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SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

A lot of debate has occurred over the course of music history about whether music itself can really effect political change. In real life, the connection between music and change often seems tenuous at best -- the dream of an aging hippie or an over-eager musicologist -- in the face of more direct or even violent means of revolution. But then, every so often, you hear a voice like Mercedes Sosa's, and all that skepticism washes away. Sosa's songs weren't always political, nor were her performances always even necessarily connected to revolutionary movements (despite the Argentinean government's opinions to the contrary). And she herself said, "Artists are not political leaders. The only power they have is to draw people into the theater." But the weapon the woman had at her disposal, which she often called the "voice of the voiceless," was precisely that: her powerful, compelling voice, a voice rich enough to convey her convictions, a voice capable of inspiring people and giving them strength.

Born in 1935 to a poor family in San Miguel de Tucuman (in Argentina's sugarcane country), Sosa won her first singing competition at age 15 and went on to help pioneer the musical-political nueva cancion movement that swept Latin America in the 1960s. The movement shed light on the concerns of the working people and the disenfranchised in the face of oppressive dictatorships. Though she was not known as a songwriter, Sosa put her own distinctive stamp on many of her peers' tunes, imbuing their tales of struggle and protest with her versatile style (which drew from not only Argentinean folk traditions, but also a wide range Latin genres), her bombo drum and, especially, her evocative contralto voice. In the 1970s, the ruling military junta took notice of her influence (as well as her connections to leftist groups), and the government's harassment forced her into exile. She lived for several years in France and Spain, brokenhearted and working as a musician and a teacher. When she returned to Argentina in 1982, she discovered that she had become a folk hero for her oppressed countrymen. She retained that esteemed position for the rest of her career.


A few of the thousands of mourners who came out to pay their respects in Buenos Aires

Over the course of her career, Sosa released 70 albums (several of which won Grammy and Latin Grammy awards), performed in venues like Carnegie Hall and the Coliseum, collaborated with artists ranging from Caetano Veloso to Pavarotti to Joan Baez, and served as a UNESCO goodwill ambassador. When she passed away on October 4 due to liver, kidney and heart problems, we lost one of Latin America's most beloved singers and a compassionate musical visionary. But the mark that powerful voice left on the world is indelible and prolific.

Take a listen to a few of the late, great Mercedes Sosa's most powerful moments below. Or Rhapsody users can listen to a full selection of her best work on this tribute playlist, a mere tip of this artist's considerable iceberg of work:

Playlist: R.I.P. Mercedes Sosa, 1935-2009

From left: Pitbull, Shakira and Nelly Furtado

single-phile: The latest singles, dissected and discussed.

Industry insiders and music critics have been predicting for years that Spanish-language pop is poised for a massive crossover -- the kind of infiltration that would not only challenge the domination of English on the American charts, but also break down the division between mainstream (read: black and white) pop and Latin pop. And yet for many years, what happened instead was that the industry was paying attention to -- and working to grow -- a powerful but separate Latin pop market. That market has its own constellation of stars, many of whom (like Shakira or Ricky Martin) have crossed over into the mainstream -- but only by also switching languages. Until recently, the presence of Spanish on the pop charts basically consisted of "Livin' La Vida Loca."

Ms. Jazmin Lopez is an up-and-coming star of duranguense -- the Mexican regional music that is a kissing cousin of the Southwest's brassy banda and the accordion-driven norteño, but also grew up in Chicago. Even this early in her career, however, Lopez's resume is already impressively diverse: She also hosts MTV Tr3s's ReMexa and is a connoisseur of both the regional Mexican music that program showcases and the urban dance and hip-hip sounds on rotation at MTV Tr3s's parent station. Her self-titled debut is a tribute to her wide-ranging interests and experiences:

Jazmin Lopez: Jazmin
Banda and duranguense have always seemed like long shots for breaking Mexican regional into the pop mainstream. And yet the oom-pah-ing horns and synth beats of these genres share a common ground with the dance beats of the pop charts -- and Jazmin Lopez may have homed in on it. Jazmin is ebullient and infectious, like both good banda and good dance pop are. But like her paradigm-challenging predecessor Yolanda Perez, the savvy Ms. Lopez also manages to work in more mainstream pop elements, intertwining her husky "Oo! Oo!"s and throaty vocals with R&B flourishes ("La Carcacha") and hip-hop beats ("Tu").

Further Listening
Playlist: Jazmin Lopez Picks the Hits, a playlist of her inspirations and favorites

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

So many fabulous albums have come out in the last few weeks that we decided to dispense with the thematic format on this week's SoundTreks and focus instead on surveying a hodgepodge of new releases. Sound good? Well, of course it does -- just listen to the playlist of material discussed in this post!

With not nearly enough exceptions, loud guitar rock has been a notorious dancefloor wallflower for the past 30 years or so: Pretty much ever since disco scared its syncopations stiff. Kind of weird, for a genre originally steeped in the blues and r&b. But one of hard rock's secrets has long been Latin counterrhythms in its closet. The following playlist -- honoring conga-metal from both sides of several different borders -- is all the proof anyone should require.

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

The last few weeks have seen some great moments as well as some sad moments in world music. First things first. R.I.P. to Coumba Sidibe, the great Mali-born singer who pioneered the Wassoulou sound and who died last week at her home in the Bronx. While Sidibe never gained an international following on the scale of that of Oumou Sangare (who was once a backup singer for her), she was a trail-blazing musician who began making music at a time when women were a rare commodity in Mali's music industry. She passionately devoted herself to adapting the traditional music of her Fulani heritage into the Wassoulou sound, as well as composing and recording her own work. She was just a wonderful singer. I don't think anybody is quite sure when she was born, but she died May 9, 2009.

On a happier note, Federico Aubele, the tango-tronica hero who enjoyed so much crossover success with Gran Hotel Buenos Aires, is back with another album. It's called Amatoria, named for Ovid's Latin tract on how to pick up (and retain) chicks, the Ars Amatoria. So yes, if you think Aubele might be trying to sex you (or somebody) up, you're right. It's also a further departure sonically for Aubele, who seems to have grown dissatisfied with his electronic meddling with tango; this is his second album that's seen him moving toward a nearly acoustic sound. He sings on every track, accompanied by guests like Miho Hatori (Cibo Matto) and Sabina Sciubba (Brazilian Girls), but I found that after about five songs everything sounded more or less the same. Aubele's got a great sensual growl going, but, as my dad might say, writing a good melody is hard work. Lovely as the album is, Aubele's still got a ways to go in that department.

On the other hand, Marcio Local's new album -- his first to release in the States as far as I know -- has no problem with melodies: he just lifted them wholesale from Jorge Ben. But ... okay. If you're going to steal, you might as well steal from one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. And he didn't exactly steal the melodies -- just the feel. Local's gruff-voiced Brazilian funk had steam pouring out of my headphones, and it also had me dreaming, weirdly, of beach volleyball. What do I care for beach volleyball? Nothing. But such is the power of Local's evocative sound: it makes you want to play beach volleyball even if you look terrible in a thong and can't walk two feet without using an inhaler. And it came out on Luaka Bop, David Byrne's label, if that holds any weight for Talking Heads fans out there.

Finally, if you haven't read it yet, check out Rachel Devitt's take on Afterquake, a collaboration between Abigail Washburn (noted banjo player and Bela Fleck's girlfriend!) and the Shanghai Restoration Project. The album is devoted to exploring life after last year's devastating earthquake in Sichuan province, China. Have a listen to the album, too; it's for a good cause.
 

M.I.A.

I spend part of my work week crafting thematic playlists -- artist overviews, label profiles, irreverent flights of fancy -- many of which turn up here on the blog. (You can see all of them on my page at Playlist Central.) Usually the topic is up to me, but occasionally I'm given an assignment like last week's, which asked editors across all genres (mine is electronic music) to come up with a decade-specific list. 

Obviously, that poses a challenge for a genre already so closely identified with just a couple of decades. Electronic music wasn't born yesterday, to be sure: the Theremin was invented nearly a century ago, and synthesizers and tape-splicing were in use by the 1950s, leading to an explosion of activity, from Stockhausen to sci-fi soundtracks (to the Chipmunks). By the '70s, disco, electro-funk and hip-hop were all recasting popular music in a purely electronic form, paving the way for the synth-pop, industrial and house music of the '80s. And I don't think I really need to remind anyone of the way all manner of electronic music exploded in the '90s.

