Recent Finds.

I've been lurking around a lot, listening to Soda Stereo, Calle 13, Edan, "Don't Call Us Immigrants", and all that good shit. I've been searching for other stuff, of course, and found some real gems recently and I am starting to feel hope all over again that there's good music for me out there.

Sr. Chinarro

When I was looking at year-end lists for a lot of blogs, I noticed that a lot of Spanish (like, from Spain) blogs were raving about Sr. Chinarro on their lists. I was like, "WTF is with that weird name?" I still haven't figured it out, but the band has been around for a while, and they're on Acuarela, which puts me at ease because that label is fairly respected. You might know the label for releasing Xiu Xiu shit; some of the import stuff finds its way over here sometimes.

Anyway, I've been listening to the most recent Sr. Chinarro album, El mundo según, and it's fabulous. Just a solid indie rock album, catered to marginally socially inept kids who have grown up on the Smiths with just a hint of twee.

Alaska y Dinarama

Fairly recently I stumbled upon this blog that had a song called "Ni tu ni nadie" which I didn't listen to, but I was cleaning up my tags this weekend (sigh, a perpetual endeavor to take on) and I was like, "Um, this song is sorta good". I'd never heard of the artist before and I googled the name, Alaska y Dinarama. I found out it's really gay shit. And I mean it in the sense that I could really see this being played in a gay club with everyone going wild and asking for more.

Even more spectacular was finding out that the one Thalía song I truly liked in the past few years, "A quien le importa", was actually a COVER and that the original was done by Alaska y Dinarama!!! No, seriously, this news has rocked my world, because this song is really brilliant. And guess how I found out?? YouTube, of course! And yes, ladies and gents, the original is absolutely amazing. In a cheesy 80s sort of way, at least.



Watching this video, my jaw dropped by the overflow of awesome, and I also wondered whether the singer was a man, woman, or something in between. I guess I'm not the only one, because in the comments someone makes the point that yes, Alaska is all woman and y'all better show some respeck. Or something like that. Ultimately it doesn't matter because the song is so damn catchy! The video is so cool, too, so much better than the shit Thalía made for this song, which was all like, "Let's go to CBGB's and make believe I'm all alterna-rock and edgy". Yuck.

Make sure to YouTube the vid for "Ni tú ni nadie" too! It's a wonderful pop song!

Lucio Dalla

One of the first few videos I remember seeing as a kid, besides "Thriller" and "Lambada" was this song that went, "Una casita chiquitita así..." And, well, I didn't remember the title, but I googled the entire phrase, and well, it pointed to this Lucio Dalla dude, who I gather was pretty popular in Italy a while back, and pretty respected currently.

I still can't find the song in Spanish, but I found out the song was originally "Attenti al lupo", which can be seen here:



The wonderful thing about finding this is knowing that it was an even better song that I remembered. Good shit, the video is hilarious, too. But even better was finding a wonderful video of Dalla singing "O Sole Mio" with Gianni Morandi AAAAAND Eros Ramazzotti!!! HOLY SHIT! I don't really care about Ramazzotti's music for the most part, but I find his voice to be nasal in a REALLY SEXY WAY (I can't explain any more accurately than that). And of course, I totally have a crush on Gianni Morandi. What a beautiful voice! Siiigh. He just warms my heart.

One thing to note about the "O Sole Mio" vid (below), the studio set up is a bit strange to me, I'm used to seeing the artists on a stage/platform with the audience looking up, not looking down, at the artists. Fantastic rendition, though. Wonderful seeing three very different pop singers getting together like that.



Ghetto Brothers

My best find, was just this morning. So I'm finally actually reading Can't Stop Won't Stop, and I read about this gang, the Ghetto Brothers. Well, they actually had a band with the same name, they would play parties the gang would throw on their turf.

The group sounded interesting, so of course I went on a google-quest. What can I say? I pretty much hit jackpot. Download away; the links still work. And if you haven't stumbled into the Waxidermy blog before, definitely check it out! It was my first time today, too, and there's some really weird, interesting stuff. I'm definitely going back to download more goodies. :)

I guess it's strange to use this adjective, but the Ghetto Brothers shit is real cute. These songs make me want to go back in time and just give these dudes a big hug and listen to the Beatles with them. You can hear the Beatles influence in "You Say You Are My Friend," which is my favorite of the four tracks. To be honest, when I was reading about them, I didn't expect these kids to have such a polished sound, but they really have their shit together! At the same time, they have this really raw teenage feel to the music. Absolutely tremendous, and at the same time a shame because I can't believe they were wasting their times being in gangs instead of just writing songs and trynna make it huge. This shit needs the Soul Jazz treatment or SOMEthing. (Wink, wink, just a suggestion if anyone from the label ever bumped into this blog.) This is seriously the most exciting thing I've heard since Soda Stereo a few months ago. Highly recommended, seriously.

Jamia Simone Nash

Before I forget, I wanna tell youse about this cute little girl. See, one of my favorite pop songs is "Who's Lovin' You" by Smokey Robinson + the Miracles. I cry to that shit, y'know? So I was looking for videos for it, and of course there's a few of the Jackson 5 cos they covered the song with much success (see here), but I also found this video of Jamia Simone Nash just going crazy on this shit.

See the proof: