fertility in the same way. For the Celts, Bealtaine was a festivity of utmost importance, marking the beginning of the last quarter of the year and the pastoral summer. Since the Celtic calendar was a mixture of solar and lunar references, it’s possible that the date was so important because it marks the exact mid-point between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice: a time when the stars announced that the doors of the Otherworld had opened, and change could take place! The significance of these events has been endlessly celebrated in fairy tales, culminating in Rimskij-Korsakov’s
opus Night On Bald Mountain, the negative and mysterious nature of which attests to the pagan origins of the ritual.

Since I want to do something a bit different this time, I’m going to leave you with the first two movements of Carl Orff’s spectacular music monument to Medieval poetry, Carmina Burana/Songs Of Beuern. It’s impossible not to be marvelled by this music, which is both astonishing and terrifying in its sheer strength and explosive beauty – it also presents the beginning of a special month that will mostly be devoted to artists who have made some sort of work with folk music. Welcome to May! Enjoy the time! :-)

O Fortuna!/Oh, Fortune!

Fortunae Plango Vulnera/I Grieve Because Of The Blows Of Fortune

Shakira Overview Pt 5 - remixes and Beautiful Liar

2007-04-30T21:10:00.000Z

I'd like to finish this overview on a high note. I've harshly criticized Shakira as a false, conniving poetaster who consciously manipulated both the media and her public in order to provide the perfect image as an 'artist'. But the truth is that, no matter how bad her lyrics are or how contrived everything about her is, it's undeniable that she's written and produced some pretty awesome music in the last ten years. Her success is well deserved because, until recently, she truly worked hard to provide us with the best pop music she was capable of creating, and that's much more than we can say about many singers. Shakira is a star, that's undeniable. But, above all, she is a star who shines brightly on her own, and doesn't need to resort to any props nor gimmicks to magnify her image.

So I am presenting you with the latest she's done: some remixes of her past singles, and the shitty Middle Eastern, R&B and blues guitar pastiche Beautiful Liar with that impossibly annoying Diana Ross wannabe, Beyoncé Knowles. See you all next month... er, tomorrow! :-)

Beautiful Liar - duet with Beyoncé

Hips Don't Lie (Rafael Gomes remix)

Don't Bother (Bermudes & Harris Chocolate Binge remix)

Objection (Tango) (Kupper's Deep Future remix)

Ojos Así/Eyes Like These (Memê's 2001 Nights remix)

Moscas En La Casa/Flies Inside The Home (Dance remix)

¿Dónde Estás, Corazón?/Where Are You, Darling? (Dance remix)

The sun eclipses itself (2005-2006) - A Shakira Overview Pt 4

2007-04-29T20:37:00.001Z

Fijación Oral Vol 1 (2005)

After the enormously successful Tour of the Mongoose and the surprisingly high sales for the miserably live record Live and Off The Record, Shakira decided that it was the ideal time to rest in her laurels and produce an album solely for her enjoyment – which is to say that, predictably, it would be a coldly calculated exercise of epplied marketing research. Sadly, this time she decided to suck all the life from the few songs she produced during that period that are worthy of mention.

La Tortura/The Torment (Shaketon remix)

Released in early 2005 and led by the summer-ready single La Tortura, a stacatto-driven reggaeton-ish homage to inaudible pap and ridiculously pretentious lyrics with no meaning whatsoever (oh sorry, I forgot that philosophic conundrums are meant to be cryptically represented!), the Spanish language album Fijación Oral Vol 1 is Shakira’s proud return to her primary market, only there’s far too much pride in it and little of triumph. Simply put, the dullness of most of these songs is jarring, and not even the overabundance of delicately arranged little details and genre fusion could manage to push them beyond elevator music status. The said first single is made even worse by urban pseudo-poetaster supreme Alejandro Sanz’s trademark tuneless growling, of which we are thankfully spared for the rest of the record. Still, things don’t exactly improve from then on - however, tucked in the end of the album there's a remix version does manage to improve on the original considerable.

La Pared/The Wall

Swamped by mid-tempo ballads that start off shakily and go absolutely nowhere, the record does have its bright spots, even though they are so overproduced and clinical that it’s impossible not to long for the hip waving, semi-tone uttering, rock-and-dance bopping Shakira of yesteryear. La Pared, a timid rocker that’s far too short and lacking in the enthusiasm and grit of olden days, manages to successfully combine acoustic instrumentation with eighties’ styled synthesizer touches that give the song, a well-written (for a change!) tale that vividly expresses the need for closeness and assurance of a woman who is in an uncertain relationship, an air of urgency and vibrancy that makes it rather enjoyable. Similarly, the sinuous No gracefully floats across constantly changing tempos and varying degrees of loudness in instrumentation, but tends to fall short of its promise by being soporific in the verses and impossible to hear in the choruses due to all the clutter.

Las De La Intuición/The Ones With The Intuition

Journeys towards techno-fied semi-dance music follow the same pattern, silently imploding in the unclassifiable fiasco Lo Imprescindible and delicately blossoming in Las De La Intuición, a rather pleasant and relaxed dance track that barely manages to keep the listener’s interest with carefully laid little touches, only to surprise with the impossibly catchy chorus, which joyfully rides on wave of techno effects. Similarly, the sixties-inflected Escondite Inglés alternates childishly between soft half-whispered verses and bopping, cheerful choruses that inspire you to get up and jump around the room.

Escondite Inglés/English Hiding Place

Sadly, beyond these two highlights things become insufferably insipid. The album opener En Tus Pupilas ought to be used to treat people who suffer from insomnia – so dull and unmemorable it is that even the slowest Amazonian sloths would find it lethargy-inducing. Things don’t get much better with the faux-bossa nova pastiche Obtener Un Si, which indulgently drones its way through big band-esque winds and violins guided by Shakira’s girlie purrs. Fortunately, she tries to go back to her former self with the marginally enjoyable Día Especial and Día De Enero, which sound like cast offs from her previous records, but at least capture some of her former magic.

Día de Enero/January Day
______________________________________________________________________________________

Oral Fixation Vol 2 (2005)

Considerably better than her much publicized return to her Spanish roots, Oral Fixation Vol. 2 is Shakira’s attempt at boring English audiences to death, and even though she tries with all her might, her wicked songwriters and co-producers don’t let her! Which is not to say that all the material here is good (in fact, most of it is soporific), but at least it is a little removed from the endless droning of her previous effort. Led by the gorgeous Don’t Bother, a tense and bitter rocker that begs to be screamed, yet is given an elegantly catty delivery by Shakira, the album received impressively low sales for a massively publicized record, and required the addition of the impossibly catchy Hips Don’t Lie, a beautiful folk/rock ode to lust at first sight on a dance floor that pushed Shakira right back to her better times: the period between 1998 and 2002.

Don’t Bother

How Do You Do?

Still, some of the record’s songs ooze creativity – the simply adorable How Do You Do? is Shakira’s attempt at being transcendental by criticizing religious fundamentalism in questions addressed to a distant, unfathomable divinity. Led by heavy, sparse percussion and explosive choruses, this simply delicious song is an excellent album opener. Similarly appealing is the album closer, Timor, a track that was censored in Sumatra for its political/protest content, even if it’s only yet another one of Shakira’s attempts at appearing intellectual enough as to cater to her main fan base (because you know, pampered middle class twenty-somethings around the world are politically and socially conscious, in case you hadn’t noticed before). Led by thumping beats and a catchy melody overcrowded with hooks, it is a simply fabulous dance experience.

Hips Don’t Lie (featuring Wyclef Jean)

Hey, You

Sadly, after this the album becomes pretty much lost in Shakira’s overreaching ambition and overall self-indulgence. While the sprawling Animal City is funny in an Adams family sort of way due to its strange, almost infantile melody and downright idiotic lyrics with futile pretensions of social commentary, the Alanis Morissette rip off Costume Makes The Clown is simply disgraceful (it looks like that anorexic Carole King wannabe is the one who’s going to sue Shakira for plagiarising her image this time), and is only saved by its chaotic and shouty chorus. Things do rise above barely-mediocre, though, with the vaudeville-esque rock number Hey, You – a disturbing declaration of love that’s seems to have been written by the average stalker, but does have a sweet, cheerful chorus and engaging atmosphere that’s truly charming.

Timor

Unfortunately, the ballads (Shakira’s Achilles’ tendon) seem to be particularly weak this time, with impossibly dull and murky numbers that start nowhere, and boringly run around in circles to end up in the same place where they started. The melancholy driven Carlos Santana collaboration Illegal is a sedated bolero that endlessly drags over Shakira’s guttural weeping, and has what must be the famed guitarist’s only uninspired and mood-crushing solos. Even though the lyrics do have the extremely witty line ‘you said you would love me until you died/and as far as I know you’re still alive’, that’s about the only thing saveable in the entire song. The boredom factor is taken a thousand notches down in the indescribable The Day And The Time, a song so boring and unmemorable it’s actually nearly impossible to remember anything about it besides its sheer awfulness.

Dreams For Plans

Similarly drag are the dreary snooze fests Something and Your Embrace, which has French lyrics that are meant to elevate it from being sheer shit by adding a touch of cosmopolitan sophistication to it (they don’t serve their purpose very well at all, of course). The only tolerable ballad in the entire record is the soft rocker Dreams For Plans, which actually has a gorgeous chorus and a delicately woven melody that truly manages to reflect the bittersweet melancholy and slight regret in the song’s lyrics. And after coming to the end of this review, I have to remind you to buy her records here.

And the distant star becomes a sun (2001-2004) - A Shakira Overview Pt 3

2007-04-28T10:38:00.000Z

Three years separate Shakira’s flourishing into the mainstream from her explosion into the lucrative international markets with Laundry Service – an album that is, so far, the crown of her career and one of her most accomplished works, if not her best ever. As it happened since the beginning, the high points are impressive: the lead single Whenever, Wherever successfully rides the dying wave of Americanized Latin pop by trading the all too well known prefabricated Salsa rhythms that brought us people like Ricky Martin and gave Jennifer López’s awfulness a sheen of exoticism, for delicate Andean flutes. A rock-ified ode to all-encompassing, absolute love, it has some of the most contrived and stupid lyrics in history (both in English and Spanish), but Shakira’s feeble yodel and goat-like tremolo imbue the impossibly catchy melody of a passion that few songs could ever have.

Whenever, Wherever

The song managed a respectable number 6 in the US billboard charts, and shot to number one in the UK, paving the way for the more ellaborate singles to follow. Objection (Tango) is the freshest, most carelessly produced track in here, yet it’s also the most cohesive and original, combining an instrumental tango beginning with batucada and rock instrumentation. The lyrics deal, predictably, with a relationship gone awry - Shakira’s obsession with personal inadequacy and the proverbial what-does-she-have-that-I-don’t-have response to an ending love affair are bordering on pathologic fixation, but since the music is excellent, in this occasion these irritating facts are easy to oversee.

Objection (Tango)

Rules

Following the rocky vein we find a truly superb collection of tracks that manage to be appealing to the average Alanis Morissette-liking pseudo-intellectual while channeling the youthful exuberance of the Go Gos. The inescapable Rules is simply adorable with its urgent percussions and dynamic acoustic rock instrumentation, which injects the album with a healthy dose of conventional spontaneity that’s nothing short of refreshing. Not surprisingly at all, Shakira blossoms in these surroundings, and uses this organic naturalness to her best advantage in the adorable semi-ballad Fool, and the nonsensical lyrics driven Poem To A Horse, which seems to have been an attempted homage to Chrissy Hynde’s delicate, uniquely girlie contralto during its soft verses, only to turn into a rousing rock anthem with its beautifully melodic choruses.

Ready for The Good Times

However, Shakira still manages to surprise her listeners by reclaiming her status as a pop princess with the somewhat faltering homage to disco Ready for The Good Times, another trip through excellent music that fails due to utterly disastrous lyrics and a chaotic production. Still, It’s in the Spanish language tracks (or the horribly dull version of Ojos Así) when Shakira stumbles. Whereas Suerte and Te Aviso, Te Anuncio are saved by their freshness, Te Dejo Madrid/I’m leaving You Madrid is just en empty exercise of her tried and tested folk/pop-rock formula, while the insufferable Que me Quedes Tu/That At Least You’re Left To Me is one of the most insipid attempts at an faux acoustic ballad that anyone could have come up with. However, Shakira more than redeems herself with the record's only notable ballad, the Céline Dion-esque slip Underneath Your Clothes, which manages to escape the sugary Adult Contemporary cheesiness by deploying, for once, lyrics that are original in their strangeness.

Underneath Your Clothes

Overwhelmed by endless praise, awards and the additional sales of her Spanish greatest hits, the live DVD/CD compilation Off The Record and her immensely successful worldwide tour, Shakira decided to take things calmly and devote the next to years to produce what would be her most ambitious project ever: the double album Oral Fixation, delivered in two completely different versions both for the Spanish and English language markets. Before anything, I shall remind you to buy her records at Amazon.

And the Star unfolds its song (1995-2000) - A Shakira Overview Pt 2

2007-04-22T11:53:00.000Z

Pies Descalzos (Bare Feet - 1996)

After two years of leading an anonymous life and patiently awaiting the arrival of an opportunity to fulfill her ambitions, Shakira was sent to the recording studio to complete what would be her third, and first commercially successful album. Pies Descalzos is an important part of her career for several reasons; first, it was the first time that she would collaborate with Luis Fernando Ochoa, co-songwriter, arranger and co-producer of most of her material from then until her American flourishing; and second, because they successfully took the sound that had been developed in Peligro, and gave it a gleaming, polished sheen of commercially pristine production which would, eventually, bring Shakira to prominence.

Unlike Shakira has said (and you’ll be able to realize if you listen to the songs of Peligro), the secret of the album doesn’t lie in the fact that she seized creative control, nor in the greater quality of the material – a considerably greater promotional budget and infinitely superior production, actively targeting the teen audience and actually bothering to try to promote the album, have more to do with its success than the evident shortcomings of her previous releases.

Estoy Aquí/I Am Here

Still, the album wasn’t successful – two singles were released from it before the tepid ballad Antología/Anthology exploded into radio, and rapidly climbed the charts. Estoy Aquí and ¿Dónde Estás Corazón? were soon re-released to massive success in Latin America. Spain, a market that is traditionally reluctant to open to Latin American artists, gave a somewhat cold reception to the singles, which were very moderate hits, but the album enjoyed a very favourable response from critics, and became relatively successful.

Un Poco De Amor/A Little Love

Following exactly the same musical themes found in Peligro, in Pies Descalzos Shakira abandons the innocent playfulness of her previous records in favour of a heartbroken young woman whose slight cynicism isn’t completely bore from bitterness – whether she is lamenting a lost love, such as in Estoy Aquí, or complaining about a lover who doesn’t want to compromise in the infectious reggae-fied Un Poco De Amor, she does so with a sense of realism that is startling, and seems to suggest that the character behind the voice and stupidly contrived lyrics is more than a simple pop puppet.

Pies Descalzos, Sueños Blancos/Bare Feet, White Dreams

Shakira’s first attempts at social commentary are, surprisingly, very successful. In the excellent acoustic rock song Se Quiere, Se Mata, she addresses the problems that many young people face due to lack of access to contraceptive measures as well as the risks of clandestine abortions – two things that, in the song, result in the death of the a pregnant girl. Also in the now classic Pies Descalzos, Sueños Blancos she carefully addresses the problems of racism against dark-skinned people in Latin America, equating the contempt with which indigenous cultures are regarding with the daily struggles that the underclass has to face in order to survive.

Pienso En Ti/I Think About You

Never released as a single (unlike all the tracks previously mentioned), the airy ballad Pienso En Ti reverberates with a delicate echo over an almost non-existent acoustic guitar instrumentation to present basically what is a simple, disaffected love song. Certainly not suitable for radio, this is one of the few tracks in this album that wasn’t carefully designed to climb up the charts. Because of that, it allows Shakira to strip her intellectual-ish, politically conscious every girl image to present a sweet, innocent persona whose feelings manage to be universal by being, for once, naturally expressed.

Se Quiere, Se Mata/What’s Loved, Is Killed

Also notable is Shakira’s newfound voice, a blend of hideous Alanis Morissette and Dolores O’Riordan-inspired semi-yodels and cracking notes aimed to give her plain, then still uneducated voice a distinctive, edgier sound while disguising her not so good technique, and tendency to end up lacking air at the end of phrases, which she would soon correct. Sadly, the shitty vocal mannerism stayed.

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The Remixes (1997)

After the massive success of the album Pies Descalzos, Shakira released a special version for the Brazilian market with translated lyrics – she also decided to cash in on the American club scene by packing those Portuguese language versions into a record along with some remixes. A very successful album (it reached number 9 in the Latin Billboard charts), it was the first sign of Shakira’s increasingly bright star: being able to afford the luxury of making a dubious release, and it becoming a hit.

Shakira Dj Memêgamix

Estoy Aquí (Timbalero Dub)

Un Poco De Amor/A Little Love (Extended Dancehall 12")

Pies Descalzos, Sueños Blancos (Memê's Super Club Mix)
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¿Dónde Están Los Ladrones? (Where Are The Thieves? - 1998)

Shakira’s first proper sunrise in the firmament of international pop, ¿Dónde Están Los Ladrones? is a classic album (in my opinion, her best ever), and one of the best exercises in made-for-easy-marketing music in history. Freely blending influences such as mariachi with dance in the first massive single Ciega, Sordomuda; rock, dance and Middle Eastern folk in the simply spectacular Ojos Así (also her best song, I think) or the timid bolero/rock of Moscas En La Casa, which is yet another soporific ballad in the same vein as Antología, Shakira comes off as a proud daughter of the genetically and culturally diverse Latin America, vociferously announcing her love for her world-encompassing ancestry, which is filtered through her identity as a spiritually vibrant mixed-race woman ready to take on a static world of discoloured sameness. The album is rich in excellent material, and even though it is weighed down by a couple of unmemorable ballads in its middle, both the beginning and end are glorious explosions of light that showcase Shakira’s truly outstanding instinct for finding the perfect sound – exotic, strange, but familiar enough altogether as to let us love it, because it’s not threatening.

Ciega, Sordomuda/Blind, Deaf Mute

The album introduced a new figure in Shakira’s life in the form of powerful, extremely sought after producer Emilio Estefan. He became her manager, and led her through the first obstacles in the United States towards widespread acceptance and, eventually, international stardom. The wonderful Ojos Así, which exploded in 1999, was extremely well received around the world, including the exclusively English-speaking communities of the US. This is an important fact, not only because with it Shakira showed that she was here to stay, but because it showed that she wasn’t just another Latin singer – she was an unstoppable musical force, and spoke to everyone through music and music alone.

Inevitable/Unavoidable

The also notable fact is that the album became massive in Spain: the door to Europe for most non-native or non-English-speaking artists. Setting the charts on fire, it gave Shakira the support she needed to invade the rest of the continent, which at the time was important. She still wasn’t big enough a star as to be able to not care about her first public’s response. Soon enough, she’d become untouchable, greatly so because she’d develop the reputation for which we all know her: the perfect girlfriend, the perfect songwriter and the perfect role model. A girl-and-guy, family friendly entity that is a tart and an integral artist in equal parts. Shakira was to become, thus, the perfect pop star.

Octavo Día/Eighth Day

The album has, strangely enough, some of Shakira’s weakest lyrics, and was the first showcase of her forcefully rhymed, if-it-doesn’t-make-sense-pass-it-as-an-artistic-license ‘poems’ (I’m using the term loosely here). However, most of the music is truly excellent, and it often overshadows the stupid lyrics and the sheer de-braining of her image. In a couple of years, Shakira went from a socially-conscious every girl to a socially exploitative artist who exclusively addressed love from the vision of an obsessive teenager with no self-esteem whatsoever, or else artificially sang about nothing while pretending to protest against… well, what? Never mind, it sounded politicized, so it must have been important.

¿Dónde Están Los Ladrones?/Where Are The Thieves?

The album is rife with such ridiculous exercises of empty blabbering, but the main criminal is the title track, with its pointless lyrics about corrupt politicians? Bank directors who elope with the savings of millions of people only to reappear after a few years, heading another similar enterprise? Sell out singers? Who cares? Shakira attempts to appear clever to the sort of teenagers whose understanding of the world is limited to soap operas, and that’s what matters here.

Ojos Así/Eyes Like These

The truly important matter is, this would be the album that would give Shakira her first taste of stardom, and after this, she would only shine brighter… Let me remind you to go to buy here records. Amazon is a great option, as always.

The Colombian hurricane - A Shakira Overview

2007-04-20T13:09:00.000Z

Lately I have been listening to Shakira’s tremolo-laden, yodel-infested nasal odes to nonsense disguised as depth, and I’ve decided that it was important to give an overview of her career throughout the years, mainly because she has achieved what no other Latin American artist has ever been able to achieve: to transcend the cultural and ideological divisions between the wealthy, strongly Anglicized and Euro-centric North and the multi-cultural, poor and psychologically conflicted South, blending influences and building a form of art out of cultivating an image that borrows from every imaginable culture, without representing any one in particular. Shakira is a truly global phenomenon, and a cleverly designed one – she appeals to most with her alluring exoticism, but nothing she does is ever deep or different enough as to alienate our promotional impact-driven generation. For some strange reason, she also appeals to older, theoretically more selective groups, because she has managed to keep a semblance of integrity while gracelessly waving her hips and shaking her globs of cellulite. Thus, Shakira equalizes us all and shows that, scarily, we’re not that different after all – the only thing we need to understand each other is banality presented as a semi-naked pseudo-philosopher. Cool!

Regarding other Spanish-singing acts who have been successful internationally, I’d just like to ask you: do you remember them and… Who did take them seriously even once? Julio Iglesias? Unless you’re fifty and sexually frustrated (by which I mean, you’ve had no sexual life in the last 25 years and are willing to go to bed with anything), I doubt you care about him. Ricky Martin and Enrique ‘Learning Difficulties Poster Boy’ Iglesias are only appealing when they wear no clothes – when has that happened? Not often enough. With their clothes off, they’re sexy (especially when you picture them together…) With their clothes on, their music is just pure shit and they cannot sing to save their lives. So yes, Shakira is the only Spanish-speaking act that has attained some recognition for anything other that her ability to make middle-aged housewives swoon, or looking like a potential porn star.

But what has made Shakira a phenomenon? Is it just pretension and sluttiness, or pure talent? The answer lies somewhere in the middle – like her male counterpart Juanes, Shakira has been clever enough to surround herself with people who have created a sound that’s exclusively hers, and appropriated herself of their merits just enough to avoid being accused of outright plagiarism. Shakira is, in short, a yet another Madonna prototype, but she beats the rest of the pop tarts (and the old hag herself) by successfully conveying integrity through the shameless use of transparent populism, empty speeches with somewhat big words and a coldly calculated urban-poet-cum-potential-lay image that appeals to everyone, because it channels the pretentious every girl that many not-so-proudly represent, and anyone can know.

