| ¿Por qué? ¿Por qué, por qué? | | Stuff I've been listening to in 2006 |
Marcos Valle
(with Anamaria Valle) | 1 | Crickets Sing for Anamaria (Os grilos)
M & U's favorite tune of the year. I made them promise they'd never emulate Anamaria. (1968)
buy
|
| Edson Frederico e a Transa |
2 |
Bobeira
I haven't deciphered the lyrics yet, but a bobeira is a silly mistake. (1975)
buy
buy
hear
|
| Billy Preston |
3 |
Let the Music Play
RIP. Catch him in the amazing opening of the documentary Before the Music Dies. (1967)
buy
search
watch
|
| James Brown |
4 |
Out of Sight
RIP. (1964)
buy
hear
read
search
watch
|
| Esther Phillips |
5 |
Home is Where the Hatred is
Galveston-born singer applies personal experience to a Gil Scott-Heron tune. (1972)
buy
hear
read
search
|
Sly and the Family Stone
vs. Devin Lima |
6 |
If You Want Me to Stay
From the remix/duet compilation "Different Strokes By Different Folks". I'm not sure why Devin would feel the need to tinker with Sly's original, but the result is still pretty tasty. (1973/2005)
buy
search
|
| Goldfrapp |
7 |
Ride a White Horse
One of those tunes that inexplicably grabs me and I'm almost afraid to know more about the band it came from.
buy
search
watch
|
| The Hard Lessons |
8 |
Milk and Sugar
As the Ear Candy DJs like to say, it's got a crunchy rock exterior and a gooey pop center. Yum.
buy
hear
search
watch
|
| Broadcast |
9 |
Michael a Grammar
This is not your sawtooth wave.
buy
search
|
| Barbara Morgenstern |
10 |
The Operator
Serious German synth pop.
buy
hear
search
watch
|
| Gigi |
11 |
Hulu-Dane
Gigi sings a fusion of Ethiopian traditional music and jazz, in the footsteps of Aster Aweke. Here Bill Laswell gives her the full orientalist treatment with sarangi, tabla and electronics. In his hands it works.
buy
|
| Dizzy Gillespie |
12 |
All the Things You Are
Why this particular tune? Dunno, maybe it's the bowed bass hook. (1947)
buy
search
|
| King Pleasure |
13 |
Moody's Mood for Love
Another M&U favorite. King Pleasure was an early practitioner of transcribing jazz solos and writing lyrics for them. This is a remake of his 1952 hit, minus the soupy strings and turning it into a duet. (1960)
buy
read
|
| Betty Hutton |
14 |
Blow A Fuse
Another favorite straight from the MP3 blog Soul Sides. And yes, Björk did what is now the definitive version, but the original is just as amazing. (1948)
buy
read
|
| Gecko Turner |
15 |
Limón en la cabeza
Okay, you have my permission to hate me for infecting you with this earworm. Gecko Turner is from Spain and to me sounds like one part Manu Chao and one part Macarena, if you can imagine that, with a squeeze of the lime and the coconut.
buy
search
watch
|
| Los Super Elegantes |
16 |
¿Por qué te vas?
Another earworm, a cheese-pop cover from an LA band that deserves to be this year's Brazilian Girls. You gotta see the video for their song "Sixteen", linked below. In that moment I felt so abandoned that I ran out into the streets shouting, why, why, why?
buy
hear
search
watch
|
| Julieta Venegas |
17 |
Andar conmigo
Leave it to Julieta to wring the significant from the banal. There are so many roads to walk, tell me if you'll walk with me.
buy
search
watch
|
| Tom Jobim with Astrud Gilberto |
18 |
Só tinha que ser com você
Two monumental but sometimes uneven performers, here in fine form. (1964)
buy
search
|
| Moacir Santos with Zé Nogueira |
19 |
Coisa nº 5 - Nanã
A little story: surfing Flickr, my eye was caught by Tom Jobim's banyan tree in the Rio botanical garden; after following the lovely meditative photos of Zenog for a while, I learned that he is a saxophonist and producer; poking at his site I found this gorgeous piece. (2001)
buy
look
read
watch
|
| Maria Rita |
20 |
Minha alma
(A paz que eu não quero)
Peace without a voice isn't peace, it's fear. Sometimes life asks me, what kind of peace would I not put up with to try to be happy?
buy
search
watch
|