I've been toying with this idea to bring the music of my home country to you guys. Not the pop crap, or the traditional folk music, nor polka (which is Czech, btw) - but good contemporary music that I enjoy listening to.
Since I am not a fan of any single genre, after I came up with the idea, I was overwhelmed by the amount of work this would require, if I wanted the whole thing to be representative. Partially because there is a lot of great music I could recommend, partially because I don't know just how universal much of it is. Polish is a difficult language, much of the music I would like to show to you is not only sang in Polish, it also needs context to be appreciated. Translating everything would be a chore (and I'm lazy), giving everyone a lesson in history/politics would also be a chore, and I seriously doubt most of you would find it interesting. So instead of preparing a massive analysis full of links, photos and whatnot, I decided to try doing this in smaller chunks. Seems obvious, duh, but hey, I never claimed to be a smart man
Episode 1: Maciej Maleńczuk
Aaanyway, for no particular reason, the 1st episode will be about the music of mr Maleńczuk - one of the more controversial figures on the Polish music stage. I'm not specifying a genre, as he's one of those artists that can't be defined or categorized by labels like this. He has strong political views, a history with all kinds of drugs, homelesness etc. Described as a bard and a poet by his fans, I enjoy his voice and the texts equally.
Here is a small sample of his recent, solo works:
As a leader of the band "Homo Twist"
And with another band - "Pudelsi"
I realize I'm not providing too much of a context here, but that's on purpose at this point - I have no way of judging just how hermetic this is, what the impact this music can have on folks from other countries/cultures.
What do you think ?