However, the really sad thing is that neither Shakira nor Juanes are among the most talented Latin American artists there are. In fact, they are not even among the moderately talented ones. The only merit that they both have is that they have had enough vision and intelligence as to work with very talented and creative people who have pulled them out of the static ballad-salsa-vallenato-and-bolero sea that swamps Latin American popular music; the fact that they managed to find success in the first place is also notable, given the fact that Latin America isn't exactly a market open to innovation, and they have very little talent to work with in the first place. Thus, after this very pretentious introduction (bear with me, today I’m too tired to indulge in my shitty attempts at being witty), I present you with an overview of each stage of Shakira’s career (by the way, I've received complaints about the fact that I am talking about albums, and nothing's been posted! Scroll down after the last photo of this introduction, and you'll find Magia and Peligro, Shakira''s first two albums - sorry about that; I ought to have organized this post better :-) ).

Most of the albums I will talk about can be found everywhere, so I’ll direct you to Amazon. Her early records are not available anymore but, if you do like what you hear, you can try eBay, which is my personal religion’s new temple – the number of strange or discontinued records I’ve found there is astonishing. Pierre Omidyar ought to be sanctified!

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The Timid Supernova - Early Shakira (1991-1994)

Magia (Magic - 1991)

The publishing of Shakira’s first album was the result of a minor events organizer’s blind belief in a twelve-year-old’s underdeveloped, and yet unseen talent. After two years of supervising the girl’s sporadic vocal studies and endless presentations, the aforementioned organizer managed to convince a Sony executive that Shakira’s talent was important enough as to deserve a chance, and after much hassle (some thought, not unreasonably at all, that she was a disaster) she was signed to Sony Records with a contract for three albums.

Magia is Shakira’s first album ever, and her first step towards stardom in her native Colombia. A crass failure in commercial terms, it nonetheless remains a product of its time and attests to Shakira’s considerable growth as a commercially savvy artist. Tinny production, tepid rock songs and easy melodic ballads compose its eight tracks (there’s also an abysmal remix which manages to make a bad song even worse) – thus, with such a positive landscape, let’s start reviewing the album! The most interesting thing is Shakira’s juvenile voice, which shows some of its current coloration in the more vocally demanding tracks such as the surprisingly good Cazador De Amor, a rocky ode to obsessive, all-encompassing love and the sultry Gafas Oscuras, which forced the then-fourteen Shakira to push her throat down to a full, resounding lower range. The song’s vocals are particularly unmelodious, and it’s notorious that Shakira was making a considerable effort to reach the notes. Still, this is the closest she ever gets to her current voice.

Cazador De Amor/Love Hunter

Gafas Oscuras/Dark Sunglasses

I suppose that her producers decided that a Latin-ish track would make it easier to break into radio, and thus we get the robotic blares of a Casio synthesizer’s trumpet sound and a harsh, poorly executed mash of rock-styled percussion in the impossibly cheesy Esta Noche Voy Contigo – sadly, Shakira’s vocals lack the strength and range to pull it through, and her evident enthusiasm ends up being swallowed by the dull, badly produced chaos of the song. These mistakes are repeated in the disastrous Lejos De Tu Amor, which combines a nondescript melody with off tempo instrumentation, tuneless backing vocals and Shakira’s inability to finish her phrases without losing her breath. Oh, there’s also a fantastic rap (sadly, not performed by our little Shaki. Aaaawwwwwwww :-( ). The true highlight of the album besides Cazador De Amor is the beautiful title track, which is a relaxed, slow ballad that carefully builds up to a truly superb chorus, which Shakira pulls off quite well in spite of her less than impressive voice.

Esta Noche Voy Contigo/Tonight I’m Going With You

Magia/Magic

Lejos De Tu Amor/Far From Your Love
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Peligro (Danger - 1993)

It’s amazing how many positive things can happen in a couple of years! After incessant touring and studying, Shakira’s voice matured enormously, her range expanded and the producers and songwriters chosen for her increased in talent. Peligro is Shakira’s first full incursion into the folksy rock/dance that would make her so famous over her next two albums, but I have to say that even though its heights are not as stratospheric as the ones that would come later, the album is extremely solid and consistent, with good quality material all throughout - even if the production is a bit untidy sometimes. From the delicious Middle Eastern-folk-meets-salsa-pop he-did-me-wrong anthem Brujería to the thumping dance floor fabulousness of the title track, which narrates the dangers that a young girl's heart faces when exposed to the alluring charms of handsome strangers, the album runs through a myriad of styles that are passed through a rock filter that fills them with grit and passion – even though Shakira’s vocals are not strong and controlled enough yet, she manages to pull most songs off quite well, even though she often sounds distant and cold.

Brujería/Witchcraft

Controlas Mi Destino/You Control My Fate

The ballads are definite highlights, running through all the imaginable guises of the rock spectrum – from the delicate feelings of Eres, which are hidden behind barely controlled belts that give the song a rough, stout solidness that makes it irresistible, to the unbelievably beautiful Eterno Amor, which sinuously travels its way across a superb rock instrumentation that gracefully molds itself to the demands of the melody and truly manages to convey the desperation of not being able to make the person you love take you seriously. However, that’s not all that the album has to offer. The soaring heights manage to get a little higher with the simply excellent Controlas Mi Destino, an impossibly cheerful fast rock song that jumps and waves to the wild intensity of the lyrics which, for once, are not childish and ridiculous (yes – if you are among those who complain that Shakira’s English language lyrics don’t make any sense, don’t worry: most of her Spanish lyrics don’t make any sense either).

Sadly, this excellent album was also a failure, even though this time Shakira was to blame - unsatisfied with it (how could she possibly be?!), she refused to promote it and concentrated on her baccalaureate studies instead... :-(

Eterno Amor/Eternal Love

Peligro/Danger

Eres/You Are

And well, with the high note that is Peligro, we come to the end of today’s post. Soon enough I’ll bring you more review on Shakira’s albums, plus some remixes, of which I have discovered, I am extremely fond of (as if you hadn’t noticed, with all the clutter I’ve posted as of late!).

Singles and remixes by Anna Vissi

2007-04-17T23:43:00.000Z

The two years after the Athens Olympics were a particularly busy period for the ever and over-active Goddess Anna Vissi. After strutting her stuff (and almost landing on her face) across an elongated platform during the closing ceremony of the 2004 event, the doors for an international career (which had been furiously shut five years earlier by the raging winds of Kylie Minogue's massive success with the song On A Night Like This, which Anna had been hoping to promote as the second single for her English language début - instead, the rock-ified dance track Still In Love With You was chosen), opened once again for her. And which was the miraculous key that unlocked the doors to the path that leads to world wide recognition for the mysterious siren? No other than the impossibly catchy song Eisai/You Are, which had thundered its way to the top of the charts almost a year earlier, and was still receiving a considerable amount of airplay in spite of the fact that Anna had another four different singles in the Greek and Cypriot charts at that moment.

Written by her ex-husband, best friend and main songwriter, Nikos Karvelas, the song is a heavy dance number that retains its consistency by carefully assembling layers upon layers of airy electronic effects. The melody and gorgeous Arabic violin progressions gave it a touch of exotism, propelling it to the number one position in the Billboard Dance Charts - in spite of the fact that it was released by the mid-sized record company Moda Records, and received no support whatsoever from Sony BMG, Anna's record company. However, this hasn't been the first time that Anna tried to break into the international market with an English record; in 1999, she released the very inconsistent Anna Vissi, which was a chaotic mish mash of aggressive (but mostly unmemorable) club tracks and wild rock ballads. Sadly, it received very little attention outside Greece, where it was a sizeable hit. Yet and still, the Greeks weren't completely happy with it, and Anna was forced to come back to her 'roots', which was a wise decision - she had the highest sales of her career. Here, I've included the first and most successful single from that album, Everything I Am.

Everything I Am

Call Me was released in October 2004, but wouldn't reach the top of the Billboard Dance charts until six months later, mostly on the strength of digital downloads. Personally, I have to say that I very much prefer the Greek version. Anna sings it with passion, the lyrics are infinitely better and the production isn't tinny. Still, this is an enjoyable song, and the remixes I've included improve on the original enormously.

The song Lie was also included as part of the single release, and would later be extensively remixed before inclusion in the European edition of Anna's latest record, Nylon. Still, it has never been released on its own. Here I offer you two peculiar hip hop remixes that you will hopefully find more enticing than the bizarre original.

Call Me [Radio Edit]
Call Me (DJ Sakis Club Mix)
Call Me (Dance Version)

Lie (Original Version)
Lie (DJ K Style Club Mix)
Lie (Vibrate Black'n'Beatz remix - featuring Rasheeda)

I'd also like to present you with three tracks from 2006 - Anna sang them all during the gala celebrated to determine the song that would represent Greece in Eurovision. We all know that Everything won and then went on to earn a miserable 9th place in Eurovision itself, but it is a pleasant ballad nonetheless and I'm sure that, those who have been living under a rock for the last two years and thus haven't heard it yet, will enjoy it quite a lot. Echo Tosi Agapi ought to have been, if I'm not mistaken, the fifth single to be extracted from Nylon - sadly, Anna decided to concentrato on the perparations for her new English and Greek language records, which will be released simultaneously, and cancelled all further promotion. She also performed it during the Greek song selection gala, much to everyone's delight.

Finally, I am leaving you with one of the other four songs that were contending for the 'honour' of being performed in Eurovision - the obscure, unwelcoming and cold Welcome To The Party, which rapidly becomes unnerving with its ultra-processed vocals, insistent beat and waving tides of electronic effects. It was included, like many other tracks, in the revamped Euro Edition of Nylon, a two CD set that includes an abundance of remixes and previously unreleased material in addition to, of course, the original track list.

Oh, before I forget! The far more cheerful Who Cares About Love? is also part of the disc. It has recently been released as a promotional single, and I've included it in one of my previous posts!

Finally, I'd like to remind you to buy Anna's records here.

Welcome To The Party
Everything
Έχω Τόση Αγάπη - Echo Tosi Agapi/I Have So Much Love

The Belgian snow rose - Lara Fabian

2007-04-17T18:42:00.000Z

Excuse me for beginning this post with a little rant, but the fact that Lara Fabian isn't worshipped like a goddess, is irrefutable proof that there is no justice in this world. With that out of my chest, allow me to begin :-) . As it happened with Céline Dion, I have found it pointless to try to make some sort of biographical ‘article’ about La Fabian, mainly because every possible aspect about her life has already been divulgated, but also because it is even less dramatic than Céline Dion’s. There are no heartbreaking choices, a love that’s been sacrificed or a meteoric explosion into glory after years of misery in Lara Fabian’s life. As it happens with her music, everything about her has been a measured collection of happy moments and wise, well-meditated decisions driven by the sheer power of her voice, which reflects the unbendable strength of her determination to succeed.

Gifted with an impeccable voice that is object of significant discussion among her fans (finding out whether she is a coloratura soprano, as Hugues Gall, the then director of the renowned Opéra National de Paris, enthusiastically declared in 2001; or a mezzo, as Lara likes to refer to herself, takes a significant part of the lives of her fans), La Fabian majestically belts, gracefully chirps, delicately whispers and beautifully bares her soul both on record and across scenarios all around the world with an elegance and modesty that are both mystifying and admirable. Simply put, she is superb.

However, something strange about Lara is that she is neither mutable nor adaptable as a singer; stubbornly fixed on her vision of herself as a 'traditional' belter, she explores her art by encasing it within the confines of her voice and forcing it to find a new form of expression in every varying colour and wanton changes during performances. This places Lara in a category of her own, because she remains alien to changing trends in music or to the notion that singing in her native language is equivalent to personal and artistic freedom (as it happens with Céline Dion) – Lara is always the same, even though she definitely sounds more comfortable performing in any other language besides English.

I like to compare Lara’s voice to a blossom that combines incomparable beauty with cold, impossibly detached technical precision; which is not to say that her music is devoid of emotion – her particular feelings and experiences are what colours and gives substance to her singing, making Lara and her voice two separate entities united in their aim to please and enthrall an audience. This could be reflected in this interview (followed by an amazing performance of Lucio Dalla’s Caruso); in it, Lara mentions how her love for her mother and the closeness she has always felt with her grandmother give her singing in Italian an enormous personal value. Italian is the language or Lara’s early childhood in the beautiful region of Catania, in Southern Italy: French, Spanish, German and English would come a bit later (mind you, only a bit later), when she moved back to her native Belgium. This ability to express her own feelings through music while using her voice as a mere instrument is what makes La Fabian so incredibly special, and her albums such a wonderful experience.

However, not all things about Lara are positive. Sadly, as of late she has been indulging excessively in her insufferable (and erroneous) Barbra Streisand-inspired attempts at giving greater emotional resonance to songs by sucking all the life from them with empty, soul-less displays of perfectly melodious droning. Which is fine (my grandmother loves it), but we should not forget that Barbra has only managed to be memorable whenever she has actually bothered to perform her songs, rather than partaken in her solipsistic love for her own voice and public persona. Quite frankly, I cannot imagine anyone being capable of listening to most of La Streisand's records without falling into a coma (there are very notable exceptions to this, of course, and I shall talk about them soon enough) - what made Lara so special is that she was never afraid to show off that she is a vibrant, technically proficient performer with a wonderful, hurricane-powered voice. Not just a whispering ego with no musical taste whatsoever, which is what she seems to want to emulate for some strange reason.

And well, we finally come to the selection I’ve made for today. I hope you enjoy it and, as always, I remind you to go to buy her records. Fnac or Amazon are both good options.

Je Suis Malade/I Am Ill

The spectacular first single of the marvelous album Carpe Diem/Seize The Day (1994), this ode to desperate, hopeless love was first made a classic in 1973 by singer/songwriter Serge Lama. Few words could express how beautiful this song is, nor how utterly and most completely wonderful Lara manages to make it with almost no effort at all. Delicately, the melody navigates through sorrowful piano scales that tiredly build a melancholic atmosphere, only to be overshadowed by the instrumental and vocal explosions that take place during the choruses. The end is simply spectacular, with Lara belting away up to a deafening climax. Watch this wonderful live performance and be amazed.

Je T'Aime/I Love You

My favourite song by Lara, this was the second single (and GIGANTIC hit – so much so, it has become a classic) from her 1996 album Pure. If you just have to buy an album by Lara, this is it. Especially if like myself, you cannot be satisfied unless and album has an abundance of ballads, you are going to be delighted! However, and as impossible as it might seem, this song is far above the rest in quality – or better said, this should have turned Lara into a legend. The song delicately navigates from slow, delicate verses to the stormy choruses, which will thunder their way into your heart (oh-my-god, tell me that that display of shitty, cheesy and stupidly bad writing isn’t mine – I should just quit this blog and start writing Harlequin novels ;-P) with the force and passion of a torrential rain. If you are one of those sad persons who love to torture themselves by listening to melodramatic love songs after their relationships have ended – why do I keep letting people into my darkest, filthiest secrets? – you’re gonna love this. And if you are even remotely human, you will as well. Video of a live performance.

La Différence/The Difference

After receiving three e-mails politely objecting to the inclusion of Carola in this blog (sorry guys - the Bee Gees made me weak!), I have decided to redeem myself by including this beautiful anti-homophobia anthem, which was originally released as an independent single and included as part of Pure in later pressings (I told you it was an amazing album). It also happens to be the second biggest hit from the album – rapidly reaching the number one position in France, and staying in the top ten for over three months. There’s not much to say about this songs besides the fact that the lyrics are fabulous, and inspirational – far from being a ridiculous Kumbaya-inspired preachy, condescending mess (which is what most songs with a social message are), it just tells how gay people are normal people and, well, that’s it really. Video.

J'y Crois Encore/I Still Believe It

This is a sample of Lara’s Streisand-esque newfound style. However, it is a rather interesting ballad (that’s why I have included it :-) ), and one of the highlights of the lovely 2001 album Nue/Naked. It has a rockier sound than her previous songs, and the change suits Lara wonderfully! Needless to say, this is much more interesting than the majority of things that Barbra Streisand has ever done (the majority, but not all - let's take a moment to remember that La Streisand's high points are unsurpassable by any mortal), but it nevertheless is tinged by her style. Great song! Video.

Adagio (Italian Version)

After this overdose of French songs, what about a little touch of Italian to remind us how awesome Lara is in her mother tongue? Directly lifted from Baroque composer Tommaso Albinoni’s overused to death Adagio (Pachelbel’s Canon et Gigue is a close second, ugh!), this could have been disastrous, but Lara wisely focuses on performing it as a delicate heartbreak song and leaves all pretences of classical legitimacy aside (not because she can’t have them by the way – unlike that fat sow Mariah Carey, Lara is an opera singer first and foremost). The ending is particularly impressive, with a thunderous final belt that will leave you awe-struck. Video of a superb live performance.

Otro Amor Vendrá/Another Love Shall Come (I Will Love Again)

And I couldn’t leave without including a danceable song. You all know about this track, so I’m just going to say that Lara’s Spanish is impeccably pronounced, and she sounds infinitely more comfortable singing in it than in English. This version was a HUGE hit in Spain and Latin America (the summer of 2001 I happened to travel both to Mexico and Argentina, and it was impossible to escape from this song – it was everywhere!!!). What I like of this version is the bridge, which Lara belts at full force, unlike in the English version, which has an annoying F5 in head voice. Lovely! Video.

The mirror of Russia's soul - Alla Pugacheva

2007-04-14T18:18:00.000Z

Alla Pugacheva (or, more properly, Pugachyova) is Russia’s greatest living musical legend, a cultural icon, the voice of an era, a treasure of womanhood, an example of virtue, pride and fortitude… and one of the most pedestrian characters to ever grace the covers of Russia’s sleaziest, most rubbishy tabloids. Inappropriately clad in impossibly tight and short, short, short miniskirts while bopping her way across scenarios all over the world, the Great Pugacheva has become as famous for her exceptional musical abilities and stage command, as for her bizarre antics and the lack of dignity that she proudly showcases wherever she goes. In order to make justice to her personality, I’d have to describe her as a somewhat sane, completely careless and cheerful version of Norma Desmond. You know, a strange old lady who is mostly stuck in the past that, for some reason, you just have to love (or, as in my case, become obsessed with). As bizarre and silly as all that is, I still have to say that there’s so much more to Pugacheva than self-deprecating humour and a love for tacky, old-fashioned vaudeville style shows. She is a historical figure (albeit a minor one) and one of the loudest voices that rose against the homogenizing principles of Communism in Russia, not because she necessarily opposed the regime –personally, I think she couldn’t have cared any less about who was in power; she was The Woman Who Sings, after all, and that has always been her only concern- but because her massive and unparalleled stardom went against everything that Communism stands for. Alla is, by all means, the first and foremost diva in Russia (not to mention a great lyricist and very notable songwriter), and we all owe her some respect for that.

Born in Moscow during the morning of a gorgeous April day in 1949, Pugacheva lived music since her earliest years: in 1954 she participated in her first concert, and from there went on to follow a music-oriented educational programme that led her to graduate as a musical conductor, pianist and choral arranger from the Ippolitova-Ivanovna music college. At sixteen, she released her first song: the utterly horrible (as the majority of her pre-fame material) Robot. After graduating in 1966, she started touring the entirety of the U.R.S.S. as part of a myriad of groups, the most notorious of which was Vyesyoliye Rebyata/The Merry Children. After a decade of incessant touring and intermittently working as a piano accompanist, as well as being the faceless voice for many famous songs in Soviet screen musicals - which give a whole new meaning to the phrase badly ideated and staged propaganda -, she entered the extremely prestigious Golden Orpheus competition in Bulgaria, and won by a landslide with the peculiar song Arlekino.

In the very beginning, Pugacheva had been a musical force to be reckoned (at least in terms of sheer potential), but soon after that she would become unstoppable – so much so that she even collaborated with ABBA’s true ugly woman and what I have no doubt was the inspiration for Misha, the round bear cub from the 1980 Olympics: Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. They produced her disastrous in musical terms, and inexplicably successful in chart terms, English language album Watch Out! Both compassion and fear of being accused of deliberately instigating people to commit suicide, force me to warn you: it is NOT a good album. Unless you like really bad music (I’m referring to the equivalent of pouring molten lava into your ear), or are into extreme sadomasochism, don’t buy it.

Leaving artistic matters behind, the really juicy part of Alla’s life are her tumultuous marriages, her ever-oscillating weight, tasteless and inappropriate sense of fashion and obsession with plastic surgery which, by the way, hasn’t saved her from looking more and more bloated and hideous with every passing year – although I suspect that very heavy drinking, eating like a pig and chain smoking may have a little more to do with the fading of The Woman’s looks than anything else, as well as, in a far sadder note, the considerable deterioration of her voice. However, these things are insignificant when one concentrates in her love life.

In 1969 she married Estonian circus conductor (classy, classy, classy) Mikolas Orbakas, and the marriage produced Pugacheva’s only child: horrid, anorexic whingeing cow Kristina Orbakajte, who is massively popular in Russia because, well… There’s no reason for it, actually. Not even nepotism justifies the fact that people are crazy enough as to listen to her nails-on-a-chalkboard voice and shitty ‘music’. But I digress. Her marriage broke soon enough, but Pugacheva soon found love in the arms of film director Aleksandr Stefanovich, who is mainly responsible for her utterly laughable (and enormously successful) film career, the only tolerable moment of which is the film The Woman Who Sings, one of her official titles. After a most embarrassing divorce in which both parts whinged and complained endlessly about each other (in public, of course) while fighting like children over the many properties they had acquired during the course of the marriage, Alla married prominent producer Yevgenij Boldin, who worked in many of her records since the early eighties.

After unceremoniously dumping Boldin, in 1994 she married her now ex-husband, in-the-glass-closet flaming queen Filipp Kirkorov (who claims to be straighter than an arrow in spite of the fact that he looks like a cross between the average goat and Cher’s ugly transsexual sister), who went on to become one of Russia’s greatest stars, and will indubitably be the object of a lengthy, scary post in the future along with his new beloved; screechy-voiced plastic surgery freak Masha Rasputina (for whom he allegedly abandoned Pugacheva, although some other accounts say that she was already cheating on him anyway with comedian Maksim Galkin, another man who exudes about as much masculinity as Judy Garland). However Rasputina is, as far as I know, still married to the father of her two children… Oh, the sordidness and vulgarity of it all. Don’t you love it?

Anyway, Pugacheva still remains an icon in spite of the fact that she cancels presentations and concerts at whim, has only released three albums of deliciously bad original material in more than a decade and has theatrically retired and pathetically come back (or was it the other way around? ;-P) enough times as to have had fifty music careers during her lifetime. If you want to buy some of Pugacheva’s records, I’d advise you to purchase one of the many compilations she has released since 1996. Rechnoj Tramvajchik/The River Ferry is a good start – buy it, or any other of her records, here or here.

Finally, after this lengthy article, we come to the selection I’ve made. I hope you enjoy these songs, as most of them are truly exceptional, and a few of them are, at the very least, entertaining. Here they are!

Айсберг - Ajsberg/Iceberg

This amazing ballad is my favourite song by La Pugacheva. The first time I heard this, I thought about Dalida in the mid-sixties… However, this is from 1981! Never mind – it’s one of the most ravishingly beautiful ballads I’ve ever heard, and the lyrics are superb (not to mention, Pugacheva’s voice is a million times better than Dalida’s, and the arrangement is far beyond what anyone ever did in the sixties). “Like an ice mountain emerging from the fog/The iceberg navigates across the boundless seas/Fortunate are those who know how dangerous it is on the ocean!/How dangerous it is when a ship meets the iceberg on the sea!”. The song is a marvellous metaphor for a woman’s conscious choice to “rush head on into love” and meet the dangerous iceberg, whose obscure feelings lie hidden underneath black, dangerous waters: the most unsuitable of lovers, who will destroy her. Amazing song. The original video is… well, watch it and you’ll understand the meaning of the word ‘peculiar’.