By this point, '80s and '90s recaps are bound to cover familiar terrain (although I must say that I am eager to see a reappraisal of the minimalist and ambient electronica of the early '90s -- Seefeel, Sun Electric and the like -- as more of it becomes available online). I thought it might be more interesting to focus on an aspect of the present decade -- and a development, moreover, that's really only emerged since the turn of the '80s. From where I'm sitting -- in Berlin, to be specific, after years-long stints in Barcelona and San Francisco -- the obvious candidate is electronic music's growing global consciousness.

Electronic dance music has always been an especially mobile form, thanks in part to the diminished role that vocals (and hence languages) play. But as house, techno, hip-hop and other electronic forms have continued to spread worldwide, they've sprouted up in new, unusual forms just about everywhere they've touched down. It's only fitting that a music whose roots dig into the soil of at least three continents should produce further mutations in Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and Angola, to name just a few points on an increasingly crowded map.

M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" was just the tip of the iceberg (or perhaps that should read, "nose of the jetliner"?). Her international smash shares DNA with kuduro, kwaito, cumbia, funk carioca and every other proudly mongrel style that has come from local kids getting their hands on samplers and rewriting the rules to suit their own purposes.

My decade playlist, "Global Beats for the '00s," salutes those circuit-benders and margin-walkers -- along with their allies from America and Europe -- helping to spread the global gospel. It includes 29 tracks from the likes of Buraka Som Sistema, Ghislain Poirier, DJ Mujava, Radioclit, DJ Rupture, Filastine, Mexican Institute of Sound and more, with detours via Cesaria Evora (as remixed by Carl Craig), Juana Molina and everyone's favorite Chilean-German DJ, Ricardo Villalobos. Click here to eavesdrop on these beatmakers' global game of "telephone."

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

One of my favorite albums of 2008 (so far) has been En Este Camino by Pistolera. I've described this New York band's sound as Mexican regional, Latin alternative and American indie stitched together in a sonic tapestry that is at once comfortably familiar and chicly cutting edge. Rhapsody's Latin editor Sarah Bardeen was a bit pithier: "previously at-odds elements like accordion and indie rock drink a Corona and lime together." The band itself, which has made nice with the likes of Lila Downs, Ozomatli and the Mexican Institute of Sound, gets even more succinct, referring to themselves as simply "alt-folklorico."

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

Ximena Sariñana has gone from precocious -- acting in films and novelas since childhood -- to prolific -- contributing to movie soundtracks, jamming out with her old jazz band Feliz No Cumpleaños, and surrendering to her emotions like a young Fiona Apple en español on her debut album Mediocre, for which she has received multiple Latin Grammy nods: Artist of the Year, Best Alternative Song ("Normal") and Producer of the Year (along with Soda Stereo collaborator, producer Tweety Gonzalez). The songs on Mediocre (irony noted) have a smokey cabaret feel -- sharp, jazzy, cynical, with a bourbon sting -- but can be equally appreciated crying your heart out over a heap of dirty dishes -- speaking to everyday heartbreak, tapping into the most common of love-related insecurities, and the need to escape from it all. Basically, the heart's inner monologue.

"The album is 100 percent real," says Ximena. "The thing that I wanted the most was to be as honest as I could and not to stop myself from talking about things -- about how I felt. At some point, I felt like I wanted to run away from something, and I was gonna talk about it. And at some point, I felt that I was afraid of being forgotten, and I was gonna talk about it. It's kind of like an experiment. It wasn't all something that I was going through at the time, but it was something that had struck me as interesting. Or something I wanted to put it out in the open. I thought that, the more honest you are, the stronger you are, because there's nothing hiding, there's nothing in the background that people don't know. The more you show, the stronger you are. At least, that's what I thought at the time." Here,  Ximena speaks on becoming an accidental producer, finding her voice, shooting in Iceland and much more.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

Buena Vista Social Club returned from the dead (almost literally) last week, and this week Puerto Rican rappers/provocateurs Calle 13 took on the living, breathing lyrical fire. (Colombian rock outfit Aterciopelados wasn't far behind on that front either.) Plus, a sneak preview of songs from a hotly anticipated Bollywood flick, and Los Lobos guitarist David Hidalgo goes folkloric ... again?

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this edition of SoundTreks.]

