You'll never guess what's going to be discussed in this thread...
Traditional and modern, it's portuguese music.
Now you may not give a toss about it, but it certainly exists and I'd like to try and highlight some of the bands and artists which I enjoy and that I believe have made a decent contribution to music.
Portuguese traditional music is something that's hard to define for me. Celtic influenced music exists, but so does a lot of rubbish that isn't even worth discussing and probably a lot of good music I've never even heard of.
Fado is the most well-known traditional genre and its most renowned singer is Amália Rodrigues:
I'm not a great fan of Fado, but I can't deny it has its value and I quite like that song. I seem to, however, enjoy this version a bit more:
That said if anyone is interested in knowing more about Fado or in listening to a few other artists of the genre I can certainly try and do my best to look into it.
There's a very important period of portuguese music in which "intervention musicians" were all the rage, the likes of Zeca Afonso and Sérgio Godinho. They sung, albeit discretely, against the regime in vigor, but that's not all they did and their work can be quite remarkable:
One of the reasons these musicians aren't successful in other countries is the fact that their lyrics are a very important part of their work. The lyrics to the Sérgio Godinho song I just posted are absolutely brilliant, they're beautiful and unfortunately it's going to be a bit difficult to transmit that.
It's not very easy at all to write something beautiful in portuguese. It can be a beautiful language, but you have to be skilled or it'll just sound like cheesy drivel. This of course is only my opinion, but I think a lot of people find that a good amount of lyrics in modern portuguese music just rub them the wrong way.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't know that much about portuguese music, not as much as I should. I've just always been disappointed in what I've heard, and it's quite hard to find certain gems.
Portuguese Post-Punk, anyone?:
Consider this an extended intro post. I'll try to post portuguese music that I think is decent now and again, so if you're interested, stay tuned.