Стринные Часы - Starinniye Chasy/The Antique Clock

This is my second favourite song by Pugacheva. This time, we are faced with the sorrowful tale of a desperate woman who tells her grieves to the aching memory of her estranged lover – a man she can’t forget, even though he abandoned her long ago. Sadly, the only one who listens to her is an antique clock, her only true companion in life and, through suffering and despair, her true soul mate: the clock was also in love with the man, and as he broke her heart, he broke the two Cupids that marked the clock’s ticking… Isn’t this the most original soap opera plot you’ve ever read about?! ;-P The chorus is particularly heartbreaking, and truly expresses the desolation caused by the betrayal of a love: “It’s not possible to go back in life/And time won’t even stop for an instant/Let the night be boundless and my house remain empty/As the antique clock keeps ticking away”. Amazing. Video of a ‘live’ performance.

Балет - Balyet/Ballet

This song is, well, catchy is the best way to describe it… along with pompous, unbelievably pretentious and totally kitsch. Composed by Igor Nikolayev, one of the best songwriters I’ve ever known of, it has a solemn, stout melody and an outrageously tacky instrumentation that’s half bad stage musical, half Baroque fanfare. I don’t have much to say about it, except that it is a good showcase of both Pugacheva’s mid-eighties’s, pre-tobacco and booze utter ravage, voice. It has also a spectacular end, with what seem to be armies of instruments fighting against each other for dominion of the melody. Video.

А Я В Воду Войду - A Ya V Vodu Vojdu/And I Shall Enter The Water

This song is one of Pugacheva’s few incursions into dance territory. As it always happens with her, the lyrics are quite good, even though I consider this song to be rather peculiar. The melody is there, it’s just that it seems to try to go against what a beautiful melody is supposed to be… It is definitely a strange song, but it is also full of hooks and its repetitive, aggressive chorus will be stuck to your head for days. It comes from the 1998 compilation Da!/Yes!, which mostly contains songs that Alla sang during her televised Christmas concerts during the previous five years. The album is as peculiar as this song, combining downright odd folk/rock fusions and strange techno ballads – not precisely Christmas music, but enjoyable nonetheless. Hilarious 'live' performance that showcases Alla in all her glory. ;-)

Не Обижай Меня - Nye Obizhaj Myenya/Do Not Aggravate Me

This song is one of the few original tracks included in the beautiful 2001 semi-compilation disc Rechnoj Tramvajchik. It is one of the best songs I’ve heard by Igor Nikolayev, and it’s truly delightful in every sense. A very special ballad that combines a rapidly flowing melody and a fast beat with a profound sense of desperation and hopelessness, it is rich in both beauty and theatricality; it starts very slowly, with a tearful Alla reciting the lyrics in a broken, wistful voice. When things cannot become any more pathetic, the song explodes into a cheerful quasi dance song that drastically contrasts with the extremely sad melody and mournful lyrics. Beautiful. Live performance of a very vocally diminished Pugacheva.

The Swedish belter of reason - Carola Häggkvist

2007-04-12T13:55:00.000Z

Carola is one of Sweden’s best kept secrets… or maybe the only one, since I am yet to hear about a contemporary Swedish singer who can match her vocal abilities, or has any real potential for an international career (then again, normally I am not that interested in Swedish pop, so I may very well be wrong – please, feel free to correct me). However, Carola has much more to offer, since she appears to be a capable songwriter and is an engaging, vivacious performer, even if her voice seems to permanently be on the verge of irreversible damage, as it always sounds raspy and ragged. A less desirable side of her personality is that she also comes with quite a lot of baggage in the forms of Christian fundamentalism and publicly declared homophobia: two elements in her life from which she has been trying to distance herself as of late. I suppose that she’s finally realized that, when you alienate a significant part of your fan base by saying outrageously offensive things about them, they won’t be willing to keep buying your records… oh, the cleverness of this girl.

Born in 1966 in Stockholm, Carola is one of Sweden’s best-selling artists, having the honour of never having left the privileged lands of platinum sales, and having the highest sales ever for an artist’s début album in Sweden with 1983’s Främling, which she released at the tender age of 16! Her popularity and professional prestige were enough to grant her a collaboration album composed and produced by the marvellous, glorious, fantastic and semi-divine Bee Gees (my second favourite group after Fleetwood Mac! Oh, maybe this will sound absurd - forget about that, it is absurd -, but in my eyes, that’s enough to redeem anyone :-P ), The Runaway. When she finished the extremely long tour to promote the album, an exhausted Carola decided to take some time to rest in the end of 1989, which is to say that she went into a short retirement.

However, she was not to be forgotten! In 1991, she made a ‘triumphal’ (ha!) return by winning the ‘coveted’ (double ha!) first place in Satan’s Yearly Collection of Torture (also known as Eurovision Dumpster Farce) with the horrible song Fångad Av En Stormvind. From there, Carola went to indulge in her (overzealous) faith by singing exclusively Gospel music and taking lead roles in soporific family-friendly musicals such as The Sound Of Music. In fact, she was so successful at them that she even débuted in London’s West End! Which places her in the same lofty heights only trodden by the brightest luminaries of British culture, such as Shane Ritchie, Billie Piper and that beautiful hippopotamus-faced, amazing(ly) poor attempt at a bad Liza Minnelli wannabe, Martine McCutcheon. Classy.

In 2001, Carola made a truly triumphal return with the spectacular album My Show, which united her again with the Bee Gees, stemmed a collaboration with Burt Bacharach and spawned the completely delectable hit I Believe In Love (which I’ve included here for what will indubitably be your listening pleasure, since it’s a fantastic song). From there onwards, Carola has kept finding success time and time again, in spite of the fact that in 2002, in an interview for a gay magazine, she had the nerve to declare that homosexuality was unnatural, and could be cured by praying… Let’s just say that I’ll reserve my comments regarding this matter to myself…

Anyway, Carola has resorted to the eternal ‘that evil journalist deliberately misquoted me’ excuse to save face (and her career, I guess) and, after suffering the embarrassment of being shut up by members of her delegation when yet another wicked, wicked journalist asked her about her opinions on homosexuality during a press conference, she represented Sweden in Eurovision in 2006 and attained a meagre 5th place with Evighet, the only decent song in the year’s top ten besides Anna Vissi’s passable ballad Everything. Oh, Evighet also happens to be Carola’s one and only number one hit in Sweden.

Even though some of the things I have said about Carola might have put you off (it’s not as if I had dragged her name through the mud anyway – the original post I had prepared was truly caustic), I’d like to ask you to give her songs a try. She is a good singer, and her material is, for the most part, of excellent quality. Oh, and I’d also like to remind you to buy her records! Go to Amazon. Oh, also, I cannot provide translations for the song titles, since my knowledge of Swedish is limited to ‘Stockholm’, and the furthest I’ve ever gone in my understanding of it has been saying ‘pardon?’ when someone used the word ‘smorgasbord’. Again, if anyone can assist with that, I’ll be grateful. :-)

A Kiss Goodbye

This gorgeous disco song is simply pure dance bliss. It is one of the freshest, most enjoyable songs that I’ve heard in quite a long time. It has all the standard elements of a typical disco song: slow melodic start, percussion kicks in, 4/4 beat and slight shifts in tempo to suit the anthemic, fast chorus. In short, perfection. This comes from the My Show album, and it is, as you might have already heard, awesome. By the way, I shall not rest until The Goddess Donna Summer records this song – it was tailor made for her, and it would be a welcome change since, as of late, her material isn’t exactly thrilling.

I Believe In Love

This impossibly catchy song was apparently a massive hit in Sweden, and I can see why. It is simply delightful, and maybe my tendency to exaggerate is clouding my judgement, but I believe that it could have opened the doors of an international career to Carola. It combines an irresistible stacatto beat with an extremely catchy melody that’s rich in algid points, even though I must say that the delicious chorus, with its cheerful lyrics and repetitive melodic progressions, is just lovely. Video.

När Löven Faller

This simply marvellous ballad is from Carola’s superb 2003 anthology Guld, Platina Och Passion. As far as I’ve read, it was a very sizeable hit. It is an extremely sweet and memorable ballad that transmits a very profound sense of despair – at least that’s what it evoked in me, since I cannot understand a word from the lyrics. It starts very, very slowly, carefully creating a sorrowful mood that languidly flows into the spectacular bridge, which is like a thunderbolt in the middle of a mild winter rain… I can barely find the words to communicate how beautiful this song is. Just listen to it. Video of a live performance.

Stanna Eller Gå

This excellent dance song seems to have been, yet again, especially made to attain international success – which is attested by the fact that it has already become a massive hit in Greece thanks to Marianta Pieridi (find her version, under the name DJ, here). Personally, I think that Carola’s voice sounds particularly rough in here, which is surprising, given the fact that this is a studio recording. The closest I’ve been able to find to a video is this. Here, what obviously is a HEAVILY pregnant Carola (that, or she needs to pray to cure her gluttony) screeches and rasps her way through the song while accompanied by what look like four overfed Walkyries in home-made Halloween costumes. Looking at Carola gracefully bringing her lard-covered hand to her throat to justify that she sounds like a cat being strangled is quite a show, but I have to say that the Walkyries steal it with their majestic and elegant cellulite jiggling, which reminds me of the average walrus looking for a suitable partner during mating season.

The Italian voice of heartbreak - Laura Pausini

2007-04-09T19:02:00.000Z

I can’t believe that it’s taken me so long to write about Italian pop singers! Some of the best, most sophisticated pop ever has been produced in Italy; there’s no doubt about it. The country has a wonderful musical legacy, both in the classical and the contemporary pop genres – as well as some amazing, extremely talented singers. But I digress! Allow me to begin the article: Laura Pausini is the most commercially successful female singer in Italy, and also a megastar in the Spanish and Portuguese speaking worlds - since all her albums have been translated to Castilian language, and a few of her greatest hits have been re-recorded in Portuguese. This is also probably because no one portrays quite like her the feelings of shock, boundless despair and utter defeat that destroy people’s ability to reason properly once they realize that love has abandoned them, and won’t come back. Or maybe it is because she just chooses excellent material and sings it with passion… Either way, La Pausini has enthralled many a person wherever she’s gone, and given a tearful backdrop to millions of ending relationships. Her music is mostly brooding and depressing, and that’s why you have to lover her, right? ;-) No, seriously, her music can’t be categorized as anything else than beautiful, and her liquid, vibrant soprano voice is just a joy to listen to.

La Pausini belongs to a generation of young singers who have internationalized Italian pop, both traveling with it all around the world, and bringing new influences into it. Laura in particular seems to have gradually progressed from melodic ballads to American-styled acoustic rock with notable ease, and even though her repertoire isn’t exactly what you could call varied, she more than compensates for it with enormous passion and enthusiasm.

Born in the picturesque town of Faenza in 1974, Laura had a very comfortable childhood surrounded by her doting, ever supportive parents in the extremely wealthy province of Emilia-Romagna. There’s a reason why I am saying this: when Laura was eight, she started singing professionally – by thirteen she had published her first album, which was mainly produced by her father, who obviously had the means to leave his job and dedicate himself to promote her daughter full-time. Obviously, the Pausinis weren’t poor, and the region had enough infrastructures to support financing the public events in which Laura frequently sang - being paid for it, of course. By 1993, eighteen-year-old Laura was famous enough as to be selected to participate in the San Remo Song Festival (a.k.a. Eurovision just for Italy, and with ridiculous pretensions), which she won with La Solitudine/Loneliness, one of her signature songs.

After becoming a star overnight, Laura released her first, self-titled album, and spent the next two years promoting it all over the world. I remember those days as pre and post-Laura Pausini. Simply put, she came in like a tidal wave, and flooded all the markets where her album was released. This trend has continued since then, and while she has often kept participating in the San Remo Festival to promote many of her singles in Italy (it seems to be some sort of bizarre tradition that all singers must observe), she’s kept reaping on the rewards of being fabulous about everywhere else.

I know that there weren’t any melodramatic and sordid things to say about Laura, but that’s what you get when you start liking wholesome, serious career-oriented musicians who truly have talent (let me tell you, it’s sheer agony! ;-P). Sorry. I promise something shocking before the end of the month. Thus, I leave you with the selection I’ve made! I hope you really enjoy it. But as always, I have to remind you to go to buy Laura’s albums here first.

In Assenza Di Te/In Your Absence

This exceptionally beautiful song was the biggest hit from Laura’s 1998 La Mia Risposta/My Answer – and when I mean it was the biggest hit, I mean it was ENORMOUS. Personally, I have always found that, strangely enough, Laura sounds more comfortable singing in any other language besides her own. When she sings in Italian, she is always far too careful and it seems that it’s difficult for her to let loose. Still, few things could mar this song; it’s simply marvellous. A wintry tale of heartbreak, it combines a delicate background that gracefully evolves by adding new little elements to the whole, while keeping the focus on Laura’s impeccable voice. Video.

Surrender

In 1997, David Foster heard Laura singing in the radio, and was so impressed that contacted her management, offering to collaborate with her. Their first song together was a very depressing ballad called One More Time, which was included in the soundtrack of the awful film Message In A Bottle - shit film and even worse soundtrack, by the way. If you want the song, I’d recommend you buy her Greatest Hits collection, E Ritorno Da Te/And I Come Back To You (2001). However, it wouldn’t be until three years after that song that Laura would release her English language début, From the Inside (2002). It is a lovely album that could be best described as Céline Dion dabbles with blues and a little techno. Lovely, to be clear. This song is quite danceable, and was the first of the two only singles released to promote it. It literally bursts out of your speakers with joy. Just as I said a moment ago, lovely. American version of the video.

Resta In Ascolto/Listen Carefully

This is the title track from Laura’s 2004 return to her two main markets, Italy and the Spanish-speaking world. In it, the melodies as polished as always and the production is impeccable, but there’s a greater sense of freedom as she comfortable jumps into rock music. This song in particular combines very soft, mellow verses with an impossibly catchy belted chorus highlighted by electric guitars that give a certain harshness to the song. I have to say that I really loved the transformation. Video.

Nei Giardini Che Nessuno Sa/In The Gardens That Nobody Knows

This is my favourite song from her latest album Io Canto/I Sing, from 2006. The songs are lovely, but this is just adorable. A pensive, melancholic ballad that slowly navigates through an oppressive, yet surprisingly sparse musical background, it takes more than two minutes to reach the spectacular chorus, which emerges from the misty guitars of the beginning like a through of fresh air in a hot summer day. It’s one of the best ballads I’ve heard so far this year.

Album Review Pt 2 - Marie Serneholt's Enjoy The Ride

2007-04-07T09:18:00.000Z

I don’t know what has happened in Marie Serneholt’s life since A*Teens disbanded, but after listening to her début album, I deduce it must have been pretty awful, since she seems to be longing to retrocede in time to the teen craze of the year 2000, and live her adolescence once again. Maybe it is that sharing the spotlight with the group’s other three members was incredibly frustrating for the inner prototypical teen, pop-singing nymphet that she so desperately tries to unleash in this record, but the truth is that this music is incredibly dated for 2007, and not above most of the drivel that saturated the airwaves back then and propitiated the emergence of the Avril Lavignes and hip hop-filtered Beyoncés of the world. In short, this product is long past its caducity date.

The album opens with the amusing title track, which draws the listeners in with somewhat aggressive electric guitar chords that create a sense of expectation for an thunderous chorus or explosive finale that never materialize. Conversely, what we get is a cutesy chorus that tells us to enjoy the ride over a fast garage beat. The adorable melody’s subtle shifts, however, make this song enormously enjoyable, with Serneholt showing off her very pretty voice to its best effect across endless layers of vocal overdubs (which makes me wonder, how would Britney Spears’ material have sounded if someone with a little talent had sung it?). The importance of this song is considerable, given the fact that, in its little more than three minutes of length, the strengths and weaknesses of the album are revealed. Marred by an often bizarre production that aims to be innovative, but ends up being a chaotic mish mash of neurotically assembled little pieces, stupid lyrics that pretend to be adult by referring to (oh, the originality!) infidelities and sex - plus maybe far too little ambition, the album pretends to be enjoyable, but it is such a half effort that it ends up being just a guilty pleasure.

The record strives to surprise with the Cardigans-esque Wasted Love, a gorgeous song that presents us with the tragedy of teenage heartbreak over an urgent bass line and a rock-ified background that becomes effective by the cold, metallic sheen that the producers give to Marie’s vocals. Sadly, the album lacks any other experiments of this sort, and the majority of its ten tracks are little more than joyless revisions of a now obsolete formula. Take the faltering The Boy I Used To Know and the absolutely dismal I Can’t Be Loved, for example; both songs waste perfect choruses that burst out with energy (Max Martin would be proud) by forcibly cramming them into square melodies and pushing them down with frantic productions that run across a myriad of samples and vocal effects only to come out overwrought, and completely flat.

That’s The Way That My Heart Goes

Beyond Tonight

These missteps are avoided, however, in a number of tracks – most of which have, not curiously at all, been selected as singles. Lead single That’s The Way That My Heart Goes is simply delicious with its whispered, half-spoken verses and waving choruses, which bop in and out of the song with a rush of enthusiastic cheer. This trend is continued with the joyous I Need A House, which carefully straddles the line between pop/rock and dance music while naively addressing teenage homelessness. Driven forward by an infectious chorus and adorable harmonies, the song seems to be at least thirty seconds too short, and one is left with a feeling of not having gotten enough. The same could be said about the relationship anthem I Love Making Love In the Morning, which cheerfully celebrates the joys of sex from the perspective of a fifteen year old imagining how her life will be in ten years time (those who enjoyed the horrid film Thirteen Going On Thirty, will be thrilled by this). It is, nonetheless, a great slice of chocolate, jam and custard-coated cake.

I Love Making Love In The Morning

Calling All Detectives

This trend is redressed, however, when Serneholt ventures into ballad territory. In the delicate love anthem Beyond Tonight, easily the best song in the album, she is given enough time to flex her tiny, still juvenile voice into some sort of emotional expression, bringing much needed depth to the record with a feeling of uncertainty and desire to make love last that’s simply charming in its innocence. Its apparent continuation, the aptly titled Oxygen, slowly lifts the listener up to heaven between soft harmonies and longing sighs. A final highlight of the album, is the fast ballad Calling All Detectives, which combines some of the most ridiculous lyrics imaginable with a gorgeous melody and a haunting electric piano that keeps chirping over the rhythmic percussion and lovely acoustic touches.

Well, here we come to the final review of the month! I really hope it’s wasn’t too boring – I know my writing can be very dull and cryptic on occasions. I’d also like to remind you to buy this album. Go here.

Admire this Bulgarian 'treasure'!

2007-04-05T15:00:00.000Z

Someone who knows how obsessed I am with anything to do with folk music, recently mentioned this video to me. However, I have to say that more than ‘folk’, I’d have to call this ‘gawd!’ (sorry, it was a stupid joke). It’s from Azis, the king of Bulgarian chalga, which is a genre that blends Bulgarian, Slavic and Middle Eastern folk with Western dance music – quasi perfection, to be clearer. Let me tell you, the first time I saw Azis, I doubted whether I should point and laugh or fall on my knees and thank God for this miracle. Azis is camp. In the worst way imaginable. Incredibly tacky and trashy is the best way to describe him. Just look at this video: In it, Azis waves and gyrates in the middle of a construction site while wearing an outfit that makes him look like a cross between Mad Max and an Ottoman concubine. Meanwhile, three massive bodybuilders change in a locker room, longingly staring at each other, then they sweat and sweat and sweat around Azis, until the end, when... Well, watch the video! Then you'll be able to enjoy the most marvellous collection of outrageous clichés that anyone's ever seen!!!

So far I have managed to find quite a bit of information on Azis, which means that you can expect a post about him really soon! I am also trying to look for a place that sells his records; in fact, if anyone can suggest a trustworthy place to buy them online, I’ll be immensely grateful! Oh, but let’s not forget about the music. I am in LOVE with chalga, and I’m sure that you’ll also fall in love with it. The song is called No Kazvam Ti Stiga, which I can’t translate, as I’ve no knowledge of Bulgarian – if anyone can assist in this as well, I’ll be equally grateful. However, it is one of the best fusions of techno and folk I’ve ever heard. Wonderful!

The joyous rose of Turkey - Gülşen

2007-04-05T11:24:00.000Z

Gülşen is Turkey's most desired, and widely despised singer. The scourge of feminists and religious fundamentalists (who would have thought that it was possible for these two groups to ever agree over something?), Gülşen works hard to convince her fellow citizens that contributing to reduce women to the status of mere sexual objects is a noble pursuit, especially if you do so clad in a transparent bikini and a little cheap jewellery (you have to include it – diamanté is a necessity if you want to avoid catching colds! ;-P). However, things were not always like this. Once a chaste, pious and contrite serious musician, Gülşen proudly declared her love for all things traditional and artsy. Not surprisingly at all, she did so because she coursed her baccalaureate studies in the prestigious Şehremini Lisesi, widely considered one of the best educational centers in Turkey, and is a graduate in Musicology from the renowned Music School of Istanbul’s Technical University. She also happens to be an excellent guitar player and a fantastic composer – the poor thing probably wanted to be admired for her work and not for her body. Aaaaawwww, poor misguided soul in desperate need of stilettos, silicon implants and a fake tan! :-P Still, she managed to achieve notoriety on the strength of her deep, rich contralto voice and some unbelievably beautiful compositions, for which she was seen as a possible candidate to, one very distant day, occupy Sezen Aksu's lofty throne right on the very top of the Turkish pop music heaven.

However, people soon tired of Gülşen's artful dalliances, and her awesome third album Şimdi/Now (2002) failed miserably in the charts in spite of being one of the best works of art by any Turkish musician in that year. After having to cancel concerts and presentations due to an overall lack of interest, I guess that she spent a few days in deep mediation and came up with this brilliant answer to the existential question: what do you do when you’re talented, unfairly ignored and still young enough? Easy. You stop wearing clothes in public! So, after a little water, lettuce and apples dieting, some torrid sessions on a tanning bed and a bit of liposuction here and there to accelerate the process, our once prodigal daughter Gülşen came out of the detox clinic as the very flower of whore-dom! ;-P And I love her even more for it, because her music hasn’t lost any of its quality and now she’s a whole lot more entertaining to watch! In addition, I must admit that I can’t get enough of the "I know I'm too hot for you to do so, but if you take me seriously I might shag you later" paradoxal shadow that falls over everything that she’s done as of late. It gives her desperation a touch of complexity that’s missing from all the other clothes-averse pop tarts in Turkey :-P. Or the world, for that matter.

Now, seriously, I have to say that it is indeed sad that a talented musician like her should be forced to pander to the lowest common denominator in order to save her career, but what the heck! She’s selling millions now. Anyway, there’s not much more to say about her, since her life seems to have been devoid of any significant dramatic experiences, and she seems to be one of the few young Turkish musicians whose careers haven’t been built by Sezen Aksu.

Thus, without further ado, I present you with the selection I’ve made; I really hope you’ll enjoy it! But as always, I’d like to remind you to go to buy her albums here.