SoundTreks: a regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

Wow -- what a great week for world music. The globalized economy may be crawling into a McMansion-sized hole right now, but you've gotta admit, while globalization may suck for mortgage-backed securities, it's been damn good for music. It's like an all-you-can-eat international buffet this week, only the portions are small and all the food is cooked by those grumpy French slow-food guys who burn down fast food joints while wearing hats set at a jaunty angle. On the menu: indie-pop from Argentina's ardently odd songstress Juana Molina, Ethiopian dub reggae (yes, you read that right) from Dub Colossus, psychedelic '60s Amazonian surf-pop from Juaneco y Su Combo, and a Brazilian who's obsessed with Japan and duets with West Coast underground rappers. Viva cross-pollination!

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this edition of SoundTreks.]

by Angela Bruno

The very gracious Paramore.

Objective: Survive. Status: Just barely. [Ha!] As I began to ponder the last few days, I now know why celebs need to be bathed in unicorn's milk and massaged thrice weekly: Parties. Open bars. Free food. Late nights. No-problems-at-the-door. The sense of entitlement. Expensive hotels -- with turndown service and peanut butter cookies. What a tough life. [Sigh.]  Fame (or, well, the mere observation of it, in my case), you are a fickle mistress. But just like that -- the VMAs are over. You watched the show, you be the judge. There will be no VMA punditizing here. Just behind-the-scenes moments of the big day from the Patagonial regions of the red carpet. Walk in my (luckily flat) shoes -- for 12 hours on the Paramount lot.

by Angela Bruno

Objective #1. See Calle 13. Status: Achieved. Objective #2: Sidle up next to Kim Kardashian. Status: Pending. Perhaps our paths will cross this weekend, but by the time I had arrived at Level 3 for the MTV Tr3s party, she and the rest of the VIPs that RSVP'ed had already departed (with the exception of possibly some dude from this season of Project Runway, Jade from ANTM, Judy Reyes of Scrubs fame and rapper Malverde -- all of which were on the dance floor).

Foolish, because they missed avant-garde emcees Calle 13. Oh, how I love thee. Let me count the ways: frontman Residente is fly (wife me!) and tatted up in a seemingly illogical way à la Marc Jacobs; their lyrics stand for something; they infuriate my mother with their X-rated euphemisms. And, oh yes, Colby O'Donis performed, too. (Check out his exclusive Rhapsody playlist here.) Semi-grown women stormed the stage. And quivered. The bumpin' and grindin' in my periphery made it impossible to get a good shot of him. A little, um, disturbing, but that is neither here nor there. Read on for few highlights and WTH (what the hell; trying to keep it clean) moments, both good and bad.

by Sarah Bardeen

Despite their sporadic releases and refusal to cleave to one genre, Plastilina Mosh has become known as a major influence on the Latin alternative scene. In the 1990s, they were part of the first wave of rock bands to emerge from Monterrey, Mexico, an industrial city some critics have dubbed the Seattle of Mexico. They innovatively fused rock, hip-hop and electronica in ways that are still influencing newer bands like Kinky. Their standing was only cemented when they recently signed with Nacional Records, home to alternative heroes like Manu Chao and Nortec Collective. We caught up with lead singer Jonaz Gonzalez a week after All U Need Is Mosh dropped. He waxed eloquent on video games (loves them), his favorite bands (many), and who would win a fight to the death -- Plastilina Mosh or new Latin alt sensation Ximena Sariñana, who sings on their new release (guess who wins).

by Piotr Orlov

Dance music's 21st century rhythmic globetrotting is simply a new-destination update of past travels. There is, for instance, the trip that New York’s Fania label took ‘70s dance-music on, the one that began with a variety of Afro-Cuban- and Caribbean-influenced styles (rumba, mambo and boogaloo, among many); and after mutating into salsa, injected Latin tinges into disco and much of what followed. As is the norm nowadays, anything that was once great is ripe for a remake, and so too is the Fania catalog, on I Like It Like That. But if you want a quick taste, here’s an unreleased remix by Ashley Beedle, adding some bottom to the smooth disco-salsa come-on of Ricardo Marrero’s “Feel Like Making Love.” It’s a late-night thing, once perfect only for the Bronx, but now accepted 'round the world.

Further Downloading:
Ricardo Marrero, "Feel Like Making Love (Ashley Beedle Remix)"
Rhapsody Free MP3s