Yurtta Aşk, Cihanda Aşk/Love In the World, Love In the Land (Dance Version)

The original version of this, the title track from her latest album (2005), is a rather good disco song that’s strongly influenced by Middle Eastern folk. Still, I’ve chosen this remix version of it because it has acoustic flamenco ornamentation, some heavy electric guitars and a far more aggressive beat – it’s more international, in short. The title of the song is inspired by a famous phrase from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk; the father of modern, secular, rabidly pro-Western Turkey – ‘yurtta barış, cihanda barış’ (peace in the world, peace in the land). As pretentious as this shameless paraphrasing of a great man who changed the course of Turkish history is, I must admit that the song is AWESOME, and the lyrics quite good. So much so, that it was one of the biggest hits in 2005 in Turkey, spending seven weeks at number one in the charts! But the album has so much more! In it, Gülşen has included reggaeton, R&B, folk numbers and even house music! God, how I love her! Video.

Sarışınım/My Blond One

This cover of a 1988 Sezen Aksu mega-hit is FABULOUS!!! Whereas the original is marred by what could be best described as bizarre synthesizer effects disastrously clashing against each other, this is given the full folk/pop treatment that it ought to have had in the first place, and the results are just… AAAAAAAHHHHHH! Let’s just say that I love this so much, that Gülşen could very well start releasing actual shit from now on, and I’d still happily buy it. She’s bought my eternal loyalty with this! It begins with heavy percussion that keeps running all the way to the end of the song, and is frequently paired by a thick, heavy bass line that will have you bopping around in no time!!! But the wind section of the song is what really makes it so awesome. It was also a huge number one hit in 2004, especially after the video, in which Gülşen appears dancing in a transparent bikini that barely covers her ‘charms’ with false diamonds (her jewels ;-P actually had to be digitalized before the video was broadcast), was banned from Turkish television for being considered pornographic! Here it is!

Sakıncalı/Objectionable (Acoustic Version)

This beautiful acoustic song is an example of what Gülşen is capable of, both as a composer and producer. Opened by melancholic piano instrumentation, this wonderful folk-inspired ballad combines very slow, delicate verses that come alive with violins and oud arpeggios, and fast choruses that keep their urgency thanks to a heavy bass line and some rapid percussion, which keeps appearing and disappearing as the melody lazily unfolds. It’s simply gorgeous. Video.

Of… Of…

The title track for her 2004 rising from the ashes, this song doesn’t really mark a sharp departure from everything that Gülşen had done before, but it is nonetheless still different enough as to have been a surprise for most of her fans. I’m not sure about the meaning of the title, because it has nothing to do with the lyrics (it’s a typical ‘I left you, you found someone new and now that I want you back, you’re taking revenge by playing with my feelings’ sort of song), but it’s very catchy and fun, so I don’t really mind! I LOVE the combination of a fast trance beat with traditional çiftetelli instrumentation. It’s gorgeous! Video.

Album Review Pt 1 - Three singles by Kaiti Garbi

2007-04-02T16:53:00.000Z

First of all, allow me to say that I have been tempted to post these singles in their entirety, since it’s unlikely that most of you will be willing to spend money in an expensive import single that costs almost as much as an album – but, sadly, I just cannot do it. Sorry. However, I am posting the songs that I thought you’d enjoy the most, so at least you’ll have the opportunity to sample each single separately and, if one day you feel like spending capriciously, you’ll hopefully purchase them. Oh, I almost forgot. If you want to buy any of them, go to Greekmusic.

Second, I would like to mention that this review is an exception, and I will indeed resume posting normally after it. Thus, you can expect a proper album's review later in the month. After these small clarifications, allow me to start! :-)
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Τι Θέλουνε Τα Μάτια Σου; (Ti Theloune Ta Matia Sou?/What Do Your Eyes Want?) [CD single - 2000]

Τι Θέλουνε Τα Μάτια Σου; was the first independent single that La Garbi released in her almost twenty-five-year career, and seems to have been little more than an experiment designed to give her the chance to do something she’d never done before. This could be corroborated by the fact that the song wasn’t paid much attention to by either Kaiti or the record company (at the time, they were still promoting her massively successful album To Kati). Nonetheless, it did become a hit, even if she seldom performed it live and approached the whole affair nonchalantly, as if saying ‘look, this time I just want to enjoy myself’.

The original version of the title track is a laid back, watery acoustic rock song that waves placidly across your mind, only to surprise you in the end with a fierce electric guitar solo that comes out of nowhere! It is one of Kaiti’s most amusing songs, because it is pretty straightforward and lacks the explosive instrumental breaks and passionate delivery that characterizes most of her material.

In addition to the title track, the album boasts two new songs and two remixes. Of the new songs, the impossibly pretty (and surprisingly bare of instrumentation) folk number Kane To Logariasmo/Pay the Bill is as close to pre-Turkic influence as modern Greek music can get. A moderate hit on its own, it has however some sprinkles of bouzouki that shine around the melody, keeping the mental image of a calm sea over which rays of sunlight sparkle in bright, momentary reflections. Both the title track and this song were included in Garbi’s next offer, the massive double album Apla Ta Pragmata/Simple Things, which I shall review soon. However, they are remixed versions that have the slick wall-of-sound production that’s so characteristic of Modern Laika. I have to say that, personally, I prefer the original versions; they are a lot fresher and less overwrought and calculated.

The final new song, Aspro I Mavro, became very popular and received quite a lot of radio airplay, even though it was never formally released as a single. It is an ordinary Middle Eastern pop song with some elements of Northern African raï – exotic to Western ears with its violin progressions and waving organ scales, it sadly doesn’t rise above the thousands of similar songs in that genre, and ends up sounding as clichéd and unoriginal as it is: very much. You can almost imagine a belly dancer waving her hips to this while middle-class families of tourists look on as they eat their kebabs. Ugh, tacky :-(.

The two remixes remain quite faithful to the original structure of the title track, only adding a few electronic touches that turn it into two relaxed, yet somewhat danceable numbers that are closer to chill out music than to proper dance floor stompers.

Άσπρο Ή Μαύρο - Aspro I Mavro/White Or Black

Τι Θέλουνε Τα Μάτια Σου; - Ti Theloune Ta Matia Sou?/What Do You Eyes Want? (Club Mix)
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Μία Καρδιά (Mia Kardia/A Heart) [EP single - 2002]

Mia Kardia is Kaiti’s first (and so far, only) EP single, the purpose of which was to keep the momentum built by the double album Apla Ta Pragmata. Basically a four-plus-one-song journey through all the possible disguises that dance music can adopt, Mia Kardia is fun!!! :-D It opens with the spectacular Middle Eastern folksy dance song Ante Geia, which is presented by redoubling drums only to explode into a furious whirlwind of violins, organ and several layers of percussion. With its impossibly catchy, bright chorus, it starts things with a high note! It is followed by the song Mia Kardia Tin Echo, an impossibly pretty slice of electro-pop that cheerfully bounces its way to your brain with an energetic bass line and all sorts of spiralling musical hooks that will make you lose yourself within the song.

Things are followed by the Banghra experiment To Thelo Toso/I Want It So Much, which combines sitars with distant Arabic chants and some touches of Greek traditional music over a prominent, loud mid-tempo beat. Next we come to the star of the EP, the dark and melodramatic journey across the devastated lands of heartbreak that is M'Echeis Arrostisei!!! This is by far my favourite song in the entire record – it starts as a ominous, harsh-sounding military march, only to then blossom into a fast, obscure dance track that’s constantly being pushed forward by an aggressive, pulsating beat and urgent, almost unnerving violins. The chorus shows its Middle Eastern influence only in the instrumentation, further highlighting the contrast between the simple melody and the elaborate ornamentation surrounding it. I absolutely LOVE this song.

The album is closed, surprisingly, by a folk ballad sung in duet with Giorgos Tsalikis, a traditional Laika star. Tha Meinei Metaxy Mas/It Shall Remain Between The Two Of Us, is a pleasant enough song, even though it is hardly original and, most certainly, it isn’t memorable. Just an exercise of marketing placed there to remind Garbi’s core audience that she isn’t willing to stray too far from Anna Vissi’s tried and tested formula for massive success, and thus lose sales.

Άντε Γειά - Ante Geia/Goodbye

Μία Καρδιά Την Έχω - Mia Kardia Tin Echo/I Have A Heart (80's Club Mix)

Μ'Έχεις Αρρωστήσει - M'Echeis Arrostisei/You've Made Me Become Ill
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Γαλάζιο Και Λευκό (Galazio Kai Lefko/Light Blue And White) [CD single - 2004]

With its addictive faux-R&B title track, which includes an amusing whispered rap, Kaiti Garbi voiced her patriotic feelings during the Spring of 2004 by saying that she wanted to paint the whole world light blue and white, like the Greek flag. The truly nice thing about it is that she did so riding on a heavy stacatto rhythm section and an addictive chorus that stuck to everyone's brain for most of the Summer season - so much so, that the single sold 27,000 copies, and reached number 3 in the charts. The aggressive B-side Katapliktiko! is a Middle Eastern-influenced dance track that includes, among other things, the amusing pairing of baglamas and banjo (!), typical violin ornamentation and an ear-shattering, heavy beat that furiously bashes the listener's eardrums. It is a definite highlight, and surreptitiously found its way to Greek dance floors in spite of never being properly released on its own.

However, I suppose to increase the marketability of the single (as if it needed any help), three remixes of previous hits were included. The fresh-sounding, radio friendly ditties were tailor made to fill the summery airwaves. The most notable of these remixes is the beautiful Summer Dance Mix of the hit Esena Mono which is, in its original form, a dull and instantly forgettable ballad – a true rarity in that it is one of Garbi’s very few missteps. However, thanks to the fact that it was extensively remixed, it managed to become a very sizeable hit. This is one of the best remixes.

Καταπλήκτικό! - Katapliktiko!/Awesome!

Εσένα Μόνο - Esena Mono/Only You (Nikos Terzis Summer Dance Mix)

Γαλάζιο Και Λευκό - Galazio Kai Lefko/Light Blue And White

The green-eyed Greek sorceress - Kaiti Garbi

2007-04-01T16:36:00.000Z

Allow me to begin this post by saying that I am extremely partial to Kaiti Garbi, for she is my favourite Laika singer. That's why I had thought that I should reserve her for a later post, because I wanted to ellaborate more freely. However, I’ve just bought her penultimate album and I have loved it so much that the deranged, stalking fan within me had to talk about her!!!!!! I LURRRVE Kaiti Garbi!!!! :-D After this extremely embarrassing moment (sorry! ;-P), allow me to begin properly. The third in contention to the throne of Modern Laika, Kaiti Garbi is one of Greece's most successful singers ever and has a massive following amongst Greek expatriates - I'd go so far as daring to say that, in some places, she's even more popular than the Goddess Anna Vissi herself (who is also her closest and dearest friend). Then again, I’m terrified of being dismembered alive by a horde of furious Vissi and Vandi fans (let me tell you, they are SCARY), so I'll just say that Kaiti is just oh-ever-so-slightly behind Anna and Despina in terms of popularity.

Blessed with a heavy, robust mezzo and the ability to inject torrents of passion into anything she graces with her voice, Kaiti's musical progression somewhat mirrors the gradual evolution towards dance music that Laika has had over the last ten years. But while other artist seem to have a love for always finding new sounds and styles to add to their repertoire, Kaiti evolves through what could be best described as "stylistic blocks", and is thus a bit more predictable. Her first two albums were pure, unadulterated 80's pop. From there, she started introducing traditional elements to her music, and by the mid-nineties she was singing all out Middle Eastern folk/rock. Then, in 2000, she abruptly changed the style that had made her so successful and began singing dance music combined with traditional songs (the speciality of Modern Laika singers!). As of late, Kaiti has become more diverse than ever, and her albums have a bit of everything: rock, dance, reggae, folk – you name it.

Even though what I have just written is hardly original as far as Laika singers are concerned, what separates Garbi from the rest of the genre's stars is that she is extremely careful with the material she chooses. She is never self-indulgent and never allows herself to rest in her laurels, and that’s what I like so much about her: her total commitment to pleasing her audience by always striving to offer the best material she can find. :-)

La Garbi is also one of Greece’s most highly regarded celebrities, and her success has been built upon sheer charisma, integral professionalism and hard work. She launched her career at fifteen by singing on a third-rate television show with her little sister Liana (who attempted to build a pop career in the early nineties, but failed). In the two years that followed, the popularity of the Garbi sisters increased steadily, to the point when they started receiving offers to sing in well-known bouzoukia nightclubs. However, Kaiti’s very conservative father, who believed that ‘pop singer’ and ‘whore’ were synonym concepts, forced his daughters to abandon their musical dreams. In spite of this, Kaiti refused to give in, and as soon as she finished her studies, she decided to work as a session singer, while taking part in the occasional concert with minor orchestras. Sadly, given her father’s ideas, she didn’t have a chance to release anything until the age of 27 – with his blessing. I suppose that, tired of hearing Kaiti beg for years and watching people’s very favourable reactions to her singing, Kaiti’s father understood what her true calling in life was and gave his unconditional support.

And thus it all began! Kaiti met success immediately, and unlike other more popular singers ;-), she has rarely trailed off from the platinum path. All of Kaiti’s albums have been successful, reaching at the very least Gold status within six months of their release (neither Vissi nor Vandi can say that, and Natassa Theodoridou could only do it thrice – the rest of her albums have had a lukewarm reception). Thus, I don’t exaggerate when I say that, in terms of sales, La Garbi is the most successful female singer in Greece ever.

But, upon what has this success been erected? The answer is, besides talent, careful planning and passion, an impeccable public image built of fairy tale twists. Let me give you an example: in 1997 she recorded a duet with one of Greece's most popular heart-throbs, Dionysis Schoinas. Apparently, Kaiti and him got along famously during the recording sessions, but then went their separate ways and it seemed that they would just remain good, if somewhat distant, friends. A few months later, immediately after they finished performing the song for the first time ever on Greece's highest rated afternoon show, he knelt down before her and declared, in front of everyone, that he had realized that he loved her and wanted her to marry him... A shocked Kaiti laughed, then cried, ran around the scenario several times with a dazed expression, and finally accepted with a tearful smile. Aaawwwwwww isn't that sweet... And great publicity (sorry, but I had to say it!). Anyway, they have been very happily married ever since, and in 1998 had a boy named Dimitris.

Well, anyway, I just wanted to finish this rather lengthy article by saying that I hope you enjoy her songs, and also to remind you to go to buy her albums here!

(Αυτό) Το Κάτι - (Afto) To Kati/(That) Something

2000 was a very fructiferous year in terms of creativity (and success) for the world of Greek music. No less because its three official goddesses all released exceptionally good double albums that were either preceded by or presented with the most successful singles in Greek history ever. Yes, unlike the three goddesses of the Iliad, everyone got a price: Vandi had the most successful single (Ypofero -437.000 copies sold in three months - find it here). Anna Vissi had the greatest combined sales with the quasi simultaneous releases of her English language début, the massive single Agapi Ypervoliki and then the spectacular double album Kravgi (1,237,000 copies sold in a few months), but Kaiti had the second highest selling album that year, reaching the half-million mark on its own - and it did so helped by this amazing song! A greatest hits compilation of sorts, the spectacular double album To Kati presented seven new songs along ‘only’ 24 of Kaiti's top 20 hits. Needless to say, its success was more than justified. This song is pure pop bliss!!!!! Honestly, dance music is seldom this good and impossibly catchy. Video.

Κραγιόν - Kragion/Lipstick

This is one of my favourite songs by Kaiti, and I can honestly say that this is solely responsible for my buying her spectacular 2001 double album Apla Ta Pragmata/Simple Things (31 awesome songs in one package!). An amazing dance epic, this combines a thumping dance beat with an utterly lovely melody and Gypsy violin instrumentation, which is integral to the structure of the song: the melody always delves into the progressions, and vice versa. Or rather, they constantly whirl and flutter around each other. It also is notable because it has Kaiti’s highest notes ever (even though they are very distorted by a vocoder). However, this song is, above all, incredibly fun! Enjoy it ;-).

Μία Γυναίκα Μόνη - Mia Gynaika Moni/A Woman Alone

This has to be my favourite song from Kaiti’s penultimate album, the not very successful (when compared to her previous efforts) Echo Sta Matia Ourano/I’ve The Sky In My Eyes (2005). It combines a heavy, thumping percussive line with gorgeous folk guitars and a hook-ridden melody that will be stuck in your brain for days. The really interesting thing is that the cadence and style of the song always keep changing; the verses have a reggae-fied background that morphs into an aggressive techno landscape in the choruses, which then lead us to a succession of instrumental breaks, a saxophone solo and an end that’s as much of an anti-climax as it is surprisingly satisfying. I wonder why this song wasn’t released as a single, especially because the ones that were chosen to promote the album weren’t as successful as it had been expected – this would surely have injected some much needed life to the album's promotion.

Ζήλια - Zilia/Jealousy

This aggressive dance track heavily samples Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, but improves on the original by adding what sounds like a deafening storm of sound explosions happening all in rapid succession, and often at the same time. The heavy, cold instrumentation creates a very sharp contrast with the melody, which is very mellow and soft, but is constantly pushed forward by Kaiti’s stout vocals, which also create a compact structure in a song that seems to endlessly revolve without direction in a chaotic myriad of electronic effects. In short, this is amazing, and one of the best dance songs I’ve ever heard. From her 2003 album Emmones Idees/Recurrent Ideas.

Όλη Μου Η Στενοχώρια - Oli Mou I Stenochoria/All Of My Anguish

This unbelievably beautiful traditional song is one of the main highlights in the album To Kati. Introduced by rippling piano scales, it quietly unfolds into a boundless sea of sorrow that waves its way across your ears ever so softly. I cannot even begin to say how sad and moving this song is. All I will say is that it’s just exceptional in every sense.

Month’s Heading: April, the memory of China and Japan’s blossoms

2007-04-01T16:11:00.000Z

April is the first month of the year that’s completely within the Spring’s furious celebration to life, and we could even say that it is the proper beginning of this placid season, which delicately begins the climb towards Summer after the violent and tumultuous changes of March. Originally the second month of the year in the Monarchic Roman calendar, it was devoted to Venus, the minor protector of family gardens who eventually left the humble allotments of the simple Roman people to mirror Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, beauty and sex. Venus was, however, a bit less playful and a lot more matronly than her Greek counterpart, and that’s why she was also regarded as the source of Spring’s fertility: many festivals were held in her honour during the whole month, but the most spectacular one, the solemnly-named Festum Veneris et Fortunae Virilis (Feast of Venus and The Good Luck of Men) was held the very first day. Theoretically, it’s from here that the name of the month comes: a corruption in genitive case of the foreign name Aphrodite, aphrilis.

After Christianity razed all apparent signs of Pagan tradition, April went from the month in which life was celebrated, to the month in which death was conquered with the Resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday. Curiously enough, in the month in which life proudly emerges from the paralyzing snows of winter, Christianity goes from mourn to celebration in one week, and in some places it does so with rather unsettling displays of gory morbidity and fanatical devotion.

However, not all cultures view the season under such an ominous light; the Chinese open the month with the beautiful Qingming or Clear Brightness festival, in which people cheerfully remember their ancestors by going to their tombs and cleaning them – by doing so, they rescue their memories by polishing and carefully adorning the graves, giving new life to those who are long gone. But the most beautiful festival of all takes place in Japan. Hanami, or Viewing of the Flowers, is a 1,500 years old tradition imported from China, which celebrated the joys of Spring as soon as they were announced by the blossoming of the trees. Nowadays, the cherry blossom season (which, curiously enough, only lasts one week) in Japan is widely celebrated, especially at night, when paper lanterns are hung from the branches of trees so that people can enjoy eating under a light shower of pink and white petals.

Finally, I come to the song that opens the month! Ayumi Hamasaki’s Hanabi/Fireworks comes in two parts, being the first a lovely melancholic ballad that I’m sure will tug at your heart’s strings with its sad, almost pleading chorus and sweet, distant atmosphere. It was a huge million seller single in 2002 (the last million-selling single by any Japanese female singer), and comes from the album Rainbow. The second part is also a ballad, but it has a very aggressive rock background that manages to both highlight the melody’s beauty while giving the song greater intensity, and a heightened sense of frustration, in comparison with the first part’s boundless despair. It was also released as a single in 2003, as part of the mini album Memorial Address, from 2003. Let me remind you to buy them at Amazon.

Hanabi ~episode I~
Hanabi ~episode II~

Jennifer López Spanish language remixes and versions

2007-03-29T14:17:00.000Z

Today I've had a rather difficult and laborious day, so I've decided that the best way to relax was to come here and make another little post. :-) The object of this post is someone who is very far from the majority of singers featured in this blog (or rather, below them) in terms of talent, but she has released some truly excellent remixes and, in the past, her material was very enjoyable. Thus, as an homage to the Jennifer López of the olden days, I'm posting a few random remixes that by far surpass the original format of the songs they are meant to improve. Also included are two Spanish versions of songs from her best effort so far, the ridiculously named 'J.Lo'.

Personally, I've always thought that La López sounds extremely uncomfortable whenever has to even utter the simplest of phrases in Spanish, let alone singing (the recording sessions of her horrid dronefest Como Ama una Mujer must have been quite a show :-D - actually, I wonder how she communicates with that mummy she has for a husband... Is there a non-verbal language for necromancy? Sorry, that was a bitchy moment ;-P). Anyway, she sounds surprisingly at ease in the utterly superb Cariño, which is simply one of the most infectious (not to mention original) salsa-and-faux-R&B mash ups ever. The Spanish version of Love Don't Cost A Thing is slightly different from the original (it sounds a bit like a demo recording, in my opinion), but the delivery is so awkward that you won't be able to keep from laughing! :-D

La López redeems herself with the infectious reggaeton remix of '¿Qué Hiciste?', which injects the song with an ominous air of cold cruelty and impassioned desire of revenge that's quite unnerving, and saves it from the mediocrity of the original. Si Ya Se Acabó is given an aggressive club beat and distorted winds to create an irresistible call to the dance floor - if you can resist the urge to dance with this, you're superhuman... Or, better said not human at all! then, the Spanish version of 'Waiting for Tonight' is drastically changed by Pablo Flores, who I'm sure had making our heads spin when he addes the eardrum-assaulting percusion and bizarre electronic effects.

Well, that's all. Of course, I have to remind you to go to your favourite online store to buy Jennifer López's albums. It's not as if they were difficult to get. Maybe Amazon is a good choice. :-)

Cariño/Darling

Amor Se Paga Con Amor/Love Is Paid With Love (Love Don't Cost A Thing)

¿Qué Hiciste?/What Have You Done? (Luny Tunes Reggaeton remix)

Si Ya Se Acabó/If It's Already Over (Radio remix)

Una Noche Más/One More Night (Waiting For Tonight - Pablo Flores remix)

A few songs by Mónica Naranjo and some other things...

2007-03-27T15:40:00.000Z

Yesterday I was revising my music files and found several tracks by Mónica Naranjo that I had downloaded some time ago, and found quite interesting. With the exception of the 2005 mega hit Enamorada De Ti, which was the only new track released with her hugely successful greatest hits collection, Colección Privada, all of them are remixes of previous hits. If You Leave Me Now was Mónica's first proper foray into English language, and even though it wasn't as successful as she had hoped (or as it ought to have been), is a wonderful dance track that will surely awaken your interest. While the original is simply marvellous, this club ready remix is quite interesting. It was included in the English language version of her album Chicas Malas/Bad Girls (2002), along with a catchy -yet certainly more relaxed- remix of the title track, which I'm also posting here.

The last remix I'm posting is simply superb; in fact, it's the best of all these songs. Even though the original version of Shake The House, the song chosen to represent the Spanish delegation in the 2002 FIFA World Cup (ewww!), is only notable because it features Mónica's highest note ever (a spectacular C6 in chest quality voice!), this vastly superior remix, with its urgent beat, repetitive percusions and heavy mechanical instrumentation, is sheer delight. It's also, like all good things in life, a bit short. However, it's so good that you won't be able to resist playing it again and again - which will indubitably compensate for its short length ;-). Well, without further ado, I leave you will the songs. Enjoy!

But, before anything, let me remind you to go to buy Mónica's albums at Amazon before! :-)

Edit: After further review, I've decided that one of Mónica's best songs in the last years deserved a place in this post, and I've included the link. I Ain't Gonna Cry/No Voy A Llorar was timidly promoted in Eastern Europe (particularly Greece and Russia), and managed to climb to the top twenty in both countries thanks to airplay alone. As always, Sony refused to properly support Bad Girls, later blaming Mónica for its mediocre international performance, but this time I am genuinely surprised that this wasn't a massive hit. While a prefer the superb original, which is pure disco awesomeness, this remix is just lovely, and I cannot imagine anyone not loving it. That's all - enjoy ;-).

Enamorada De Ti/In Love With You

If You Leave Me Now (Rawling Mix)

I Ain't Gonna Cry (Steelworks Mix)

Bad Girls (NY remix)

Shake The House (Mr Smash Fever's Pitch remix)

Changing the subject, I've been looking around today and I've found a few posts that I'd like to share with you. A few days ago, the always fantastic PopTrashAddicts presented a review of Scottish diva Sheena Easton's spectacular modernized disco album Fabulous, which is nothing short of amazing.

The wonderful PosterGirl truly works hard to find exceptional singers, and she invariably succeeds. This post about Estonian singer Kadi Toom is excellent, as is the exposition accompanying it :-). I've particularly enjoyed Nightfall, which is one of the sweetest ballads anyone could imagine!

Via PosterGirl's blog, I've just discovered YouDon'tKnowPop, which is very enjoyable. Thanks to it, I've had a brief journey through Ireland's pop landscape, and discovered the excellent singer Evan - who looks as good as he sounds ;-)!

DigitalTechnique hasn't been updated for some time now, but it recently featured an adorable acoustic version of Alphaville's classic Forever Young, performed by semi-legendary 80's teen queen Tiffany!

POPtastic! recently featured, among a myriad of exciting new things, an impossibly catchy cover of Click Five's excellent pop gem Friday Night by the lovely Christy Romano. Needless to say it, I've loved it! Then again, it's difficult not to love everything featured there :-).

That's all for this month - I'll return in April with some very exciting things! First of all, I'll rush head on to the world of Laika with megastar Kaiti Garbi, and Russian pop lovers shall be delighted with the inclusion of Estrada legend Alla Pugacheva among the many worldly divas of this blog - but don't despair, there will be many other new things! See you then :-)!

Special Songs Pt 3

2007-03-26T16:19:00.000Z

This month’s special songs are two versions of one of the algid points in songwriter Michel Berger’s and legendary Quebecois lyricist Luc Plamondon’s 1976 spectacular opera rock Starmania. Even though the project was meant to be a stage show, strangely enough it was released as a recording in 1978, almost a year and a half before débuting in Paris’ Palais Des Congrès to enormous acclaim. In fact, the show became so popular that many of its songs have become classics, and made of exceptionally talented singer Daniel Balavoine a superstar. It also contributed to give new impulse to whiny-voiced sixties’ starlet France Gall’s career, who also happens to be Michel Berger’s muse :-S.

The plot of the story is nothing short of amazing, blending an innate sense of teenage rebelliousness with a detailed analysis of social phenomena such as totalitarianism, terrorism as a social response to economical, sexual and political discrimination, as well as the evils of industrialization. It also has plenty of intrigue, with unrequited love being the catalyst for the musical’s many tragedies! Needless to say, it’s awesome! :-)

But well, we were talking about songs! In 1992, an English version of the show was produced in collaboration with Tim Rice, and was released in the album Tycoon. The original cast of this English version couldn’t be better! La Grande Dion, the awesome Cyndi Lauper and the unique Nina Hagen all together in one recording! Sadly, the project never really took off and it has only been sporadically staged in Paris as a curiosity for those who have already seen the show a million times - which is downright criminal, because not only are the songs superb, but Tim Rice’s lyrics are unbelievably accomplished and adhere perfectly to traditional canons of poetry while still being accessible to all publics. I would go so far as to say that they are far superior to Plamondon’s, but then again that’s not difficult.

The song in question, Le Monde Est Stone/The World Is Stone, is considered by many of the Plamondon’s greatest lyrical accomplishments, combining his trademark robust simplicity with what is, surprisingly, an absolute sense of hopelessness that’s as universal as it is personal; simply put, the song manages to draw the listener in with the representation of a person’s despaired wandering through a hostile world that systematically preys on those who are vulnerable, and unites everyone in experiencing the feeling of perpetual and anguishing defenselessness that they convey. Tim Rice’s version, however, is much more complex, building successive layers of personal experience, vibrant agony, resentment and a mild form of social criticism (or maybe an accurate picture of the human condition) with impressive fluidity, turning the song into a true anthem.

In 1991, Céline Dion released her version of the song in the moderate hit album Dion Chante Plamondon, which was mainly composed of songs from Starmania. Cyndi’s version would not appear until a whole year later, as part of the failed project Tycoon. Personally, I have to say that I enjoy the English version much more (strangely enough - I never thought I'd be able to say this!), mainly because of the lyrics, but also because of the far better production and more passionate delivery. So finally, here you have both versions! I hope you enjoy them :-). but before we finish, remember to go to buy either the single or albums at Amazon.

Céline Dion – Le Monde Est Stone

Cyndi Lauper – The World Is Stone

The conventional iconoclast - Cyndi Lauper

2007-03-21T15:13:00.000Z

Cyndi Lauper’s career has been built upon defying people’s expectations of what she was willing to do, and what they thought she wasn’t capable of doing. At first, everyone assumed that she was just some little Betty Bop caricature in punk-ish Marilyn disguise – an idea that seemed to be confirmed by the cutesy, unsubstantial songs that she cheerfully screeched with her deceptively girlie soprano voice. But even then, she refused to play the role that had been assigned to her by showing some of the considerable complexity and depth that lay underneath the bright colours and loud teenage anthems that shone at the surface. Or to speak in a clearer fashion, Cyndi is a superb songwriter capable of retelling the daily tragedies that afflict people’s lives in a way that makes them sublime without falling into pretension. Simply put, Cyndi is awesome.

And it is thanks to her qualities as a songwriter and her desire to explore and expose the seemingly banal mysteries of daily life that Cyndi has managed to carve a place for herself in the pantheon of unfairly ignored and misunderstood artists. Flexing her highly versatile voice to suit every imaginable situation and mood, traveling across all possible styles and genres (often within the same song) and posing awkwardly like a feral child fighting against the constraints of adulthood, Cyndi has managed to fool everyone into thinking that she is just a joke, when in reality she is a world class singer capable of awe-inspiring displays of vocal virtuosity, as well as a crafter of deeply moving, yet surprisingly understated songs.

Lauper has led a life that’s as shocking within the limits of what’s socially acceptable as is her music: not very much at all. What has always truly set her apart from other singers, though, is the fact that her music has no lofty purposes, nor does she aim to produce ‘works of art’ for the sake of vanity. She just explores whatever she wants at her own pace, and always tries to bring something very personal into the process. From the joyous female empowerment anthems of her début She’s So Unusual to her latest ventures into trip hop, pop standards and acoustic rock, she has always taken just the bare bones of every concept and song she comes across with, and filled them with the flesh of her own experiences and imagination. Long before Madonna found an exclusive God that could help her to convince the world that her music isn’t rubbish because it’s spiritual, or Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan decided to disguise their utter banality behind Stevie Nicks’ veil of faux neo-pagan mysticism, Cyndi was addressing deeply troubling matters from a very human point of view, talking about reality in a particularly pedestrian way that’s truly lofty because it presents everything as it is. Exceptional by means of simplicity seems to be the rule with her.

So, after having gone through minimum wage jobs, forgotten gigs at seedy bars, an unstable career the increases in quality of which have invariably translated in decreased public interest and support from her record company, Cyndi has finally settle into middle age with a very loyal following and the realization that critics, that strange race that takes everything at face value in their attempt to find depth in all things, have always been able to recognize her exceptional talent and the true reason behind her unfairly attained outcast status: she is just herself.

To end this post, I’d like to remind you to go to buy Cyndi’s records at Amazon. Enjoy! :-)

I’m Gonna Be Strong [’95 Version]

This amazingly beautiful and deeply moving ballad shows Cyndi at her best; from the soft, almost fearful beginning to the explosive end notes, her qualities as a vocalist are wonderfully showcased. Personally, whenever I hear this song the image of a breaking dam appears in my mind. I know that this is bizarre (that’s how crazy I am ;-P), but the emotional devastation that’s reflected in this song, which ends in furious waves of emotion that wash up the remainders of a past life that shall never return as it was, and sinks into a barren calm after a few instants, is a good simile. Video.

Shine

I really love this song! It’s a very peculiar dance number that combines a heavy percussion line with an airy, delicate background full of small details that build a bright, luminous picture. I also like a lot the changes in rhythm and cadence of the verses, which are given touches or reggae the first time around, and then explode into a kaleidoscope of violins that evoke a forest at spring. It’s one of Cyndi’s most interesting songs, mainly because it’s neither rock nor dance, but has elements of both genres in abundance. Not to mention that the lyrics are gorgeous. From her album of the same name, finally released in 2004!

Insecurious

This is an interesting track mainly for one reason: it’s a songwriting collaboration between Diane Warren and Desmond Child, but sounds nothing like the things that they normally do. It’s a very cheerful and bouncy rock song that seems to want to recapture the sense of teenage rebelliousness that La Lauper’s early songs had, and the lyrics seem to reflect that by presenting some rather awkward word play that wouldn’t be out of place in a child's first attempts at writing poetry (ugh!). Overall a very enjoyable song, it’s definitely one of the highlights in her album A Night To Remember (1989).

Water’s Edge

This is one of Cyndi’s most beautiful and curiously enough, commercial ballads. It’s also one of the only two occasions in which her trip hop and techno heavy album Shine slows down the pace and gives us ballad lovers a bit of a treat! It’s very, very melancholic and sad, with a soft, slow melody that delicately rises in the chorus, like little waves of soft rain in a cold day. Needless to say, this ought to have been a hit, but unfortunately the album didn’t receive even the smallest amount of promotion. Video of a live performance.

Ballad Of Cleo And Joe

There’s more to this song that meets the ear (:-S – gosh, ‘witty’ writing seems to be the norm with me today ;-P). Seriously, underneath the cold, aggressive beats and bizarre Middle Eastern-inspired ornamentation, there bubbles a sense of desperation and incertitude that’s only magnified by Cyndi’s cries and the subject matter of the song, which opposes the grim reality of an underclass gay man’s life to the illusory world of lights he enters every night as a drag queen. The video remix is hilariously cheap and tacky, with a heavily pregnant Cyndi dancing in front of what looks like rubbish bags while dressed as a disco ball! I told you she was fabulous! :-D

The Turkish queen of darkness - Şebnem Ferah

2007-03-15T11:31:00.000Z

Şebnem Ferah is, in theory, Turkey's official Goth queen. However, as it always happens in that wonderful place that is South Eastern Europe, things aren't so straight and easy with her. Even though it's true that Şebnem does cultivate a somewhat Goth-ified image and occasionally delves into the realm of hard rock (in fact, she first started her career as the lead singer of a moderately successful hard rock band, Volvox), she is primarily the most prominent female vocalist of an eminently Turkish cultural phenomenon called Anatolian rock. Anatolian rock first emerged in the mid-sixties as an adaptation to Turkish tastes of American and U.K. imported rock music. However, it soon gained prominence, and by the early seventies it was an already well-established genre, fronted by legendary singer/songwriter Barış Manço, viewed by many as the father of the movement. From there, Anatolian rock has gone to develop further, adding elements of traditional Turkic, Armenian and Balkan music, and occasionally borrowing from Western Classical music and Arabic folk.

That’s where La Ferah appears. The daughter of Macedonian immigrants of very distant Turkish descent, Şebnem had a very happy childhood, surrounded by middle-class comforts and the ever-present sound of Rumelian and Slavic folk. Her parents, mathematics and physics teachers at a secondary school, were also professional musicians, and she received her first music lessons from them. Eventually becoming a very proficient guitar player, Şebnem wanted to be a professional musician, but her parents would have none of it. She was told that only a proper career would do, and was sent to the prestigious, American educational model-based Bursa Namık Sözeri High School, in Istanbul. While staying there as a boarder, she decided to form her first band with a group if six friends, Pegasus.

After its first summer festival, Pegasus lost two members and disbanded, but after a couple of months the five remaining friends decided to give it a try once again, and in 1988 the sixteen-year-olds formed Volvox. However, Volvox couldn’t play frequently due to the fact that it had to be a hobby – no one’s parents would accept it as anything else. Things changed, however, in 1991, when Ferah, then an economics student in Ankara’s Middle Eastern Technical University, met fellow student Özlem Tekin. Both girls became good friends, and after joining Volvox, Turkish-American Özlem gave her fellow band mates the courage to drop out of university and start playing full time. She would also exert a strong influence by exposing them to American indie rock (ugh! :-( ).

Sadly, Volvox were not as successful as they might have deserved. After three years of playing in bars, where they had a very loyal following, they decided to disband. However, fortune was smiling at them. One of their records was picked by Turkish State Television as part of the soundtrack for a series of documentaries on Turkish music, and Şebnem caught the ear of (will you guess it? ;-))… Sezen Aksu and her then lover, equally legendary Armenian songwriter and pianist Onno Tunçboyacıyan.

She became, like Sertab, Tarkan and many others before and after her, a tea-sandwiches-cum-background-singer and telephone dialer (apparently, Sezen hates it when she has to dial phone numbers herself – ah, the horrors that divas must endure for the sake of their art! ;-P), and the rest is, as they say, history! If you’ve liked what you’ve read and will hear, go to buy Şebnem’s albums at Tulumba.

Bu Aşk Fazla Sana/This Love’s Worthless To You

Şebnem’s first single as a soloist, from her début album Kadın/Woman (1996). A somewhat conventional acoustic ballad, the only highlight of which is the soaring, even majestic chorus. It will no doubt sound very ordinary to Western ears, which is the reason why it became an enormous hit in Turkey – its direct approach and instrumental simplicity (for Turkish standards), made it extremely exotic in a country in which even the lowest forms of disposable pop, are forced to carry the weight of an extremely rich musical legacy on their shoulders. Simply put, this song didn’t attempt to be an exercise of applied musical scholasticism; it’s just unaffected and simple - and that’s what made it stand out. Video.

Fırtına/Storm

This is a blend of house and rock with very light touches of folk (I would even dare to say that you’ll have difficulties to identify them). This song would make those sickeningly pretentious, ‘asocial-teens-market-research-says-you-like-this-crap’ wankers Evanescence, turn green with envy (which would be a welcome change from their overuse of Norma Shearer’s Silver Stone #1 white make up anyway). This is a dark, aggressive track that truly honours its title: having passed the first moments of tense calm, everything explodes into a furious hurricane of deafening roars and raging winds. This song marvelously juxtaposes the debacle of a failed relationship to the violence of a storm. Beautiful. Video.

Sigara/Cigarette

This is one of the biggest hits from the 2001 album Perdeler/Curtains. It shows a very strong Middle Eastern influence, but everything is done so carefully and with such subtlety, that it passes through your ears as a light mist. It is one of Ferah’s few full incursions into proper Anatolian rock, and it is truly delightful. With a lovely, sinuous melody that slowly and delicately drags its way across the aggressive background, it has many beautiful highlights, but the gorgeous flute that accompanies Şebnem’s voice during the chorus is simply magical. Video.

Hoşçakal/Noble Jackal

This is my favourite song from Şebnem's powerful new album Can Kırıkları/A Soul’s Pieces (2005). Even though the name of the song is a bit bizarre (God knows what was running through her mind when she wrote it), this is in fact an extremely beautiful and moving ballad that will carry you across distant plains and rocky hills in a moonless night, trying to make a living out of scraps that someone forgot, or no one else would want (yes, that’s what the song’s about!). The entirely human sense of desperation and the brutality of nature blend into one and are expressed beautifully by Şebnem , who shows the exceptionally sensitive songwriter she is with this piece.

Album Review - Fey's Faltan Lunas (There Are Not Enough Moons)

2007-03-11T18:40:00.000Z

Mexican superstar Fey should have come a long way since the days in which she burst into the mainstream with her raspy voice, enthusiastic delivery and glowing aura of virginal wholesomeness. After spending the most of the nineties singing about first loves, cheating boyfriends, tearful early mornings after sleepless nights and calls to the dance floor, she decided to rip away the Lolita cover that hid her from the world and released one of the finest electronica albums of the 21st Century. In Vertigo, Fey showed that there was an unsuspected depth behind her rasp and that a teenybopper queen can have a rich spiritual life bubbling underneath the fluffy, middle-aged-mum-pleasing exterior of the perfect girlfriend. Simply put, Fey stopped being a caricature and became human.

Sadly, execs at her record company were too stupid to see her true potential, and dismissed her by claiming that if she couldn’t be a pop tart, then she could only be nothing. This vision has sadly proven to be true, and Fey has been forced to pander to the lowest common denominator and shut herself into perpetual adolescence in order to keep being massively popular. And that’s where the problem lies.

This sort of material would have suited her wonderfully when she started her career as a healthy, sweet and outdoorsy girl-next-door type at the tender age of 22. However, at 34, it seems a bit forced that Fey would be releasing electronica-glossed bubblegum that talks about pulling at a discothèque and first loves yet again. That fact that it is all presented from the position of a cheerful, carefree teenager afflicted by a dangerously annoying case of uncontainable joie de vivre, makes this album a true test to the listener’s patience - especially because it’s impossible not to think that she has released infinitely more mature and yes, sophisticated music before. Like pieces of candied fruit, the album's songs are covered by a crystalline and attractive gloss that refracts the bleeps and atmosphere-building layers of electronic effects, creating a colourful landscape of pastel tones, or rather, strong artificial candy flavours.

Sadly, after a few listens, everything is drowned by the same sickeningly sweet taste of ultra-refined sugar. From Fey's deliberately girlie coos and shy whines to the thumping beats and the endless little electronic chirps and echoes, this state of the art album is just that: an exercise of momentary glee; a collection of sparkling smiles and glittery make up, that collapses because there’s little substance to fill in the lovely exterior. Which is not to say that the songs are not good, or that Fey has lost an ounce of the magic that once lifted her to the soaring heights of superstardom. It’s just that it all sounds incredibly predictable and tired, ‘cause it’s been done a million times before.

Aquí Estoy/Here I Am

The album, which has 11 tracks, opens with the impossibly catchy Aquí Estoy, a paean to heartbreak that manages to evade the traps in which the rest of the songa fall thanks to the surprise effect: it spills out of the record like a fountain, filling the space with thick, carefully sequenced layers of sound that make of this the true solid pillar of the album; as far as pop goes, it’s difficult for things to get any better, or any more irresistible. From there the CD goes on to flow across similar waters, only with much lesser results. While most of the album’s danceable songs (such as the bombastic title track and the inescapable La Última Gota) manage to retain their urgency thanks to fast paced beats and adorable melodies, the production is so monotonous and unoriginal in its prettiness that it’s difficult not to say: I think I’ve already heard this somewhere.

Faltan Lunas/There Are Not Enough Moons

Things do get more varied with the bubbly, percussive cut Me Has Vuelto Loca/You’ve Driven Me To Madness, which manages to stand out thanks to its endless layers of little touches, which are carefully piled over the fast chorus like the different pieces of a layered cake. You can find this track in this post on Fey from PosterGirl. This track also marks some sort of transition with the ballads, which glide through your taste buds like mallows – airy, soft and yet, rich enough to be noticed. It’s also important to notice that they boast the most original production in the album. While next single Como Un Angel/Like An Angel passes by like a little rainy cloud that momentarily brings the mood down with it’s acoustic-pop-meets-techno instrumentation, the rest of the ballads show little details that are simply lovely! :-)

La Última Gota/The Last Drop

Tres Razones/Three Reasons

Fey’s version of Italian singer Valeria Rossi’s pleasant, yet untimately unmemorable Tre Parole: Sole, Cuore, Amore/Three Words: Sun, Heart, Love (which she presents as Tres Razones), is covered in little bleeps and chirps that manage to enhance the forgettable melody, while the chorus is given a powerful bass line that pushes the song forward and makes it both apt for dancing or snuggling in front of a fireplace on a rainy day. It also shows that with the right approach, Fey can save anything! Acoustic touches also embellish the rest of the ballads, but the cloudy ode to hope in the future Volar Otra Vez/To Fly Again is a definite highlight, with its deceitfully simple melody and airy, misty production.

Well, here’s where this month’s review ends! I know it wasn’t boring: so you better say you couldn’t stop reading! ;-P (As if - by now you must all be close to a coma… if you’re reading at all! :-D). Anyway, this album can be bought at Amazon. Enjoy!

The summer storm from Québec - Céline Dion

2007-03-08T09:03:00.000Z

Originally I had thought about writing a rather lengthy introduction full of biographical details, to introduce Céline Dion’s French language material, but then again, I just thought that people have already been exposed to every imaginable detail of her life as to have reached the point of saturation a long time ago. From her humble beginnings as the languid, shy little girl from a poor rural Québecois family to local star to a gradually more admired (and successful) pop diva, Céline’s joys and tribulations are more than well-known by all – even those who would rather listen to a snoring, grunting bear than to one of her songs.

In spite of her eventual massive success and the admittedly clinical nature of her English language albums (which should be credited as marvels of technology, since the only human-produced sound in them is her impeccable soprano voice – the rest seem to be mostly remnants of a distant galactic battle), Céline has kept an earthiness and vivaciousness that only appear to emerge when she sings in her native tongue, and is given something more than affected, deliberately melodramatic ballads. Which is perfectly fine, but at 70-minute lengths it does become grating, especially since most of them are just plain awful.

La Dion's voice reminds me of a Summer storm: you know, one of those sudden explosions of deafening rain, fresh air and roaring thunder that seem to be a celebration of life and are there to remind us that there's always something magical and unexpected lurking underneath the boredom of daily life.

Anyway, it would seem that Céline is only given the material she deserves with the frequency she should have it when she prepares a French language album :-(. In these albums, which explore every imaginable musical style from the perspective of a mellow, yet somewhat dressed up pop/rock folksiness that would scare the average every girl, but suits a sophisticated, mundane diva like Céline marvellously, she blossoms into a passionate, carefree chanteuse whose immense sensitivity vibrates in every note, giving meaning and life to every single word, giving a purpose to every loud cheer or hopeless cry (ugh, not again! It looks like a have one of my cheesy days ;-P).

Anyway, I just wanted to share with you some of Céline’s amazing French language songs, but first got to buy her albums, well, anywhere! :-D Or else go to Amazon, that’s always a safe bet ;-).

Destin/Destiny

This wondrous acoustic rock song is, like most of Céline's French output, strongly influenced by folk. It also happens to be my second favourite song from hers. The lyrics are extremely beautiful and poetic, but what truly makes them shine are first, the otherworldly melody (which is simply magical), and second, Céline's extremely passionate delivery. Released as part of her legendary 1994 album D’Eux/The French Album -a record breaker in every sense-, this song ought to have been a single, but remains as one of her brightest undiscovered gems. It is, needless to say, beyond beautiful. No words are worthy of describing it.

Dans Un Autre Monde/In Another World

This is a notoriously old-fashioned song that vaguely reminds me of Van Halen’s only tolerable moment, ‘Jump!’ Only, it is rather poppy and wasn’t written to suit Céline’s voice – its creator, Jean Jacques Goldman, decided that the 1998 album S’Il Suffisait D’Aimer/If Loving Each Other Was Enough would be made as if it were to be sung by himself. The contrast between the rough, almost aggressive melodies, the percussion rich instrumentation and Céline’s silvery soprano is amazing, and makes this album one of her brightest moments.

Tout L'Or Des Hommes/All The Gold Of Men

This gorgeous rock song is one of the many highlights of Céline’s somewhat laughable attempt at going ‘edgy’, 1 Fille Et 4 Types/A Girl and 4 Blokes. However, I would like to note that this isn’t laughable because it’s bad in any way. Quite the contrary, the songs are some of the best she’s ever sung. It’s just that watching a performer of Céline’s stature mirroring petty Britney wannabes in Joan Jett disguise (Avril Lavigne anyone?) in the album’s booklet is a bit strange, to say the least.

Quand On N'a Que L'Amour/When We Only Have Love

This live performance of the Jacques Brel classic is one of La Dion’s most impressive feats, because she manages to sum up a storm without resorting to belting the explosive high notes for which she’s famous. I know that this may sound a bit embarrassing, but the first time I heard this I was moved to tears – it is simply superb, and the lyrics are just wonderful. This is one of the few songs that manage to be inspirational without being laughably trite, as it truly awakens feelings of brotherhood and solidarity within one. Gorgeous.

Sous Le Vent/Under the Wind - duet with Garou

To close the selection, I've chosen this MASSIVE hit from 2000. It is a very melancholic ballad that’s basically pushed by both Garou’s raspy vocals and Céline’s majestic presence, which lifts it to the level of an epic love song. Even though it isn’t the most complex of songs in terms of melody and arrangement, it nevertheless preserves a certain ‘earthiness’ that makes it irresistible, giving an emotional depth to it that few other songs could have. Beautiful!

The young face of Greek Laika - Marianta Pieridi

2007-03-05T14:22:00.000Z

Marianta Pieridi is one of the few young singers in Greece who still cultivates the more traditional aspects of Laika music, even if only to a very partial extent. Even though the vast majority of her material can be considered as being well within the realm of pop, she occasionally delves into Middle Eastern, Greek and Balkan folk with rather brilliant results. A native of Cyprus (just like Anna Vissi! :-) ), Marianta has lived, however, the majority of her life in Athens, from where her father, a Navy officer, originates. An interesting fact about Pieridi is that, during her adolescence, she only saw music as something tedious in which her mother, a lawyer fascinated by classical music and also an amateur pianist, forced her to participate. Conversely, Marianta concentrated all her energy in gymnastics at the Pan-Hellenic Athletic Club, where she specialised in apparatus work. Sadly (or maybe, fortunately), she was far from outstanding, and the realization that she would never become a successful gymnast eventually led her to give music a more prominent role in her life. However, she has kept her love for strenuous physical activity by frequently engaging in extreme sports.

After nine years of intense training, Marianta decided to try her hand at singing. Thus, she enrolled in the Athens Conservatoire and started studying music in earnest. Soon enough, she got her first break by being sent to Dublin for the 1995 Eurovision Song Contest, as part of the Greek delegation. After that, she became fascinated by the idea of singing before an audience as a soloist, and began earning her chops by working as a background vocalist every other popular Greek singer, including Despina Vandi . After six years, she was well-known enough as to get Nitro Music, a relatively successful record company, to sign her. A year later, in 2002, she released her début album I Gynaika Tis Zois Sou/The Woman Of Your Life, which became very successful on the strength of the massive dance hit S'Agapó. However, things didn't go well and Nitro folded shortly after... Luckily enough, Marianta was simply transferred to Universal, and kept releasing records. She soon released the awesome EP single Oute Ki Esy/Neither You, which spawned three hits and, after being included in her sophomore album, turned her into a superstar.

However, as of late, things in Marianta's career don't seem to have gone too well. In 2004 she released her album Abra Kadabra, and as it happened to the majority of Greek music stars, sales were less than impressive, and far below expectations. In fact, the album only produced one sizeable hit (the impossibly catchy Chairetismata/Greetings), and then slowly, but steadily, began to disappear from the charts. Personally, I understand why this happened - the music was far too removed from her usual style, with one too many unmemorable attempts at neo-folk and some of the worst dance songs I've heard in my entire life. Not a good purchase, if you ask me.

However, Marianta redeemed herself with her next record Sfaira Stin Kardia/A Sphere In The Heart (2005), which presented some very interesting dance material along some of the most beautiful traditional songs and ballads I've heard from her! Still, this wasn't exactly successful (surprisingly, it performed even worse than her disastrous previous record) and things for Marianta have only started improving this past year, with the release of her Greatest Hits compilation DJ, which includes her superb version of Carola's annoying screamfest (how unusual! ;-)) Stanna Eller Gå, which has been an enormous hit and made the album a multi-platinum seller! Now go running to buy her albums here.

Ούτε Κι Εσύ - Oute Ki Esy/Neither You

This song is extremely upbeat and cheerful, and truly showcases Marianta's ability to command a melody and keep the listener's attention with the sheer power and enthusiasm in her performance. It was a huge hit in 2003, even if it is one of the more moderate successes from her second album Vale Fantasia/Deliver Fantasy. it has a sunny, bright melody and an urgent beat that lifts your spirits and makes you want to move! It is also one of the less original songs in the album, which boasts some rather interesting material, such as the folk-rock meets pop and house title track!

Μείνε Δύπλα Μου - Meine Dypla Mou/Stay Next To Me

This is my favourite song by Marianta! It starts off as some sort of Middle Eastern electro-folk experiment, only to suddenly explode into an upbeat dance song that combines everything from accordion touches, oud arpeggios and an aggressive electric guitar solo with an irresisitible instrumental hook and a thumping, fast beat that urges you to move... However, the melody is considerably beautiful, with a chorus that gracefully rises above all the instruments and flows into the diverse breaks of the song, which include grieving chants and brief spoken segments. Extremely beautiful! Video.

DJ (Stanna Eller Gå)

This is Marianta's gorgeous version of the song first made famous by Carola. Even though the lyrics are rather bland (OK, they're downright stupid), the melody and production in this song are strong enough as to compensate for this slight defect. I have to say that even though it's not my favourite of Marianta's songs, I find that her performance manages to make it very enjoyable as it creates a very warm, inviting atmosphere that both manages to suggest intimacy and openness. Video.

Μόνο Αν Ήσουν Τρελός (Anlayamatin) - Mono An Isoun Trelos/Only If You Were Crazy

At first I wasn't sure about posting this, since it isn't one of Marianta's typical ballads, mainly because it is more of a mid-tempo song, but I just found it irresistible with its violin progressions in chromatic scales, acoustic guitars and simply adorable little touches, such as the apparently random addition of flute, bouzouki and oud instrumental ornamentation. Beautiful.

The new Spanish starlet - Soraya Arnelas

2007-03-02T18:05:00.000Z

One of Spanish reality TV cum talent show Operación Triunfo’s most popular contestants ever, Soraya Arnelas’ name has become, in spite of her best efforts to avoid it, the very definition of ‘media personality’. After the spectacular boom that was the first season, ratings began to fall. It wasn’t until the highest-rated privately owned channel in the country bought the broadcasting rights and decided to ‘revamp’ the show by adding a few elements of dramatism, that things did improve: Obviously, high ratings and morbid, exploitative trash tend to be synonym, and the show became the exasperating, repugnant succession of infantile mind games and pre-baccalaureate level backstabbing that is Big Brother, only this time with songs (ugh!).

These conditions were ideal for a catty, egocentric bitch like Soraya to blossom. A flying stewardess (the very definition of worldly sophistication! ;-P), who had already applied for and been rejected from every other imaginable reality TV show, Soraya became the object of equally intense adoration and hatred from audiences from the very first time she opened her pretty little mouth to praise herself, talk about herself, refer to herself and praise herself… Oh, I had already said that one! :-D Never mind, I’m sure that Miss Arnelas would love to have a chance to sing her own praises twice within the same sentence, LOL. She also showed a particular liking for insulting anyone whom she considered undeserving of her all indispensable approval, and complained about everything. A natural born Alexis Carrington in starlet disguise, in short, she is one of the undisputed divas of the program… even if she didn’t win, which is unfair: she was by far the best singer among the top three contestants, and one of the few people in that season who had any real talent. In fact, Soraya has been blessed with a rich, expressive mezzo voice and a good vocal range.

Soraya’s peculiar antics have, not strangely at all, provided her with enormous publicity and made her the object of intense debate in the media. And it’s only fair: the girl has worked very hard to make her reputation as a total cunt meet everyone's worst expectations. From sending an open letter to her fan club, in which she had the nerve to order the administrators to devote more time and effort to promoting her and her album - in spite of the fact that they were in the middle of their final exams at university and don't get paid a penny for keeping the arrogant cow's site up to date - to barking at her fans because they don't buy enough copies of her records and launching furious verbal attacks against anyone who doesn’t worship the ground she steps on, Soraya has reached new glorious lows with every passing day. Oh, but the Spanish LOVE her ‘extravagant demeanour’ ;-D , and follow her every move with bated breath, which has translated into huge sales.

Just to give you an example, this past summer Soraya was singing at a concert gala on TV, and mispronounced two words – instead of pronouncing ‘por ella’ (for her), she said poyeya… And good God! People went crazy about it and they were even mentioning it in the news! As unbelievable as this is (personally, I couldn’t give credit to my eyes), it only goes to show how popular Soraya is despite (or maybe thanks to) having the manners of a grunting pig and an impossibly bitchy personality.

Although it may seem to some, given the tone of what I have written, that I hate Soraya, nothing could be further from the truth. I actually like all of her singles and adore her superbly bizarre second album, the hilariously named Ochenta's/Eightie’s :-P from 2006 - which is possibly the campest, cheesiest and tackiest collection of trance and house covers of hits from the eighties ever! Needless to say, I love it because it’s incredibly fun! Enjoy! But first, go to buy her records here or here.

Mi Mundo Sin Ti/My World Without You

Soraya’s first single, this song met notable success, hitting number 5 in the Spanish charts and eventually reaching gold status, which is something very rare for a single. It is an inescapable pop song that could be most adequately described as a wave: the verses are slow and simple, there’s a rousing crescendo and the chorus rises like a majestic watery tower, only to fall and repeat the cycle again. Even though it doesn’t really showcase Soraya’s range (most of her singles don’t) it allows the listener to appreciate the beauty in her voice. Video.

Corazón de Fuego/Heart Of Fire

The title track of her début album, from 2004, this song is just perfect. It combines diverse types of Latin American and Spanish folk music, fusing them together with a thumping dance beat that easily molds itself to suit the changes in rhythm and cadence of the song’s different parts. It’s by far my favourite song by Soraya, and even though it wasn't that great a hit, it deserves all of my love. Hopefully it will also have yours! :-) Video.

Because The Night

Who else would have thought about making an aggressive, mindless club anthem of drab pseudo-poetaster Patti Smith’s only tolerable moment? Here you have the answer! It is rumoured that this will be the third single for Soraya’s record Ochenta’s (I laugh every time I read that name – tacky! :-D), which has already been promoted with two covers of goddess Laura Branigan’s Self-Control and Go West’s 1985 hit Call Me. This is simply irresistible, and if you don’t feel compelled to dance to this, you have to go running to the doctor, because you’re close to being declared clinically dead.

Send Me An Angel

This is a cover of the 1983 début single from the Australian New Wave band 'Real Life'. I have never heard the original, but I have to say that I adore this version. So much so that it’s my favourite song in her new album! From the very first synthesizer scales (how retro! :-P), to the very last pre-programmed drums, passing through Soraya’s unbelievably affected vocals, this is as close to Heaven as any dance song will ever get. It’s indispensable!

Anna Vissi's new international single!!!!

2007-03-01T16:26:00.000Z

I can barely contain my excitement! I've just read that Anna Vissi is releasing a new single... Of sorts. It isn't exactly a previously unheard, still hot from the recording studio sort of song, but it hadn't been released as a single previously, so I suppose that, technically, it qualifies as new.

It's one of the four songs that Anna presented to the Greek public on the 14th of March last year, so that they could vote for what they thought that should represent Greece in Eurovision. I just wonder why Anna has decided to release this as a single, given the fact that the Greeks didn't exactly rave about it, but I guess that since it's a fun, light-hearted kinda song, she hopes that, at the very least, it will have some club rotation.

It has already been included in the playlists of several radio stations across Europe, but there's no official release date yet. Enjoy!

Who Cares About Love? (Alternative Version)

The brightest sun in Japan - Ayumi Hamasaki

2007-03-01T16:23:00.000Z

Ayumi Hamasaki is the greatest female pop star ever in Japan. So much so, that she was dubbed ‘the Empress of JPop’ shortly after she released her sophomore (and first commercially successful) album A Song for XX, in 1999. During the most recent eight years of her career, she has amassed a spectacular collection of thirty eight Top 10 hits (27 of which have reached the number one position), received more awards than anyone and sold sixty million records, which has a lot of merit when one thinks that there are not many fans of JPop outside of Taiwan, Hong Kong and its country of origin. Her success has been such, that she no longer accepts awards – she’s so massively popular, that they are irrelevant to her and don’t affect her public image and professional prestige anymore.

Born in 1978 in an unstable underclass environment, Ayumi has had what by all means is a very uncommon upbringing for Japanese standards. Her father, a factory worker, left the family when she was four, and has never made any efforts to contact his wife and two children again. Her mother, who barely had any academic credentials, had to work all day long to be able to sustain her family, and left Ayumi and her brother under the care of their liberal and imaginative grandmother. A highly emotional woman who prized spontaneity above all things, Ayumi’s grandmother loved the arts and encouraged her grandchildren to express themselves in any way they wanted, especially if music was involved in the process.

At the age of twelve, Ayumi started working as a stewardess and model at a bank to contribute to her family’s economy. Shortly after, her grandmother died. A distraught Ayumi, who had never enjoyed school in the first place, abandoned the plans of becoming a chemical engineer that had been set for her, and decided that she wanted to go to Horikishi Gakuen, a prestigious stage school in Tokyo. After failing the entrance exams, she moved to Tokyo and had a disastrous experience as an aspiring actress – tired of always living in anguish because she didn’t have enough money to survive, she finally decided to drop out of High School and sever all ties with her management, whom she felt had never believed in her.

After convincing her mother to move to Tokyo so that she could support her, Ayumi spent all her time partying in the trendy nightclubs of the Shibuya district, where she would become part of the rap scene. Rapidly signed to Columbia, in 1995 she released her début album Nothing From Nothing, which was a crass failure. Dropped by the label, Ayumi then met Masato Matsuura, the director of a then mid-sized record company called Avex Trax. After much negotiating, she agreed to sign a contract and promised to educate her voice. Soon enough, Ayumi stopped attending music classes, and Matsuura, who was convinced that she would become a star, sent her to New York for a year. When Ayumi returned, she was a changed person and started recording what would be her massive début album with Avex Trax. From there onwards, the rest is history! :-)

Making a selection of Ayumi’s work has been a bit of a daunting task (all of it is excellent), but I’ve finally brought myself to do it for you, my dear readers (that’s the kinda boy I am! ;-) – I’m just joking!). If you want to buy her records, please go to Amazon.

Trust

Ayumi’s third single and first Top 10 hit, this impossibly sweet song is one of the highlights of her Avex début album A Song for XX. However, this isn’t exactly it. This is the re-recorded version of the song that can be found in her first greatest hits collection A-Best, from 2001, and is far superior to the original. With its melancholic, slow verses and swift, agitated choruses, it is a simply irresistible spoonful of sugar, which is only moderated by its sad lyrics about a broken relationship. Lovely. Video.

Startin’

This is Ayumi’s 14th consecutive number one since 2002, and was the first single from her album Secret, from 2006. It is an aggressive electro-rock track that juxtaposes a melody sweetly carried by her delicate dulcet tones, to a mind-boggling instrumentation that fuses endless layers of distorted guitars to produce a feeling of anguished expectation. Video.

End Roll

This lovely song is pure JPop! It uses the sound of clinking chains and repetitive piano scales to bring us into a slow, reposed ballad that retains its urgency thanks to a wobbly bass line and a fast, insistent beat. However, it suddenly rises into a majestic chorus the power of which is hidden behind Ayumi’s pretty, careful delivery. It feels like one of those storms in which the sun keeps appearing in between the clouds – beautiful, but leaving in us a lingering sense of incompleteness, of wanting something that cannot be attained… Very special. Taken from Ayu’s third album, LOVEappears (1999). Video.

BLUE BIRD

Her latest single, and 15th consecutive number one, this cheerful and delicate song is the sort of thing one wants to hear when afflicted by feelings of hopelessness and self-doubt. You know, one of those songs that make you want to get out in the sun (IF there is sun, unlike most of the time in England! :-D) and be glad that you’re alive! I love this song, and think that it was a very well deserved hit. It talks about a bright, beautiful Summer day devoid of all worries… Lovely! Video.

M

A song about an imagined conversation between Ayumi and the Virgin Mary (?!), this extremely pretty ballad resorts to ever-changing instrumental lines that swirl around the main melody to create a warm atmosphere, only to suddenly explode into a fast chorus that is driven by what could be best described as a house beat on valium (sorry, I’ve had a hard day and I’m not at my best :-S). The instrumental bridge is excellent, with a very accomplished electric guitar solo that will leave you in awe! Video.

Month's Heading: March, the Stormy Time of the Britons

2007-03-01T10:13:00.000Z

The unstable month of March, time of violent storms, melting snows and incipient, fragile blossoms (this looks SO much like one of those essays one had to write for English class at Secondary school - I'm awful, I know! :-D) is a time of transition that seems to forcibly push the silent slumber of Winter to the furious explosion of life that takes place during the Spring. Its crazy weather is the reason behind the saying that claims that March 'comes like a lion and goes like a lamb', and is probably the reason why the Britons called it hyld-monath, the Loud Month!. And it's true! After the Spring equinox, the storms are more infrequent (theoretically, ahem :-S) and things mellow out.

Originally the first month of the year, March was named after Mars, who originally had nothing to do at all with war and destruction, but was an Etruscan deity of life, fertility and vegetation. From there, he went on to become a protector of fields and crops. Thanks to that, he became associated with Ares, the Greek god of brutal war (with a lot of imagination, I guess). However, Mars, unlike Ares in Greece, had a very prominent role in the pantheon, since he was seen as the 'divine' defense against military enemies and the supplier of grains and vegetables, the staples of Roman diet. Food and war - isn't that the most perfect combination you've ever heard of? ;-P However, this god's importance is attested by the fact that six festivals were held in his honour throughout the year - four of them taking place in yep, you guessed it, March!

As said above, March was the first month of the year even after Numa Pompilius added January and February to the calendar - in fact, it kept its prominent role for 250 years, until the time of the decemvirs, when the State decided to stick completely to the Solar calendar (451 BC). Still, many parts of the world weren't so willing to change things, and some countries stubbornly refused to adopt this arrangement. In Russia, the new year began in March 1st up to the 15th century, and England and its colonies kept things in the same way up to 1752! Wow, talk about being pig-headed! (I'm only joking ;-)).

Well, here's when I stop boring you! I am presenting you with one of my favourite songs, sung by my favourite singer ever, legendary Italian diva Mina Mazzini!!!! I Giardini Di Marzo is an exceptionally beautiful ballad that talks about a young man's feeling of estrangement and desolation during the first days of Spring, when he realizes that he's immersed in a disfunctional relationship and doesn't enjoy his life at all... A bit depressing, but then again, its songwriters Lucio Battisti and Mogol (the greatest songwriting team in Italy in the 20th century) had a penchant for creating sad songs. It was a MASSIVE hit in Italy during the Spring of 1974, and has become one of those 'indispensable' timeless classics that every singer worth their salt has to cover at one time or another.

I Giardini Di Marzo/The Gardens of March

Enjoy the arrival of Spring!!!!! :-D

Special Songs Pt 2

2007-02-25T19:21:00.000Z

Well, just three days before the end of February we come to the last post of the month! I hope you all have had fun here during these few days, reading the little musings that I drop here and there (as if - I know I'm a disaster, you don't need to say it!). Anyway, to accompany the ever shorter and gradually less obscure and mysterious nights of late February, and give you hope in the future, I have uploaded two songs I simply love: Black's understated masterpiece Wonderful Life and the 2000 hit Shackles (Praise You), from the awesome Gospel duo Mary Mary!

Both songs are meant to be desperate cries for help that express the need of a better life and the willingness to do whatever necessary to achieve it. Only, the ways in which each song does it are very different. Black's cold, alluring atmosphere is built upon the constant repetition of the same chord and light, airy layers of synthesizer effects that manage to express exactly the opposite: a secret warmth that lies hidden to a hostile world, but requires close human contact and emotional reciprocity to keep existing. It was written in 1985 by a then saddened and impoverished unknown songwriter called Colin Vearncombe, who had recently been dropped by his record company due to the dismal reception of his work, and believed that he had no professional prospects. Ironically, what was some sort of ‘cathartic’ musical exercise to express his hopelessness, got him signed to A&M Records just two months later, and would provide him (who was the only real member of Black – the rest were session musicians who were hired when need for their services arose) three platinum-selling albums between 1987 and 1991, as well as turning his reposed, seemingly distant delivery into a classic that exemplifies the true depths that emotional restraint can hide.

Fortunately, Vearncombe has kept recording and touring as front man of Black and a soloist, and has quite a faithful public in the UK and the Netherlands.

Mary Mary (named in honour of the Virgin and Magdalene), is composed of singing and songwriting sisters Erica and Trecina Campbell/Atkins, and was a work in progress that provided an endless source of material to the likes of Shirley Caesar and Yolanda Adams. In 1998, they finally decided to take a chance and record their own songs, and with the intercession of the Holy Ghost (;-P) they finally released their debut in 2000. It was a huge hit for a Gospel album, and managed to sell 3 million copies worldwide. The group has followed with two other very successful albums, but the song I’m posting today is the one that has immortalized them as icons of contemporary religious music. In reality a sorrowful prayer set to a cheerful funk beat and a wonderful melody, this song is highlighted by the Campbell sisters’ spectacular voices and very delicate vocoder distortions, which manage to make the essence of the song even more poignant in its sugar-coated ornamentation. Like a flame imprisoned in a glass, what the lyrics represent seems to be magnified by the frivolous beauty of its exterior, and I think that this is what makes the song so special (at least in my eyes! ;-) ).

Without further ado, I present you both songs. I hope you like them! :-). But before you listen to any of both songs, please go to buy Black's or Mar Mary's albums to Amazon or HMV.

Wonderful Life

Praise You (Shackles)

The Mexican crowd pleaser - Fey

2007-02-22T13:36:00.000Z

Mexican electro-bubblegum queen Fey's story is a sugary tale with a few touches of 'intense dramatism' thrown in for good measure. Born in a privileged environment and brought up since early childhood to be a star by her parents, who were highly involved in the Latin music industry, Fey has experienced the fickleness of fortune (and record companies) more than a few times, and possibly become stronger as a result... Even if she's been forced to remain within the confines of teenage pop in order to maintain her ever changing degree of popularity. This, however, has also helped her to keep a certain perennial freshness to her style that has enabled her to trascend the sways in pop culture trends. Said in less words, Fey's music flooded the airwaves with healthy bursts of cheesy wholesomeness in 1994, and has kept it's every-girl-next-door appeal regardless of what was happening around it.

Gifted with considerable charisma, prettiness and little else, Fey's raspy, half-sung and half-spoken vocals are the very opposite of what one would expect in a teenage star, for they convey everything but sweetness. This, however, didn't keep her from exploding into the mainstream with her début single, the adorable Media Naranja, which was followed by her massively successful self-titled album, which spawned another three hit singles. However, things were going to become even bigger with the release of her second album Tierna La Noche/Sweet Night(1996), as Latin America seemed to be afflicted by an acute case of Feymania that only got worse with the shameless overexposure of the artist: from crisps to lip balms, she endorsed everything and anything imaginable.

This was bound to affect her both personally and professionally, though, and her next album, the absolutely dismal El Color De Los Sueños/The Colour Of Dreams (1998), which was praised for mixing styles in the worst way imaginable, sold only a little less than her previous efforts on the strength of Fey's enormous popularity. In the eyes of her record company and most of the media, this was a sign that her good luck was coming to an end, and rumours started appearing about Fey's inminent disappearance from the charts and the hearts of her public. Of course, no one stopped to think that maybe the fact that the record was utter shit had something to do with the decline of her popularity, but the case is that, at the end of her 1999 tour, Fey announced with discretion that she was retiring... By going everywhere where they would have her and weeping about how terrible success had been for her! Poor little thing! ;-)

After nearly four years away from the spotlight, Fey returned in 2002 with what actually is her best material ever, the truly excellent Vertigo. Released as a double album with versions in Spanish and English (the English CD has rather accomplished extra tracks), the album was meant to launch her internationally and turn her into the next post-maternity, spiritually-liberated Madonna. Sadly, after being promised the moon, the record company got cold feet and simply refused to promote the album, which had an unfairly mediocre reception. Disenchanted, Fey retired and reluctantly came back two years later with her worst material ever, which ironically would propel her to the top of the charts and make her massively popular once again. Her horrid raping of Spanish legendary group Mecano's classics in La Fuerza Del Destino/The Strength Of Fate (2004), and then the careless, tired electro-pop of Faltan Lunas/There Are Not Enough Moons (2006 - the next album review, by the way! :-)) truly attest to the fact that Fey's popularity was built upon good songs in the first place.

But enough of my ramblings! If you want to buy her records, go to Amazon.

Azúcar Amargo/Bitter Sugar

Fey's wondrous greatest hit ever, from the legendary success that was her sophomore album, Tierna La Noche. This paean to heartbreak, which resorts to all sorts of hilarious malapropisms to convey the pains of teenage disillusion, is simply irresistible and arguably her best vocal performance ever, forcing her to go to the top of her range to 'belt' (:-S) the simply perfect chorus. Few pop moments have ever been so perfect, and this truly shows what Fey is capable of doing when given the right material. Video.

Sé Lo Que Vendrá/I Know What Will Come

The first of the only two singles released from her masterpiece Vertigo, this ought to have been a massive hit, but unfortunately both the rave reviews that the album received and the attempts that Fey made to promote it were unfructifeous. A truly superb dance song that, unlike Madonna's efforts, manages to convey a sense of heightened spirituality while being entertaining. A genuinely beautiful song with excellent lyrics (written by Fey herself), this is just delightful. Video.

Media Naranja/My Other Half

Fey's star-making first single, this song has aged surprisingly well, and could have become a hit nowadays as easily as it did in 1994. The impeccably polished production creates a joyful atmosphere while allowing the impossibly pretty (the overabundance of superlatives again! Ugh!) melody to flow naturally along Fey's peculiar vocals. Even though I wouldn't dare to call this a classic, it is indeed a fine pop confection. Video.

Canela/Cinnamon

The requisite ballad of this post comes with one of the few tolerable moments of the album El Color De Los Sueños. This extremely laid back and sweet song has very light touches of folk music, and manages to be one of Fey's most significant highlights by conveying profound sadness and despair without resorting to exaggerate instrumental effects or a dramatic vocal delivery. Truly beautiful. Video.

Album Review - The Sound of Girls Aloud: The Greatest Hits

2007-02-21T17:16:00.000Z

One of Britain's most successful girl groups ever, Girls Aloud epitomize the very meaning of the word 'product'. Randomly handpicked by a fame hungry clown and two integral imbeciles (Gerry Halliwell, Pete Waterman and Louis Walsh, respectively) in the awful reality show Popstars :The Rivals, the group was destined to be yet another one among the masses of barely tolerable one-hit-wonders that the music industry uses to momentarily increase its revenues, and then discards mercilessly and without a second thought. What is it, then, that makes this group even remotely interesting? What has saved them from oblivion?

The answer would be, I think,style in banality. Girls Aloud are not the prettiest girls, have barely mediocre voices and lack the ability to construct a coherent phrase after making considerable collective efforts. This doesn't make them any different from hundreds of other retarded tarts that try to hit the charts nowadays, I know, but the truth is that success behind this group's talent for crass mediocrity seems to be its presentation. Yes, the girls are good at two things: they do what they're told, and mime coyly to bizarre pop songs the impact of which is great enough as to eclipse the greasy, grimy Council Estate aura that emanates from these five petty chavette prototypes.

Thus, after 5 years of touring, grating interviews and ever changing hairdos, Girls Aloud present us with what possibly is the high point of their career: an album containing their impressive (in chart terms) collection of hits, which manages to both make an objective presentation of their talents while gracefully describing what’s so wrong with the group. And it’s precisely there where things lead us to the question: how have they managed to keep going?! The drunken-chant-on-a-Saturday-night-out approach that is given to most of the choruses, combined with the chaotic verse-swapping of which the group’s producers are so fond, expose Girls Aloud for what it is; an impersonal, over-tried formula that’s been (for once) well-directed by record company executives, and little else.

What is it, then, that should make us buy this album? The answer is in the music. While often slipping into self-parody with downright idiotic lyrics that wouldn’t look out of place in a ten-year-old’s personal diary, the way in which the strange, hook-ridden melodies are presented is simply irresistible, and attests to both the originality and acute commercial instinct of songwriters Xenomania. From the opening guitar riffs of their irresistible first hits Sound Of The Underground and No Good Advice to the last skipping beats and distorted guitar effects of their absolutely dismal version of Tiffany’s rebellious puppy love ‘classic’ I Think We’re Alone Now, the richly textured backgrounds to which the girls whine are the very stuff of innovation, and that’s exactly what sets them apart from every other clone-band.

No Good Advice

Another thing that can be observed while listening to this collection is the stylistic linearity that the group has followed, from the techno-tinged faux rock with Bananarama-esque vocals of their beginnings to the gradually more aggressive electric guitar-licked dance sound of their later offerings, Girls Aloud has evolved into a smoothly running machine that easily produces instant-perfect disposable pop with impressive comfort. This transition can easily be appreciated in the bombastic Wake Me Up, blossoming in its apparent continuation, the inescapable Something Kinda Ooh, both of which explode into the listener’s ears with an overabundance of instrumental layers that both bury and highlight the melodies’ alternation of shocking counterpoints and endless hooks.

Wake Me Up

Something Kinda Ooh

The problems start when the girls step away from the fast running beat train that carries their few memorable moments. While experiments like Long Hot Summer, Biology and the doo-wop styled ballad Whole Lotta History manage to be cute thanks to their careful crafted melodies, running along them there are disastrous accidents like the simply insufferable concoctions The Show and the unclassifiable Love Machine: genuinely odd moments that bare the girls’ soul-less squawking and lack of interpretive skills, while offending the listener’s ears with simply irritating, aimless tunes. The ballads don’t fare much better, being most attempts disastrous dog’s breakfasts covered in pretty garnish. From the beautiful guitar introduction of Life Got Cold (which goes from spoken dullness to whispered narcotic in no time) to their monotonous, lazily-walking-by-the-notes covers of I’ll Stand By You and DC Lee’s gorgeous ode to unrequited love See The Day, the dramatic impact of which is sadly wasted by an amateurish delivery and paper thin vocals, and is only tolerable because of the original melody’s sheer beauty.

Whole Lotta History

Long Hot Summer

See The Day

Thus, here finishes this month’s review! I hope you like it and I didn’t bore you too much with my unclear writing. :-) If you like the songs I've posted, please go to buy the album at Amazon or HMV.

The French prophetess of mystical nonsense - Mylene Farmer

2007-02-15T18:10:00.000Z

One of the greatest stars ever in France and a master in orchestrating massive publicity campaigns out of nothing, Mylène Farmer is a techno/pop singer who has carefully crafted the perfect image to go with her peculiar brand of music: ethereal, calculatedly aloof and visually alluring. Known for her frequently unintelligible lyrics full of intricate pop culture references and the sweet, sugary vocals with which she sublimates the stout, fleshy melodies that most of her songs have (courtesy of her long time collaborator, Laurent Boutonnat), Miss Farmer is a world class illusionist in pop star disguise; or a fairy of pretension that has learned to masterfully produce all the ticks and odd mannerisms of a musical alchemist. Or maybe she’s just laughing of us all, as we just look on like idiots.

Born in Québec to a family of French immigrants, La Farmer lead a very simple and uneventful life before her family moved back to France when she was eight. This experience was an enlightening one for her, because it opened her world to the marvels of Romantic and Realist French literature, often being able to walk through the places described in most books – from there onwards, Mylène would have a fascination with Gothic culture and the darkest aspects of the human condition.

Known for her extremely creative and elaborate videos, which are always built around and within her songs, lengthening and modifying them to suit the twists and turns of the story they intend to tell, Mylène has often met criticism for the heightened sense of erotica that most of her videos deploy, as well as her apparent fascination with violent and/or unsettling images. With images of her being alternately burned alive or devoured by wolves, playing an angel chained to a steam engine while singing about AIDS or impersonating two twin sisters who lead opposite lifestyles, and are left in shock after their first, unexpected encounter only to be separated again when one of them is murdered by her pimp (who is then murdered by the twin left alive - isn't this the best soap opera you've ever read about? :-) ) Mylène has both fascinated and scandalized the French people over two decades with her love for pushing the envelope and taking exaggeration to unsuspected heights of kitsch.

Even though most of her material could be classed as ‘techno pop’, Farmer has often embraced other styles, venturing into hip hop/rock and almost-classical music whenever she felt the need to leave her comfort zone. She's also the brain behind the phenomenon that was Alizée, who will be, of course, object of a future post. If you want to buy her records, go to Amazon France.

Libertine

This synthesizer crazy song is the very definition of 80’s music! It is dead fun and combines an aggressive, cold background with Mylène’s overly sweet vocals and the inescapable chorus, which will have you enthralled with its airy harmonies and high pitched vocal hooks. It was her fourth single and first truly massive hit, turning her into a superstar and making of her début Cendres De Lune/Moon's Ashes one of the highest sellers in France during 1984. The video is, like all of Mylène’s, extremely imaginative and melodramatic, with her posing as a man and engaging in all sorts of crazy behaviour. This video is also the first one in history to show several people completely naked (including Mylène).

Désenchantée/Disenchanted

Mylène’s greatest hit ever, this is one of those songs that become inextricably linked to a particular time, both because they define it and because they are bound to it musically. I cannot imagine anyone releasing this now… Or maybe not! In 2002 Kate Ryan made a version of this, and it managed to be quite successful on the strength of a very good remix. Still, I prefer Mylène’s version, which sounds far fresher and more dramatic. This comes from the album L’Autre/The Other One, from 1991, and is the only one of Mylène’s singles to have a high chart placing in most European countries. The anti-child labour and police state video, which takes place at a Russian gulag, is spectacular!

California

The closest that Mylène has ever come to doing a power ballad, California is a strange song that delightfully manages to express the bizarre feelings of amusement, curiosity and emotional tension that most Europeans feel when they visit one of those grotesquely impersonal juggernauts that are major American cities. However, it does it over what could be described as a lazy hip-hop beat and an oppressive, yet surprisingly sparse instrumentation. With lyrics that border on what could be described a borderline psychotic state of euphoria, this is one of her more accomplished works of deliciously contrived and irresistible pop mastery. As it always happens with Mylène, the video is mesmerizing - the twins I talked about before are here! :-D.

Fuck Them All

The first single from her latest opus, the utterly strange-yet-alluring work Avant Que L’Ombre/Before The Shadows, this song is a journey into what seems to be Mylène’s vision of a world that exists only through fast-running images. The video is very bizarre, with Mylène being caged, fighting effigies made of cloth that bleed when she strikes them, and a wonderful final scene in which she disintegrates after having attained freedom by defeating her 'enemies'!

The Turkish Empress of music - Sezen Aksu

2007-02-12T19:26:00.000Z

Sezen Aksu is not only the Queen of Turkish pop. To be more accurate, I ought to call her the mother of Turkish pop music. But she is not an ordinary mother, and she's had a child not just like any other: Sezen is unique both as an individual and a musician - simply put, there's no one else like her, and that's reflected in her music. Born to a couple of schoolteachers in 1954, Sezen was educated to be independent and strong from a very early age. As a teenager, she studied to become an agricultural engineer in Izmir, but left her career because she couldn't resist the call of music. Her first attempts at breaking the market were unsuccessful, but in 1977 she finally managed to achieve success. However, she didn't just become successful - she became a megastar overnight, and was given her Diva Nickname from the beginning: Minik Serçe (Little Sparrow - also one of her most beautiful songs). Since then, Sezen has been going from strength to strength, and is adored by almost everyone in Turkey - her concerts are always sold out, and her records sell by the truckload.

However, Sezen is as notorious for her music as she is for her social activism. In her songs she talks about ecological issues, the repression against the Armenian and Kurd minorities (in fact, in 1999 groups of nationalist Turks made her the object of scathing attacks in the media because she sang Kurdish and Armenian folk songs during a televised concert) and the terrible discrimination that many women still suffer in many parts of rural Turkey - all subjects that the authorities would rather keep hidden. Not only is this woman a WONDROUS artist, but she's also got a set of balls bigger than most men.

Her music is so unique because every single one of her compositions is a treasure in itself: a wonderful work of art that draws from both Turkish and Western classical music, plus the folk traditions of all the people from China to Spain, passing through Arabia, the Black, Aegean and Western Mediterranean seas, Russia and Central Europe... But all brought to contemporary times by blending it with rock, pop, techno, trance or even a very unique form of hip hop. And this is what's so special about Sezen's albums - it's like travelling in time and across half of the world, only without moving and being able to feel every single thing as present and modern, even familiar. And all this accompanied by Sezen's rich, silvery contralto and unbridled passion. What could be better?! If you want to purchase her records, go here.

It's been really difficult for me to make a selection of Sezen's music, especially because she has changed so much during her thirty years of career (yeah, she’s gone from a gorgeous young thing to a Pete Burns look-a-like… Sorry, but the catty bitch in me had to say it! :-D ). She started as a torch ballad singer, delved into Middle Eastern-influenced soft rock, then went through an era of synthesizer-crazy pop during the eighties, went back to purely traditional and classical music during the early nineties, and has steadily come closer and closer to dance music with her latest releases - but always remaining faithful to her classical and folk roots. Now, isn’t that FABULOUS? Enjoy!

Kalp Unutmaz/The Heart Doesn't Forget

This is one of my favourite songs by Sezen, from her awesome 2005 album Bahane (Excuse). It's a MONUMENTAL disco throw down kinda song, with a gorgeous violin introduction, a fast and insistent beat and a thunderous chorus that will have you shaking your body all over the place in no time! It's also very carefully made, with enormous attention being given to little details that embellish the song enormously and take it to the level of a true epic.

Deli Gönlüm/I'm Crazy Once Again

This is yet another one of Sezen's journeys into disco territory. However, this isn't as original as Kalp Unutmaz in the sense that it is more traditional Western disco music than anything else. Or maybe I'm being inexact: the melody has all the elements of a Turkish folk song, but it is cleverly twisted around to suit the 4/4 beat and the carefully disguised electronic effects. Beautiful.

Kapılıyız/Closed (Kıvanç K Mix)

This is Sezen in rapper mode! But honestly, this is not silly in any way: not at all! In fact, it’s one of her most intriguing songs. It has a very futuristic production that, for some reason, brings to mind a snowstorm… In spite of my crazy ramblings, this is a very cool track: both because it’s great, and because it evokes a cold, distant atmosphere. It’s amazingly good, though, and even though I personally detest hip hop, it does manage to elevate the genre above the rubbish that it is most of the time to create a sublime work of art. Oh, it's taken from the SPECTACULAR single Kardelen (Snowdrop), 2006. :-)

Su Gibi/Like Water

This achingly beautiful and delicate ballad comes (like Deli Gönlüm), from the album that made Sezen the darling of World Music fanatics, Şarkı Söylemek Lazim/The Songs Must Be Sung, from 2002. It begins with a faint electronic piano solo that mimics the sounds of dripping water, and gracefully flows into a melancholic, reposed ballad that suddenly rises into a melodramatic chorus highlighted by violins and a military-styled drum arch. It's gorgeous, and it honours its name.

The true Queen of contemporary music - Donna Summer

2007-02-09T17:18:00.000Z

Even though I have already dedicated a post to Donna Summer, I just thought it’d be great to write a little more about this amazing (and, for the most part, unfairly ignored) singer. Let me begin by saying that Donna is a vocal heavyweight champion – if there were singer catfight tournaments (yay! :-) ), Donna would just trounce almost everyone else to a bloody throat. To be fair, we’d have to say that she’s the Mike Tyson of singers… only with class and without the bewildering stupidity. This said, it would be worth noticing that Donna hasn’t had a true hit in more than a decade, but that nevertheless is irrelevant to (us) disco fanatics, because Donna is The Diva par excellence and ought to be worshipped, because most things in contemporary music stem from what she did in the 70’s. And there’s nothing more to say about it. Uh-huh.

LaDonna Adrian Gaines was born in Boston amidst a very religious family who loved music and actively participated in the church choir. Which I guess explains why, as a teenager, Donna joined a rock band called The Crow, whose sound was largely based in Janis Joplin’s cringe-inducing ‘singing’ style, with which she butchered many a terrific song after swallowing enough drugs to make an elephant speak Aramaic – or die of an overdose, ahem. When the band failed to make any significant impact, Donna decided to drop from college, pack her things and leave for Germany, where she had been promised a lucrative recording contract. Soon enough, Donna became a musical theatre star, performing in everything imaginable from Hair to Porgy and Bess.
She also married a theatrical producer named Helmut Sommer, from whom she took her artistic name, and sang hundreds of demos that would become hits for many other performers of the time.

Soon enough she met Giorgio Moroder, who produced her first European hits and one day convinced her to record the ‘song’ that would make her known to international audiences: Love To Love You Baby. Initially seen as a joke -understandably, I’d say- they didn’t want to release it until a friend of Giorgio (who was either deaf or completely stoned) told him it was marvellous. They believed the hearing-impaired druggie’s advice, and the song became a huge hit on the strength of the second dullest orgasm in history - as Jane Birkin and incest-loving weirdo Serge Gainsbourg had already taken the 1st place for themselves with that horrid pool of vomit, 'Je T’Aime… Moi Non Plus'. However, after that Donna went on to record some amazing material that was worthy of her exceptional voice, and many of her songs were enormous hits that have rightly become timeless classics. Others, such as the then groundbreaking 'I Feel Love', are credited with giving birth to techno music.

Unfortunately, Donna wasn’t happy with her image because it wasn’t Christian-clean, so she decided to take an abrupt turn in 1980, as the disco movement was being strangled by people with no taste whatsoever. This change, which could have been equivalent to career immolation for anyone else, gave Donna the creative freedom to indulge herself and helped her to survive the disco debacle. Which she did with very uneven results – while some of her efforts are quite sublime, especially when she delved into dance pop and rock, her R&B and funk attempts are quite unpleasant to the ear, and ought to be treated with caution by anyone who has a minimal degree of respect for their auditive health. And maybe for this reason, Donna slowly but steadily fell under the mainstream’s radar, only to be briefly resuscitated from her 'nostalgia act' status in 1999, during a spectacular VH1 special.

Thus, we come to the tracks I’ve selected! At last! :-) If you want to read more about Donna, visit my previous post about her. If you need to buy her records (and you know you do), go to Amazon.

MacArthur Park

This is one of Donna’s greatest hits ever – one of the four massive number ones that are part of her career’s many highlights. It is also one of my favourite songs ever, as long as she is the one performing it, of course. The best thing about it is that it showcases her exceptional vocal range quite well, since the melody is quite difficult. In fact, it does so to such degree of perfection that it makes one forget about the pointless lyrics, enabling us to concentrate on the amazing horns and Donna’s soaring high notes. Video of a spectacular live performance.

Hot Stuff [12” Version]

This is, again, one of Donna’s greatest classics and a very special track, because it indicates the precise point in which she began to break away from the purely disco sound that had characterized most of her work until the album Bad Girls, from which this song was taken. Or maybe we could say that it proves how versatile disco music is in reality by successfully fusing what is an aggressive rock song with disco’s basic 4/4 beat. Not only is this fabulous, but it shows the how innovative Donna and her producers really were. Video from her VH1 special.

This Time I Know It’s For Real

What can be said about this song? It is pop perfection. It takes the very best elements of 80’s pop music and displays them all in a three and a half minute journey to Paradise (oh, how I love my cheesy comments – not ;-) ). Anyway, I truly recommend you to give a listen to this, especially because it is easily some of the best music that Stock, Aitken and Waterman ever produced. Video.

I Will Go With You (Con Te Partirò) [Hex Hector Extended Mix]

At first I wasn’t sure about posting this song, because even though I like the original, this remix has some instrumental clutter that is frankly unnecessary and becomes annoying after a while. Still, the main body of the song is simply sublime, and Donna emerges victorious at the end of this spectacular melodic tour-de-force, which few people can even dream about touching. If you like dance music, you’ll love this – after you pass the weird and tinny first part of the song. Video of a spectacular live performance.

No More Tears (Enough Is Enough) - duet with Barbra Streisand

This is the 12" version of the legendary duet with The Streisand, to which I've already dedicated an entire post. I just thought it was pertinent to add it for the sake of completeness :-).

The Monarch-in-waiting of Turkish pop - Tarkan

2007-02-06T14:06:00.000Z

Tarkan is Turkey’s reigning king of mainstream pop music, and the object of equally extreme adoration and despise by legions of people. Almost everyone has an opinion both on him as an individual and his music, which has kept him firmly set in the near center of Turkey’s mediatic spotlight and made his records multimillion sellers in its enormous music market. However, only one person manages to cast a faint shadow over Tarkan’s superstardom, and it is curiously the same individual responsible for both his and Sertab Erener’s careers, among others: Sezen Aksu, the Mother of Turkish pop. Which is not to say that Tarkan has been kept from attaining any glories, of course.

Savvily marketed as a somewhat sexually ambiguous teenage heartthrob, his meteoric rise to stardom has been a perpetual act of defiance to the more traditionalist and backwards sectors of Turkish society, which have made such exaggerate displays of outrage at his every action as to appear comical in their conservatism; from publicly denouncing his belly-waving, hip-shaking dance routines to taking offence at the silliest of gaffes, they’ve steadily provided Tarkan with the publicity he needed to become the herald of modern, young Turkish culture.

Named after a comic superhero, Tarkan was born in Germany and didn’t return to Turkey until the age of 13 – his passion had always been music, which he had actively studied since childhood. After failing his entrance exams at the University of Istanbul and being reduced to scrap a living in low end jobs, he decided to move back to Germany, only to be rapidly signed to a then mid-sized recording company, Istanbul Plak. He became instantly successful, with his début selling 750,000 copies in cassette format, and then hitting the two million mark when it was released as a CD a year later, in 1993. From there, Tarkan went on to enjoy ever increasing success both in Turkey and Europe (especially France, Garmany and Russia), especially with the international hit Şımarik/Spoilt (written by Aksu), which became enormously successful all over the world.

However successful he might have been, Tarkan has encountered a fair share of controversy throughout his career, from being criticized for saying ‘I’ve got to pee’ on live television (such pervert! ;-) ) and facing being tried for desertion and stripped of his citizenship for not attending his military service (he’s completed it already), to being photographed in a ‘compromising’ position with another man by the paparazzi. Still, these things have only served to increase his popularity, and the widespread answer to the ‘scandals’ that have plagued his career has been a resounding ‘so what?’

Thus, being most successful male singer in Turkey, Tarkan decided to break beyond its borders last year by releasing the utterly crap Come Closer, which is nowhere near his previous material. For this reason, I have only included material he sang before 2006, which is of an infinitely superior quality than what he’s done (or better said, been forced to do) as of late. If you want to buy his records, go here.

Şıkıdım (Hepsi Senin Mi?)/Shake (Who Do You Think You Are?)

This is one of Tarkan's catchiest and most interesting songs. Even though it just appears to be an ordinary bouncy pop song with acoustic guitars, the rise and the chorus have a distinctly traditional structure, and all the elements in it gracefully combine to make this a cheerful, almost exhilarating experience. Needless to say,t his has been on of his greatest hits ever, and one of its lyrics gave name to his 1994 album A-Acayipsin/Oh, You're Something Else. Video.

Dudu/Woman

This simply gorgeous song was yet another massive hit in Turkey, and also in Greece by means of Modern Laika star Peggy Zina (of course, I shall post about her very soon). Still, I prefer Tarkan's version, which is more poetic and gives greater importance to the way in which every single instrumental layer fuses into the whole. It is lovely and the title track for the massively successful 2003 EP of the same name. Video.

Kuzu Kuzu/Like A Lamb

This is by far the greatest hit of Tarkan's last porper Turkish language album Karma, from 2001. It is very different to the rest of the material in it, which has a very Euro-pop feel to it, albeit it is darker (and far better produced) than most music in that 'genre'. It begins like an ordinary contemporary R&B/pop song, only to evolve into what appears to be a tearful ballad... With a fast, insistent beat and a fast chorus from which you won't be able to escape! Video.

Uzak/Far Away

This track is also from the Karma album, and is more characteristic of the rest of tha material in it - none of the instrumentation is acoustic, and resorts to echoing harmonies and an abundance of electronic effects to build a somewhat ominous atmosphere, even if the lyrics are quite harmless. Still, it deserves a try, as it is quite danceable and has a superb break - I hope you love it! :-)

The Graces of British Soul - Eternal

2007-02-04T16:28:00.000Z

Saying that Eternal are the best group to ever come out of Britain is an understatement. No one can come close to touching them because, quite frankly, no one can match the exceptional vocal talents of its members. Or better said, three of them. The most interesting thing about Eternal is that they gracefully progressed from somewhat tepid R&B-tinged bubblegum to full-fledged soul tour-de-forces in a very short period of time, deploying an astounding degree of musical finesse and good taste in the process. Their rise to the top of the charts can only be described as a shooting star: wonderful, but ultimately too brief and ending in unperturbed darkness (my attempts at figurative writing are awful, I know). Something that is also very curious about them is that their music was tailor made to fit the tastes of American audiences, but most of their attempts to break the American market failed miserably.

Founded in 1993 by four members of London’s prestigious Italian Conti Academy stage school, the group met success almost instantly with the hip hop-ish 'Stay', which rose to number 4 in the charts and paved the way for their enormously successful début album the next year. The girls soon followed with a string of Top 10 hits that established them as one of Britain’s most successful bands ever. Later next year, the group’s only weak vocalist, the ‘there-just-for-ornamental-purposes’ member Louise Nurding left the band amidst some controversy – she was the only white member, and it was suggested that the other girls, along with the group’s management, had pushed her out so that their chances to become successful in the US would increase. This has, however, been denied by everyone including Louise, who went to become a hugely successful performer in her own right, even if said success was also short-lived.

From there Eternal went to produce some of the best, most beautiful and sophisticated soul/pop ever – forget those annoying old crones The Supremes: all of Eternal’s members can sing circles around them (even Louise), and their material is light years ahead of anything that that whiny-voiced skeleton Diana Ross has ever squawked. However, the massive international success they deserved seemed to elude them, and outside the UK their efforts have fared is a somewhat patchy fashion: some of them have stormed the charts, while some others have just had a mediocre reception. Still, Eternal are the only British girl band who can say that they broke the Top 20 in the US and became very successful in Asia and Australia before the Spice Clowns vomited their filthy musical detritus in our ears.

After many glorious hits, Eternal became tangled in internal struggles that would ultimately bring their demise. Fed up of sharing the spotlight, sisters Vernie and Easter (who has a voice that can easily match Whitney Houston’s once perfect instrument), unceremoniously kicked out Kéllé Bryan, who was inexplicably unsuccessful as a solo artist, and after trying to replace her, released a less than sterling album that critics inexplicably loved. However, sales were dismal and Eternal were almost immediately dropped by their record company. This event was part of the debacle that rocked First Avenue Management and would also destroy Dina Carroll’s career (find more about her here) .

Anyway, if you want to buy any one of Eternal’s albums, go here.

Save Our Love

This is, in my opinion, the best track from Eternal’s début album. The production is impeccable and the beat has an urgency that invites you to dance, but doesn’t keep you from appreciating the beauty of the melody, the catchy chorus or the superb vocals. It is also very pleasant as background music (as all of their early offerings), and will lift your mood whenever you’re feeling down. Just what bubblegum ought to be.

Someday

The theme song for Disney’s nasty raping of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece 'The Hunchback of Nôtre Dame', this is one of the most beautiful songs that Eternal ever sang, which is saying a lot. In was released everywhere except in the US, where it was given to the infinitely less talented All-4-One. However, it was a massive hit worldwide, and is one of the finest tracks in their masterful sophomore album, Power Of A Woman. Truly delightful. Video.

Don’t You Love Me?

This is the gorgeous first single for their third album Before The Rain – like I Wanna Be The Only One (keep reading), it was a huge hit, but this song has more merit because it’s very unconventional: there are not many displays of vocal power or range in it, and it addresses social issues such as poverty, racial isolation and homelessness in a naïve, yet very charming way. Needless to say, I LOVE this song, as it’s one of their best. Video.

I Wanna Be The Only One – duet with BeBe Winans

This is just Heavenly (yes, with a capital H). It is the group’s only number 1 hit, and is one of the fondest memories I have of my adolescence – when I first heard it, I fell in love with them and have religiously followed everything they’ve done ever since. Probably most of you already know about it, but just allow me to say that it is a VERY well deserved hit that ought to have won the award for the Best Single category in the BRIT Awards, instead of All Saint’s soporific and shitty Never Ever. The original video is nice enough, but I'd rather post this awesome live performance.

Finally, I’d like to say that I’ve had a really difficult time finding photos of Eternal (I’d never post scans – I hate them), and none of them had all the girls together – that’s why I’ve had to post gorgeous Louise’s photo apart. Sorry. :-)

The newborn star of Israel - Shiri Maimon

2007-02-01T12:28:00.000Z

Shiri Maimon should be one of Israel’s most promising performers not only because she possesses a superb, metallic mezzo and has the rare ability to engage the audience in her performance, but because she does have an enormous potential for a successful international career. As her impassioned, impeccably professional performance in Eurovision proved, Shiri doesn’t need to resort, unlike many singers, to silly props to distract her public from the tediousness of a mediocre delivery: she commands the stage and the auditorium in equal measure, and does so with effortless elegance. Which is something VERY rare in Eurovision – only a handful of performers have managed to do it… Curiously, they were the only performers who had some talent, or were not long past their prime (Carola, anyone? :-P ).

Shiri was born in the picturesque city of Haifa, but her family soon moved to the town of Qiryat Chaim (in reality a mere suburb of Haifa), which seems to be, for what I have read, notorious for three things: its weight lifting team, the best beaches in Israel and large masses of poor Eastern European Jewish immigrants. Still, Shiri doesn’t seem to have been deprived of opportunities to develop and show her talent, since she was a member of several pop groups since late childhood.

After a stint as a soloist in the Air Force Entertainment Band during military service, La Maimon worked as a bartender-cum-dancer and singer in a club, and then went to present a popular television show called “Exit” – from there she moved on to Kokhav Nolad/A Star Is Born, Israel’s version of Pop Idol (which, unbelievably, she didn’t win) and became a bona fide star who had the dubious ‘honour’ of representing her country in the Eurovision Dumpster Farce. The rest is, as they say, history!

Or not. Her album seems to have had decent sales, but only three singles were released from it and Shiri seems to have abandoned all efforts to keep her musical career going to co-star in one of Israel’s most popular soap operas, called Yeladot Ra’ot (Bad Girls). I don’t know Hebrew, thus for the sake of my sanity, please someone tell that girl to keep singing! The world and I… Well OK, the obsessive stalking freak that I am, need another album from her to stay alive – she is that good!

Without further ado, I present you with her songs but, as usual (and making use of my oh-so-not-original phrase, ehem), go to buy her only record so far (:-( ) here.

Ahava Ktana/Little Love

This is a gorgeous pop/rock song that shows the power in Maimon’s voice. The chorus is…How can I say it? AWESOME? Yes! That’s it! The song begins with a melancholic piano introduction that bursts into sheer pop perfection all of a sudden. It is by far my favourite song by hers, and was a very well deserved hit for her. The video is a Shakira rip off, but the song still preserves all of its magic.

Lean She’Lo Telkhi/Wherever You Won’t Go (Henree remix)

As impossible to believe as it is, this song wasn’t a single – WHY?!?! You’ll ask yourselves. Madness? That’s the best answer I’ve been able to come up with. This is a rather superb dance version of the rocky, gritty original song, which is simply gorgeous. The chorus is anthemic, and it’s carried by an urgent bass line that will make you get up and dance wherever you are. However, in this remix you also get beautiful touches, such as bells and distorted flute descending scales that make it stunning!

Ha-Sheket She Nisha’ar/The Silence That Remains

This is one of the most beautiful ballads to ever grace the Eurovision stage – it deserved so much more than a meager fourth place. The live version is, shockingly, even better, with Shiri reaching the top notes in chest-quality voice, instead of soft head one as in the recording. Still, this is indispensable for any self-respecting ballad freak (like moi! :-D ). The surprising thing is, the rest of the ballads in her album are as good, with a few of them being even better! Before you have an orgasm, please watch a live performance here.

Ad She Tavin Oti/Until You Understand Me

This is a somewhat bizarre attempt at R&B that sounds as dated as it truly is – around 2001 it could have been a hit, but in a 2005 album it is somewhat out of place. Still, it is more melodic than the tuneless crap released by, say, undeservingly successful groups such as Destiny’s Child and the (bad) jokes that are the Pussycat Dolls and Danity Kane. Obviously, Shiri pulls it off superbly, and it makes for a curious change of register within the stylistic mode of her album.

Month's Heading: February, Roman Time of Purification

2007-02-01T11:51:00.000Z

The first day of every month I will make an introductory ‘article’ (please, forgive my pretentiousness) about that particular time of the year, which will basically be a collection of facts that I find peculiar written in my rather chaotic style ;-). Obviously, that introduction will have some songs to illustrate the feelings that such month evokes in me, and hopefully will in you. Needless to say, not all these songs will be pop music and many of them won’t be danceable, but then again, not all the musicians I will post about will sing pop in the strictest sense of the word. Or some in any sense, let’s be honest. :-)

Something peculiar about the month of February is that it is the most recent addition to the Roman calendar, and thus to ours. Originally, the Romans considered the cold winter season as month-less, and only Numa Pompilius’ exasperation with the inadequate lunar calendar, which kept moving back and forth through the seasons, gave January and February their rightful place in the beginning of the solar year.

February received its name from the Roman ritual of februum (Purification), which was celebrated in the 15 th day of the month. Given the, let’s say 'peculiar nature' of Roman religion, I don’t want to imagine in what did that ‘purification’ consist, but I guess that it was an important ritual, gory displays of brutality and all, and thanks to it February became the 28 day month that we know and love… When it’s not snowing and we can see the sun for more than half an hour every day. Oh, English weather…

Still, things weren’t that well and the months seemed to have a love for wandering across the seasons, the tramps, and several measures had to be implemented: a Mensis Intercalaris originally covered the days missing to keep things in their place, and during the Middle Ages February was given two more days by celebrated English mathematician, astronomer and literate Johannes de Sacro Bosco (whose name translates to the rather tacky John of Hollywood), who taught everything imaginable at the University of Paris – just imagine having him as your supervisor… ugh!

Well, anyway, the Gregorian Reform changed all these patchy adjustments so that we could have Easter right at the vernal equinox, and not anywhere else in the year. Apparently, when the reform was implemented, which forced all official calendars to be advanced ten days, angry mobs revolted against this measure because it took 10 days away from their lives, which is a bit strange, given the fact that most of these people were peasants and life for them was perpetual torture…

But enough of my droning! Here you have two songs: Loreena McKennitt’s folk marvels Snow and Seeds Of Love, from the gorgeous EP ‘A Winter Garden’ (I know it's a Christmas album, but what the heck, it's wintery music ;-P). If you like what you hear, buy any of her wondrous records here.

Album Review - Anna Vissi's Paraxenes Eikones (Strange Images)

2007-01-30T16:39:00.000Z

As a highly anally retentive person, I am obsessed with quantifying things - records, clothes, jobs, men... :-P. Seriously, I have thought that it would be a good idea to post a few album reviews (no more than one each month), just to offer an overview of some of the albums I'll mention as I post, which I hope will prompt you to buy them. So here it is, my first attempt at boring you to death! ;-D

Hastily produced during 2003 to compensate for the somewhat mediocre performance of her previous album, 2002's X (Chi), the double album Παράξενες Εικόνες (which contains a total of 25 songs) was hailed as Anna Vissi's triumphal return to the top of the Greek and Cypriot charts.

However, had she ever really fallen from the higher echelons of the success and popularity ladder? The answer is an emphatic no. Yet and still, it would be important to notice that Anna's favouring of extreme diversity during the most recent part of her career was bound to disconcert her public at one point or another; peculiar experiments and a love for musical fusion might be exciting from an artistic point of view, but they don't really seem to blend in well with commercial viability. Simply put, Vissi's ambition might have been her own (very partial) undoing. Still, it is understandable that for a musician of her stature, accustomed to immediate and immeasurable success for more than a decade, 'moderate success' is little more than an euphemism for 'crass failure'.

This time around, the musical diversity is accompanied by professional diversity. Nikos Karvelas, Anna's ex-husband and composer, writer, arranger and producer of the vast majority of her material (as well as most of her greatest hits), gracefully leaves space for other songwriters to lend their songs to the album. Even though at eight songs he is by far the major contributor, the restrictions to the material he is allowed to give are conversely liberating for Karvelas - some of his contributions manage to be innovative as they are emotionally charged, but the rest are mostly perfect pop confections that seem to be made to rapidly sail their way to the top of the charts (his speciality :-) ). The rest of the collection is, however, no inferior in any way to Karvelas' truly excellent offerings.

The first album is more geared towards international audiences, with an abundance of dance numbers, exaggerate Adult Oriented Rock ballads and faux-R&B numbers. Swedish team Alex Papaconstantinou and Peter Cartriers take control in the album's first two danceable tracks, delivering an atmospheric and cold dance anthem in the enormous hit Είσαι (later released worldwide as Call Me), which uses Vissi's moans along with volin progressions to fill in the spaces between melodic segments. However, their skills are better seen in the beautiful faux-R&B song Εγώ, Μωρό Μου, which incorporates alternating percussive samples over the song's bass line, and beautiful flute ornamentation.

Εγώ, Μωρό Μου - Ego, Moro Mou/I, My Darling

Το Τρένο - To Treno/The Train

The rest of the first album flows gracefully between genres, meeting its pinnacles in the majestic folk epic Το Τρένο (1st single and massive success from the album), which rivals the best power ballads ever written in sheer dramatism, and the bombastic dance number Έχω Πεθάνει Για Σένα (7th single of the album), which narrates a person's descent into alcoholism-induced suicide over aggressive beats and distorted electronic effects. Still, the highlights of the album are the bizarre electroclash of Ξαφνικά/Suddenly (written by Peter Lord and V. Jeffery Smith, the team behind Paula Abdul's early 90's success), and the pensive, dark ballads that open and close the album, which include the disturbing title track.

Έχω Πεθάνει Για Σένα - Echo Pethanei Gia Sena/I've Died For You

Είσαι - Eisai/You Are (Prodigal Son remix)

The second album is less commercial, even if not less diverse. From the first guitar notes of opener Ψυχεδέλεια/Spiritual Revelation to the last beats of the Prodigal Son remix of the spectacular Είσαι, the listener is taken through a journey of musical discovery through diverse types of Greek folk, the majestic Φεύγω with its watery effects and guitar solos (by far one of the best songs in both albums), Middle Eastern-influenced acoustic rock, the Urban mid-tempo of Μωβ/Mauve and the big-band-meets-Middle-Easten-folk-and-swing number Βατερλώ, also one of the most interesting tracks in both albums.

Φεύγω - Fevgo/I'm Leaving

Βατερλώ - Vaterlo/Waterloo

Thus, without further ado (and hoping my first attempt at a review wasn't too great an irritation ;-) ), I present you with the selection I've made. but before, please go buy this album here. Enjoy!

The unsung heroine of Spanish pop - Marta Sanchez

2007-01-27T19:06:00.000Z

Marta Sánchez would be the queen of Spanish pop were it not for the fact that she is often regarded as a mere second rate singer with well-produced songs. Obviously, this is an unfair judgment made by people who deliberately choose to overlook Marta's notable vocal abilities, her excellent work as a composer and her impeccable musical choices; simply put, Marta Sánchez should reign supreme in the world of Spanish pop. Few people can compare themselves to her in terms of quality and sheer charisma - I would even go so far as to say that only Mónica Naranjo can be considered her equal, and even though I would say that Mónica has an infinitely better voice (you can’t even compare), Marta has crafted the classier and more enduring image.

However, those who dismiss her do have a valid argument: at the beginning of her career, Marta's willingness to do anything as long as it made her the object of everyone's attention (which included less than impressive displays of Bimbo level imbecility and a sordid naked spread in Spain's most successful tabloid), almost destroyed her career and cast serious doubts over her credibility as an artist. But let me start properly :-)

Born to a celebrated operatic bass and a homemaker, Marta's childhood was pretty ordinary. At fourteen she dropped out of school and decided to devote all her efforts to become a successful singer, which she managed to do when she substituted the lead singer of Olé Olé, one of Spain's most successful pop groups ever. All of a sudden, Marta became the sex symbol of the eighties in Spain and her fame overshadowed the group's - to the point when everyone started tipping her for solo stardom. But things were not going to be so easy! No no no! Unfortunately for Marta, audiences are fickle: what seemed the beginning of the end for her, was a totally tacky trip to entertain the laughable military delegation that Spain sent to the Gulf War, for which she was generally ridiculed. To make matters worse, she then gave in to the pressure of showing off her, ehem, ‘lady bits’ in a horrid page three-styled photo spread and was criticized for her droopy bosom (yes, that’s how low things fell for her :-( ). All of a sudden, her fame seemed to have vanished into the air, and everyone assumed she was going to be forgotten. That was it for her...

Or maybe not! I suppose that, terrified at being given a kick in the arse and fall back to being a struggling starlet, Marta worked hard on improving her voice and making the best début solo album she possibly could. Her efforts paid off, and her début single Desesperada/Desperate (which has an English version called Desperate Lovers) not only was a massive success, but became a classic and turned her into a household name. Since then, Marta has gone from strength to strength and all of her albums have had enormous - and well-deserved - success. Never one to rest on her laurels, she's been extremely careful with every single one of her releases, looking for good quality material and a little class and originality that set her apart from everyone else... Which she has managed to do splendidly – even if these days she is in no condition to show off her lady charms. ;-p

So here's the selection I've made but, before, please go to buy her records here or here :-).

Amor Perdido/Lost Love

This is one of my favourite songs ever. Even though the arrangement is uneven and it obscures Marta’s voice with a faux-Gospel chorus at the end of the song, the melody is simply magical. It begins very slowly, delicately flows into a barely-there crescendo and suddenly opens into the chorus, which appears out of nowhere like a shot of light. Needless to say, this is a ballad! :-D The message that the lyrics convey is extremely sad, expressing at the same time hope in an uncertain future and the certainty of an almost lost happiness that could never be… Beautiful! Video of a 'live' performance.

Desconocida/The Unknown One

This is one of Marta’s greatest hits, from her fourth album in 1998, of the same name. Before everyone started exploiting... er, I mean, raving about Hindu culture and sitar-laced musical ornamentation, she released this very interesting track, which manages to be exotic without sounding alien in any way at all, and was far ahead of most by at least two years. It is also very danceable, of course! The chorus is particularly nice, and I can assure that you’ll feel the need to sing along. Video.

Soy Yo/It's Me

This is the title track for her latest proper album, from 2002. It has also been her penultimate great hit before a soporific ballad she dedicated to her deceased sister (I am not criticizing her for this - I am truly sorry for the loss of her sister, but that song was, strangely enough, her only shit single). This was written and produced by Paul Barry and Mark Taylor from Metro. Which explains why it was so big, I guess. It’s a very upbeat, cheerful song about re-asserting one’s independence after an unhappy relationship (it could be best described as Marta’s ‘Believe’, in short). Video.

Dime La Verdad/Tell Me The Truth

This was the most successful single of Marta’s second album, Mi Mundo/My World (1995). Which means it was enormous! It is reminiscent of Madonna’s Secret, even though the instrumentation is a bit more prominent and the tempo is considerably faster – it is also much more beautiful, with a sinuous, alluring melody and Marta showcasing a very polished lower range. Video. Enjoy!